A 43 year old widow who lost her husband 5 years ago and has 5 children living in poverty with her children at Telari area of Borno State. Zainab was selling food items before but unfortunately for her the business crashed and ever since she has been living a life of struggles and toiling. Her children in school haven’t been feeding well and life has been difficult.

The coming of the FAO intervention in collaboration with LHI who introduced the GLSA which is aimed at improving the livelihood of beneficiaries has changed the life of Zainab as she joined the Albarka GSLA and was made accountant of the group, she was trained on how to better manage her business and how to save against the future, she mentioned that their motto is “save money harvest money”. Zainab requested a loan of N7000 and was given, on getting the loan she invested in food items and has been doing well. Overtime she has been making sales and realizes a profit of N3, 150 weekly. The association is really of great impact in Zainab’s life as she can care for her children properly, on interacting with her she mentioned that she just bought her son a new pair of school uniforms and school sandals and her elder daughter is also schooling at Ramat Polytechnic and she has been able to provide for her as a widow.

In her words she said “I eat out of my business, I lost my husband 5 years ago but thank God for the loan, the training I got at the beginning has helped me a lot as I am better off in business now compared to the past”.