Akose is one of ATE’s most successful small businesses which have been granted a BizATE grant to help their businesses grow. She sells tomatoes, gari and sugar.
Akose has six children aged between three to eighteen years old. Her husband is a farmer and grows peppers, maize and groundnuts seasonally and grows tomatoes all year round.
Before the grant Akose bought and sold small
quantities of tomatoes, which she has done since she was just a teenager. As they are perishable she has since expanded to sell gari and sugar which are more stable products. She buys them in bags and sells them in bowls, making an average of about 40% profit. She says that she already knew she could make money selling sugar and gari but needed a lump sum to buy in bulk at a good price. After the grant she also had enough money to buy tomatoes in bigger quantities which has also increased her overall profits.
Akose says that she sells gari and sugar to the boarding students at Losek Senior High School on a termly basis, otherwise she regularly sells at a table in the market, from the house and carries her items to sell around the local area. Akose is enterprising and makes the most of opportunities, such as when she sees maize selling cheaply in the market she buys it up to sell at a profit.
When we arrive at her house she is busy preparing food to take out to sell for lunch from house to house in her community. She says that she always looks to expand her business and soon hopes to start buying maize to sell in quantity.
The ATE grant has enabled Akose to put her enterprising ideas into action. She says that the boost to her business has impacted upon her children through the school provisions she can now afford. She can now pay for their school fees and their uniforms. She can afford to go out to social gatherings, pay the bills and no longer needs to take out loans. Akose explains that she has taken out at least three loans from her sousou group (microcredit) when the rainy season is over and she hasn’t had tomatoes to sell so has had to travel to buy them. She is proud to say that when rainy season is over no loan will be needed this year!