The Success Story of January in Ghana

Jesse is 58 years old and is married to Mr. Thomas Addo. They are both Ga people from the Greater Accra Region. They have been married for 20 years now and have three children - Sarah Annan 38, single and unemployed, Justice Annan 35, married and living in London, and Michael Addo 17, a form two student of Mankessim Secondary Technical School.
They have been living at Bubuashie, a suburb of Accra for the past sixteen years in her family house, a four bedroom apartment which is shared with her other siblings.
In1981, Jesse was working as a sales girl at Swanlake supermarket located at North Kaneshie. She worked there for six years before resigning.
Soon after that, she started selling panties at the Kaneshie Market with an initial capital of GH¢ 0.20 (then ¢ 2,000). She was rein-vesting all the profit she made back into the business which en-abled her to add other items customers were demanding such as singlets, ladies’ skirts, boxer shorts, socks, scarves, T-shirts, nightgowns, towels, braziers etc.
Between 2005 and 2007 there were other demands which re-quired additional capital. In her quest to meet these demands, she had discussions with some friends to find means to raise the needed capital. A friend introduced her to ID-Ghana. She was granted her first loan of GH¢ 300 in November 2007, a second loan of GH¢ 500 in April 2008 and the third and current loan of GH¢ 700 at the end of November 2008.
These loans have helped her to add items such as bed sheets, curtains, shedda materials, gray bath, voile etc, which are on high demand. Her capital base has increased to GH¢ 3,000 from GH¢ 2,000, and her daily sales to GH¢ 50 from GH¢ 30. She has also built up savings of GH¢ 160 while operating her business in a small metal container at the market.
She feels ID-Ghana has been of great help to her as it helped her meet all the demands of her customers. She more specifically thinks the trainings she received so far on Costing and Pricing, Importance of Savings, Customer Care, etc have helped her in running her business effectively. She also considers the regular visits of Lucas Dovie (the Credit Officer in charge) to find out how her business is doing as a source of encouragements.
Her plan for the future is to have a large stock of all the products she sells so that she does not run short of supplies. For example, today, some customers come looking for calico and cotton hand-kerchief which she does not have in stock.
Her other plans are to save enough money to see her last child through his education up to university level and to acquire land to put up a house of her own.