Main de Dieu Group
“We want to be able to fulfil our children’s needs”
The Main de Dieu group comprises of 20 members, 19 of them women. They all live in the Kégué, a peri-urban area in the north-east of Lomé in Togo. Having heard about how the livelihood-development loans and training programmes provided by Deki and IADES help people grow their own way out of poverty, they decided to set up a Community Group and benefit from these services. They share a common objective– to grow their businesses and to support their families.
The members range in age from 24 to 45 and the business activities include selling goods such as cakes, condiments and spices, fish, fruit and vegetables, juices, porridge, soya, yams and a local drink called ‘sodabi’ made by distilling palm wine. Other members sell a variety of clothes and accessories including cosmetics, wigs, jewellery and bags. Three of the women are seamstresses.
Koffi Attiwoto, 41, the only man in the group, is a tailor who makes clothes to sell. He will use his loan to buy more fabric to make into dresses and shirts. He is married with four children aged 15, 7, 3 and 1 and his long-term ambition is to open a training centre to share his tailoring skills.
Magoulwa Alegah is in the same business. She is 28 and a single mother to three children aged 7, 4, and 1. She plans to use the loan capital to buy a sewing machine so that she can increase her output, expand her business and support her family. She would like to save enough money to buy her own plot of land.
Main de Dieu Community Group – Sponsorship Goal £1,875
“We want to be able to fulfil our children’s needs”
The Main de Dieu group comprises of 20 members, 19 of them women. They all live in the Kégué, a peri-urban area in the north-east of Lomé in Togo. Having heard about how the livelihood-development loans and training programmes provided by Deki and IADES help people grow their own way out of poverty, they decided to set up a Community Group and benefit from these services. They share a common objective– to grow their businesses and to support their families.
The members range in age from 24 to 45 and the business activities include selling goods such as cakes, condiments and spices, fish, fruit and vegetables, juices, porridge, soya, yams and a local drink called ‘sodabi’ made by distilling palm wine. Other members sell a variety of clothes and accessories including cosmetics, wigs, jewellery and bags. Three of the women are seamstresses.
Koffi Attiwoto, 41, the only man in the group, is a tailor who makes clothes to sell. He will use his loan to buy more fabric to make into dresses and shirts. He is married with four children aged 15, 7, 3 and 1 and his long-term ambition is to open a training centre to share his tailoring skills.
Magoulwa Alegah is in the same business. She is 28 and a single mother to three children aged 7, 4, and 1. She plans to use the loan capital to buy a sewing machine so that she can increase her output, expand her business and support her family. She would like to save enough money to buy her own plot of land.