When Florence was in grade three, her parents passed away. She had to leave school. Her difficult early experiences drive many of her decisions to this day.
She is driven to keep her four children in school and understands how important an education is. She has also adopted two orphans to give them the chance to reach their full potential.
However, it was not easy to provide for such a large family. Florence explained that two of her children were accepted to university, and she was only able to send one due to financial constraints.
She also struggled to pay her rent, and the family usually had only two meals per day.
Thankfully, things are much easier for Florence since she joined a MicroLoan group in Kafue, Zambia, where she lives. She runs a stall selling beans, dried fish, soya pieces, groundnuts, chilli and other food items, and has tripled her weekly profits. The family eat three meals a day and her children of school age never miss a day.
When she attended MicroLoan’s business training, she learnt that purchasing non-perishable food items made a good business model because she wasted less stock. She also learnt the importance of savings for future hardship, or for exciting developments like her children being accepted to university.
Florence also explained that she is much less stressed, and does not have to rely on her husband anymore. She is happy.
Published on: 09/05/2022
