Charles Ejiku
Health Clinic Owner
Uganda
Charles Ejiku lived in a Northern Ugandan neighborhood where people were dying from cholera and malaria. As a nurse, he was determined to do something about it. Charles had served in the Uganda Defense Forces and had saved up just over $600. He used that money in 2010 to open a small clinic, or what Northern Ugandans call a “nursing home.”
Given the limited access to healthcare in Northern Uganda, the demand for Charles’ services was great. He started offering clinical consultations, laboratory services, dispensing of medication, and even ward admissions with a couple of beds. Word got out to more and more of the materially poor in the community that Charles was offering an excellent service at an affordable price. Charles wanted to grow to respond to the demand, but he had used up his savings and had limited capital to do so.
That’s when Charles heard about Christian Action for Empowering Church and Community (CAFECC), A Ugandan Christian microfinance institution. He took a first loan of around $200 and paid that back faithfully. He qualified for a second loan of $500 and, after paying that back, qualified for a third loan of $1,000. Now he could get a better microscope, offer more beds, and even open a second small branch of his clinic.
Charles was so committed to extending good affordable healthcare to those who weren’t getting it. He would go to the homes of those he had treated weeks before to make sure they were doing well and to pray for them. As the local primary and secondary schools heard about Charles’ services, they started sending their students to him. With limited beds, Charles couldn’t handle the demand. That’s when Charles decided to try to treat some of the sick in their homes rather than at the clinic. He purchased a motorbike and his nurses offered mobile clinical services through making house calls.
Charles’ clinic now employs 10 people, including 5 nurses, a lab technician, and a clinician. He can now pay school fees for his 6 children. He is an elder in his church and a leader in his community. He is humbled that God has chosen him to extend more of the kingdom of heaven to his neighborhood – a place that is no longer known for cholera and malaria. His dream now is to extend the kingdom to many more neighborhoods that need access to healthcare and the practical expression of God’s love.
Luxala Suman
Convenience Store Owner
Sri Lanka
The future appeared so promising for Suman and Luxala when they married in 2005. They were blessed with three children. Suman owned a boat and generated sufficient income fishing to provide for his family. But when Sri Lanka’s long civil war struck their village, it hit hard. The village was destroyed, and with it their home, boat, and all means of earning an income. Suman, Luxala, and their children had to flee as refugees.
Some years later, the war came to an end. Suman and Luxala were in a new resettlement village. A local Sri Lankan Christian microfinance institution, HEED, provided a $225 micro-loan to enable Suman to get some fishing equipment. Not a year passed before Suman contracted a terrible fever and died. Luxala now had to find a way to provide for her children.
Luxala worked extremely hard to provide for her family – she didn’t want any handouts. All she knew was fishing – a profession dominated by men. She cleaned the nets and did other odd jobs, but it wasn’t enough to provide for her family. She started pounding her neighbors’ rice into flour, but still needed more.
HEED was so impressed with Luxala that they provided a $375 micro-loan to turn a room in her house into a small convenience store. This gave her enough income to get by, but Luxala’s dream was to enable her children to have a much better life than she had. She wanted her 9-year old daughter to go to a better school, but she needed more income. She started making tea and food for men who came to the village to fish, dried and sold fish in her market, started a garden and sold the produce, started raising chickens, and bought a refrigerator, one of the few in the village, and rented out space. Bit by bit, Luxala did the unbelievable – generate a monthly income of over $200 for her family.
Now Luxala plans to employ others. She needs a person to run the dry fish business, and another to maintain inventory in her convenience store. She wants to grow her convenience store and build a separate building for it. And she wants to help others, just like she did when floods hit her village, and it was Luxala who was out distributing free food from her store. Everyone would have understood if Luxala asked her a handout. They stand amazed that she has become the village’s role model, providing for her family, and blessing others.
Joel and Angel Venus
Tuna Processors
Philippines
Joel and Angel Venus began trading tuna in 2002 with a little over $100 borrowed from a cousin. Today their tuna processing business employs 20 individuals, serves about 30 wholesale buyers, and earns a monthly profit of over $1,500.
Their path to success was paved with as many downs as ups. For their first five years, loan sharks charging 20% per month interest were their only source for capital. Then one of Angel’s friends told her about The Center for Community Transformation (CCT) and they received a $200 loan. Now, 20 CCT loans later, they have a $10,000+ loan from CCT.
Joel and Angel buy tuna residue (the head, jaws, skin, fins, belly, and tail of the fish) to sell to wholesale buyers. They also process tuna into easy-to-cook products. They have been extremely innovative, processing tuna flesh into products that traditionally use pork as the main ingredient, like dumplings, sausage, meat loaf, patties, and spring rolls. They process reject fish and bones into animal feed. Joel does the tuna purchasing while Angel takes care of sales and supervises the work at their processing plant.
Joel and Angel have used their loans to rent storage space when they were growing, buy equipment to enable them to process the tuna into different products, and much more. One of their larger loans was for constructing a processing area next to their house. Their business now has nine freezers, three air conditioning units, and the smaller equipment they need.
Joel and Angel are close followers of Jesus and have blessed others given the many ways God has blessed them. They give generously to their church, lead church fundraising drives, and even provided capital and equipment for their pastor to open an ice cream shop. They have provided their children with a better education, and are putting one niece through college and another through high school. They purchased a submersible pump with a CCT loan that allows them to provide very affordable water to 30 families in their neighborhood. Their 20 employees are the breadwinners in their families. That’s not all – Joel and Angel encourage their workers to pray before each day and attend weekly Bible study. They also host a Bible study in their home.
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