By Gladys Kanario
Fatuma Adhuman is a young mother from Lamu East, Pate Marine community conservancy, who has beaten all the odds to become successful in business after she took part in training on savings and investment by the Northern Rangelands Trust Trading Savings and Credit Cooperative (Rangelands Sacco).
As one of the over 6,000 members benefiting from the SACCO, she mobilized other women to save and acquire loans. She led the team, and the group was rated number one in 2020.
She was given KES 25,000 loans to pay in one year and later given Ksh 50,000.
She started with a retail shop where she was able to pay KES 3000 per month.
She was later given Ksh 50,000, which assisted her to start selling in a wholesale.
She now expects to get KES 500,000 to assist her achieve a supermarket, the dream business.
“In our village, women were not allowed by culture to go to school, but I was able to complete Form Four. I was not able to proceed from there, but I depended on my mother for a living,” Fatuma said.
“Then NRT Trading came, and it trained us on saving and investment. This is when I started investing,” she added.
Fatuma added that she is not depending on any man to pay her bills as she is now empowered.
Fatuma went home happily after the Sacco awarded dividend of 7%, which amounts to KES 2.63 million to its members this year.
According to Ture Boru, the Chief Economic Program Officer for NRT Trading in charge of the economic empowerment for the communities living in Northern and coastal Kenya, the SACCO has opened up the North where other financial institutions cannot reach.
The Sacco draws it membership from 9 counties of Isiolo, Samburu, Garissa, Lamu, Tana River, Laikipia, Marsabit, Baringo and West Pokot.
Rangelands SACCO is an independent, community-owned, and membership-driven financial organization that receives oversight, critical technical support, and training from NRT Trading (rebranding to MashinaniWORKS).
Over the years, Rangelands Sacco has become a powerful vehicle for promoting financial inclusion, mobilizing local resources for economic development, and providing marginalized groups access to tailor-made financial services, including savings and loan facilities, business coaching, and investment opportunities since it’s inception in 2016.
Rangelands SACCO has made remarkable progress in promoting financial inclusion, with over 6,000 members, of whom 70% are women.
According to an impact survey, the SACCO has financed over 5,400 enterprises, which inject over KES 752 million annually into the local economy across the conservancies.
Moreover, the SACCO has disbursed loans worth KES 200 million to the members across NRT member community conservancies.
Rangelands SACCO collaborates with other development partners to deepen financial inclusion to improve livelihoods for communities.
