Utete, TZ – Mama’s Loan Group’s Progress Encouraging – Jan 30 2015

The Kindwitwi Mama’s Cow Group get 5-7 Liters of milk from their cow each day. They sell each liter for 1,000 TZS, which means they can earn between 150,000 TZS (US $88.24) and 210,000 TZS (US $123.53) per month. They use most of the income from selling milk to pay for the cow’s upkeep and to pay off their loan. Any leftover income they use on small home expenses like paraffin lamps so that their children can study at night, pens and notebooks for their children’s school activities, and charcoal for cooking.

Sometimes the Mama’s don’t sell all of the milk. According to their husbands, these are very exciting days – they get milk at home!

The cow is named Zawadi (“Gift” in Swahili) and last year Zawadi gave birth to a healthy male calf, which the Mamas are still caring for. Unfortunately, because the calf is a male it cannot be used to expand their milk business, but after 3 years the male cow can be sold for around 1,200,000 TZS (US $705.88)! Also, Zawadi is pregnant again and expecting another calf in May, 2015. Both Zawadi and her calf are in fine health which is a testament to the care and energy the Mama’s put into this project. It is exciting for the mama’s to see their project expanding. They are optimistic that hard work will pay off with a significant financial benefit in the near future.

Caring for a cow is a lot of work. Work starts early in the morning. Each morning the banda is cleaned, 40 liters of water are brought in, Zawadi is milked, and a bundle of green grass is fed to her. Another bundle of grass is brought in the afternoon and the water is refilled. In the evening yet another large bundle of grass is brought in and they milk Zawadi again. Each Mama will do all these duties for 2 days and then rotate with another Mama. This keeps all three Mamas energized, rested, and able to care for their families while running a successful milk business as well.

The Mamas are very focused on repaying their loan as quickly as possible, so it is a lot of work at the moment for not a lot of profit. They have repaid 1,250,700 TZS (US $735.70) of a 2,046,000 (US $1,203.53) loan and are scheduled to finish the loan repayments in mid-2015. Even though the Mamas are not receiving a lot of profit at the moment, they are slowly building a successful milking operation. When Zawadi gives birth to another calf and they are able to sell the current male calf, they will start to receive some great returns on their hard work. Additionally, once the loan is repaid they will see a daily profit.

The group is looking into having the local vet make regular visits to their operation to make sure that all their cows are in good health and that they are getting the most milk out of the cows as possible. Trained vets can help identify potential problems before they affect the business bottom line.