Fatmata and Baby
Fatmata and Baby are in the same microfinance group, and work together selling shoes. In fact it is through the scheme that they have become such good friends: when Fatmata went blind she became very depressed, and locked herself away in her room. When Baby, who is blind herself, heard about Fatmata’s situation she paid her a visit, and introduced her to the Sierra Leone Association for the Blind who offered training to help her readapt to her new life.
“I am more confident and have more friends,” says Fatmata. “I paid for my daughter’s school uniform from the profit of the first loan. From the second, I paid my house rent as my husband is not well.”
Baby lives half an hour from Kenema market where they sell their shoes, and is usually taken there by her son because of the traffic.
Before the war, and the shrapnel that led to her blindness, Baby sold slippers in a village called Bomi – but decided to head to the big city where there were better job opportunities.
I have taken two loans and have paid everything back. I am extremely happy
During her working day there is a lot of good natured banter with a man Bockerie, who runs a shoe stall next door to Fatmata and Baby’s. He went to school with Fatmata’s husband, and both stalls have loyal customers so everything is harmonious!
“I have taken two loans and have paid everything back. I am extremely happy now. Before I thought begging was the only means of survival for a blind person but through SLAB I have never had to do that. I would tell a newly blind person to go immediately to SLAB”.
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