April 2014

Sewing Machines

The request for a sewing machine is always high as is the price.  Luckily there are now three sewing machine salesmen which allowed the negotiation of a good price £187 each.  We had a list of 7 people wanting a machine, these are people that have served a small apprenticeship with Sister Terfatu and are now ready to work.  We decided this year to operate a small loan system which would allow an income generation for Sister Terfatu to purchase further machines.  We drew up a contract with each of the applicants with an agreement that they would pay back 100BIR about £3.12 per month, this would not be payable until the third month after agreeing to take the machine.  As mentioned earlier with the purchase of the bike, each new sewing machine owner bought along a witness so we had a mass of people including a few strays arriving to sign the contracts.  In total we had 5 men and 2 woman who went away very happy and self sufficient.