Isatu Bockarie sells palm oil and assorted foods in a market in Kenema, Sierra Leone. She runs two businesses now.

 

The road to her current shape of life was long. Her schooling ended early; her family fled Sierra Leone's civil war into a neighbouring country, where the financial pressures of refugee life made school impossible. She married young, and when she and her husband returned to Sierra Leone, the struggle did not lift. He took up palm tree tapping to feed the family. One day, climbing a tree, he fell. He died on the ground beneath it.She moved to Kenema with three children to support. She worked in palm oil with her aunt; was robbed of everything on a selling trip; was shortly afterwards asked to leave the house. She started again on her own with around 1,000 Leones.
 
She joined Prosper's training because she had always wanted to tap into any opportunity that could help her income. 

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"The training helped to improve my skills in so many forms, and also boosted my business."

 

The most concrete change came from one observation. She had noticed her palm oil customers walking from her table to a neighbouring one to buy sugar, flour, and cooking oil. The training gave her a way to act on it. She added those goods to her own stock. Her capital today is more than two and a half times what she started with.
 
Through the training she also joined a savings bank, her second; the first collapsed under poor financial controls. 

 

"Even though the majority of us are illiterate, we have not had any experience of financial mismanagement among our group."
 
At a linking meeting, where Prosper's Sierra Leonean partner convenes participants with wholesalers, transport providers, and financial service providers, she built the network her business now runs on. She has "take and pay back" arrangements with several wholesalers, and a regular motorbike rider she calls for deliveries.She is still the only earner for three children.
 
Money is still tight, but she believe that she will prosper in the future.

 

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