Jordan Times
Friday, March 5, 2004
AMIR's Entrepreneurs Forum highlights micro- finance to 'Start a Business... Create a Future'
By Ruba Saqr
AL ASHRAFIEH — Fatima Musa is a middle-aged woman who had struggled for years to make ends meet. Years back, she realised that her husband's modest salary was not enough to cover the expenses of their eastern Amman home. Only through a microfinance loan under the US-funded Achievement of Market-Friendly Initiative and Results Programme (AMIR) — in conjunction with the Ministry of Planning's IRADA project — did Fatima succeed in improving her family's living standards.“It all started when I was wandering the streets of [western] Amman,” Fatima said on Thursday.
Fatima spoke about her experience during AMIR's Entrepreneurs Forum, the third of a series of eight workshops to encourage entrepreneurs to take the daring step of financing their small- and medium-size businesses. Her words were marked by an audience of around 200 men and women gathering in the Women's Vocational High School, nestling quietly a few meters away from Al Bashir Hospital in Al Ashrafiyeh.
“One day I spotted an artificial waterfall with showers cascading down its beautiful structure. That was when I decided to start my own venture and fashion my own waterfalls,” the woman said.
Fatima learned about the microfinance loans through her friends. She obtained her first loan of JD300 from the Jordan Micro Credit Company (JMCC), one of many microfinance institutions affiliated with AMIR — such as the Ahli Microfinancing Company, the Microfund for Women, and the Middle East Micro Credit Company.
When the business proved feasible, Fatima paid back her loan with minimal interest, under JMCC's loans “without traditional collateral.” Again, she went ahead and procured another loan for JD900, which she paid back with JD45 in interest.
Today, her waterfalls are purchased by wholesalers across the country and are being exported to several Arab Gulf countries.
The JMCC till date managed to give JD8 million in loans to finance 5,000 projects, according to HRH Sherif Shaker Ben Zaid, JMCC's board director.
“Paid-back loans represent 99 per cent of our credit programme, thanks to our clients' success in seeing through their projects,” Ben Zaid said.
The company also gives a free-of-charge service to its clients to help them analyse the market, obtain feasibility studies about the different sectors, determine the market's conditions and spot the best niche to tap into to start a business.
“Even people who have no financial resources, who are uncertain about how to manage a business, who are overwhelmed by business licensing requirements... are starting and managing their own businesses,” said Khaled Al Ghazawi, JMCC's general manager.
In a short videotaped film, AMIR shed light on the experiences of other entrepreneurs who started up their small-size projects. Hatem Mustafa (coal vendor), Muna Hamdan (pickle maker), Ibtisam Zu'bi (hairstyles), Hayat Yassin (retail store owner), and Nariman Abu Hamdan (boutique owner), all agreed that a microfinance loan helped them reach their ambitions in a safer manner than a regular bank would offer to them.
This point was better illustrated when a group of actors, from the Queen Noor Al Hussein Foundation's Performance Arts Centre, demonstrated through an interactive play the fears anyone would have before deciding to obtain such a loan.
Fares, an unemployed married man symbolising a hesitating individual, debated back and forth with his wife before deciding on starting his own business.
The happy ending closed in when the hero of the play decided to procure a micro-finance loan, by uttering the forum's motto: “Start a Business... Create a Future.”
Nodding her head agreeably, Fatima said: “We can all make a difference in our lives if we have the will to do so. Abundance cannot knock our doors if we stay home and expect prosperity to cross our paths out of nowhere.”