{"id":7089,"date":"2017-11-07T16:22:33","date_gmt":"2017-11-07T16:22:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/selfhelpafrica.org\/uk\/?p=7089"},"modified":"2018-03-15T12:41:25","modified_gmt":"2018-03-15T12:41:25","slug":"aster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/selfhelpafrica.org\/uk\/aster\/","title":{"rendered":"Small loan gives family a new start"},"content":{"rendered":"

38-year old Aster Ayele spent most of her life as a farm labourer.<\/p>\n

Until she joined a savings and credits cooperative (SACCO) supported by Self Help Africa, Aster and her husband supported their two young daughters on the meagre income they earned from working under the beating sun on their neighbours\u2019 farms in the high plateaus of Oromia in Southern Ethiopia.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t hungry, but our diet was poor. My older daughter got sick repeatedly and was malnourished.\u00a0I couldn\u2019t afford medical care and had to borrow money from neighbours when I needed medicine,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n

Aster was a founding member of the Abdi Gudina SACCO in her village. She has seen the membership grow from an initial 19 women in her area to 210 members, 186 of whom are women.<\/p>\n

<strong>\u00a0Watch her interview:<\/strong><\/p>\n