Mt Kilimanjaro, TZ – Employee qualifies for dairy cow loan, looks to improve home for family – 30 Nov 2015

Two years of productive, dependable work for Lishe Bora, as well as a consistently productive vegetable garden, have earned Eliza an employee loan for income generation. Eliza has chosen to use her loan to purchase a hybrid milk cow which will produce milk as well as offspring to increase the family’s income.

Eliza was the first employee hired by Lishe Bora in 2013. Mary, the Lishe Bora Garden Shop manager, and Eliza are sisters so when the shop needed more labor Mary offered her the job. Since joining, Eliza has proven to be a trustworthy and dependable employee. Despite looking after seven children and three grandchildren in her two room home, Eliza almost never misses a day of work. She shows up on time and works at a steady pace to complete the day’s tasks. Even when no manager is present, Eliza can be depended on to work hard and get the job done.

Eliza is confident she will succeed at caring for a dairy cow because she has looked after other people’s cows in the past. Now she is excited to have her own cow. To reduce the size of her loan request Eliza asked her husband to improve their existing local cow banda using spare materials from around the village. Hybrid cows require larger, cleaner bandas than local cows which have evolved to handle local living conditions and bacteria.

Once the banda was prepared Eliza sent in her loan request and purchased a four year old cow that is six months pregnant. Once the cow gives birth it will begin producing milk. Both the milk and the baby cow are potential income sources for the family.