Bokapie (2nd on left, holding her child Alimamy), featured borrower of Bokapie's Best Female Farmers, is a master farmer in Mahayrie Village and has a large family of eight. She is passionate about business and farming, and likes to help younger women get their start. Bokapie is a seasoned farmer whose rice farming business was hard hit during Sierra Leone's 2014-2017 Ebola crisis. She has since recovered her business very slowly due to predatory lending and a lack of access to financing.
Bokapie has organized a large group of other women who, like her, are currently trapped in a cycle of subsistence and take extremely high-interest loans for poor-quality inputs during planting time. A no-interest Kiva loan will enable this group of determined women to throw off the shackles of predatory lending, expand, and prosper. Additionally, the global COVID-19 pandemic is causing food shortages in some areas of Sierra Leone as imported rice becomes more scarce. A Kiva loan will empower these women, and it will enable the group to increase their local rice production and and enhance food access in Sierra Leone at a time when this is badly needed.
In this group: Bokapie, Fatu, Isha, Musu, Fatu, Mabinty, Hawa, Yeabu, Nedeyama, Isha