Nyomi Jatta is visually impaired. She is a single mother of three children between the age of 4 and 9. Her son is hearing impaired so their communication is very challenging.
She became blind while she was pregnant with her third child. Now she is a single mother and has to take care of her mother and children all by herself. GOVI, an organisation representing the interests of people with visual impairments asked Small Steps 2 Success for support for Nyomi.
She already had a business plan in mind. She wanted to open a store, selling beauty accessories for females. She explained that women in her village had to travel far to buy the products that she wanted to sell. Through our micro finance program she was able to start her business. She is our best success story at the moment because she exceeded our expectations. In our micro finance program our client only pay back half of the funds we give them with no interest added. Nyomi Jatta has paid almost three quarter of her loan and still the store is in full stock and she is getting her lively hood from it, send her children to school and take care of her family.
Ebrima Saidy is attending the school for deaf people. He is in the same class as Karim and they are very close friends. He also shows interest in farming and agriculture. After school he goes together with his friend to work on the farm, where he gains experience and earn something. There are few job opportunities for deaf people in the Gambia. Small Steps 2 Success is aware that learning skills enables them to become self-employed .
Karim Sonko is attending the school for deaf people.
There are not so many opportunities for him after finishing his school.
He has a great passion for agriculture and farming. Small Steps 2 Success made him the proposal to get training and work on a farm after school which he welcomed warmly. Karim currently works on a farm and receives a small salary from Small steps 2 Success. This encourages him and in addition he learns something about his passion. After school Karim is spending two hours at the farm 5 days a week. He is from a very poor family. This opportunity of training and getting paid means a lot to him.
Jainaba Keita is hearing impaired and a single mother. She has basic secondary school education.
She was unemployed and from a very poor family. She is now working at the school for disabled children in Jiboro as assistance class teacher through the help of Small Steps 2 Success. Jainaba likes to help the pupils. She earns a decent salary and she feels more confidence about herself and taking care of herself and her child. From the time she started at school much has improved for the pupils because she can communicate with them in signlanguage. Our next goal for her is to enrol her to college to learn and become a certified sign language teacher.
Ndumbeh Ceesay is a young woman of 20 years. She is hearing impaired and is living with a father who is visually impaired. Her situation is really painful as she cannot communicate with her dad. She is interested in fashion design and really likes to learn tailoring to start her fashion and design journey. Small Steps 2 Success got her a sewing machine and found a professional tailor to train her the art of making cloths. She receives a monthly salary from the foundation to encourage her. The foundation is also paying for her training.
Isatou Manneh is a widow and head of the household in the compound. She is visually impaired and has a small cantine were she sells basic household commodities like soap and omo and cooking ingredients like rice, sugar, cooking oil. She needed a loan to expand the cantine and scale the business. Through our micro finance she is able to expand her business so she can earn now enough to survive. She is doing great. She is already paying some of the loan back and the business is having a steady growth.
Safiatou Njie is visually impaired and a single mother of 4 children. Her husband abandoned her and the children when she became blind. She is living in a village with the children. Her father is also visually impaired and old. She is depending on her mom who has a small plot of land where she grows vegetables for them and sells them at the market. We went to visit her to find out if she would like to do something to help her kids. In her own words she said: I use to be a market vendor before I became visually impaired. That is the only thing I know how to do. Through our micro finance program she got a loan to open a small store just outside her house where she sells cooking ingredients. She is managing it very well.
Yaay Jaitheh has the brightest smile I have ever seen. She is having multiple disabilities and she relies on a wheelchair for mobility. She is going to school and has a passion for hair dressing. Because she don’t have much to do after school, she asked us if we could provide someone to train her to learn hair dressing. Small Steps 2 Success did not hesitate to find her a qualified hair dressing artist to give her the necessary training and skills that she needs. The foundation is paying the trainer monthly, including her transportation. Both Yaay and the trainer are very happy about the achievement they have done so far. Yaay even started doing the hair of some of the disabled children she is staying with. She is living in a center for disabled children called Second Home.
Alieu Darboe is 19 years old and is living in Tanji. He is having problems with his eyes and the hand-eye coordination. He is attending the Bendula class from the foundation Future for young people. This is a class for children with disabilities. Because he is getting the age of starting to learn a skill and to earn his own salary we found a place where he can get a training. He is now working at the millingmachine. It is his job to weight the products and to help cleaning the machine.
Buba Darbou is having a metal disability called down-syndrome. His father was a tailor before and Buba too wants to follow his dads footsteps. We approached the dad to ask him if he wanted to teach his child the art of tailoring to which he agreed. Unfortunately he did not have a sewing machine of his own. Small Steps 2 Success provided him with a sewing machine that he is now uses to teach Buba the art of tailoring. We are very happy at the moment as everything is going well as we expected it to be.
He is attending the Bendula class from the foundation Future for young people.
Alasana Cham is living in Tanji and is suffering from epilepsy.
For him we found a small job in the garden of the foundation Future for young people. There he is taking care of the vegetables and the orange and banana trees. He is watering them and learns a lot about farming.
Because of his epilepsy it is necessary that he is having a guidance. His mentor Baks is taking care of that.We hope that in some time he will be able to grow and sell his vegetables and he can be independent.
He also is attending the Bendula class from the foundation Future for young people.
