Micademe dreams of one day teaching economics, but in the meantime, she is getting practical, firsthand economic experience as an entrepreneur. A student at the Universite Marien Ngouambi de Brazzaville, she wakes early each morning to prepare traditional Congolese dishes to sell to her hungry classmates. Her HOPE Congo loan enabled her to purchase a bag of beans, tomatoes, salt, a box of fish, and a case of oil. She has appreciated HOPE’s trainings on managing cash flow and basic accounting. Her income pays her own university fees and also supports her younger sister.
![Before Eveness Mulungu joined the Walusungu (“mercy”) savings group through our church partner in Malawi, she faced days where she and her family ate animal feed because they couldn’t afford human food. But that changed when she joined the savings group. Eveness used her first group loan of about $1.70 (U.S.) to start a business selling doughnuts and beans.
“By the end of my first cycle I made $140 (U.S.),” Eveness shared. “My life is no longer the same now; [I] was regarded as no one in the community. ... This was the first time in my life that I ever touched and owned big money like this!”
Pictured: Eveness, with her husband in front of their piggery—a third successful business that she operates.](https://blog.hopeinternational.org/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)