Ganako Women’s Community Organization (GWOCO)
The Ganako Women’s Community Organization started in Karatu in 2012, and has helped thousands of women to secure small loans used for starting businesses, growing existing businesses, home improvements, etc. This loan program is fully funded and continues to recirculate the money. The interest generated is used to run the program and reinvested to support community projects that are identified by GWOCO. These community projects make this program very well respected within the community.
In addition to managing the loan program, GWOCO also provides trainings to improve the women’s business skills. GWOCO’s staff consists of women who have shown an aptitude for business, and who have already been making an impact as natural leaders in their community.
Pictured here is a business training collaboration between Maasai Partners, Women’s Microfinance Initiative (WMI) and GWOCO.
(Photo by Melissa LaReau)
Community involvement has spread to every facet of GWOCO Treasurer Levina Emanuel’s life. In addition to her work with the loan program, she runs several profitable businesses. Her dedication to those around her led to her appointment as a female representative to local government as a councilor.
For many years Levina has taken in orphans and actively pursues her dream to start an orphanage for children with disabilities. An investment in Levina’s work is clearly a good one!
As treasurer, Levina is responsible for dealings with the bank and for writing monthly expenses. Along with fellow staff, she keeps track of two loan groups. She attends and monitors collection and issuance days, keeps expense records, and ensures accuracy with program participants.
Levina says the concept and benefits of the loan program are quite simple—women receive loans, pay them off, gain savings, expand their businesses, and repeat the process. She appreciates the low 10 percent interest rate, providing incentive to women who would not be able to afford the 18 to 20 percent rates that banks offer.
A three-time loan recipient, Levina provides an excellent example of the good these loans can do. With her loans, she was able to afford water and land, helping her to create lucrative fruit, vegetable, and coffee crops. She keeps and slaughters pigs; makes and sells bricks; and sows and sells seeds. In addition, she rents out rooms in a building she built near town, with a storefront that sells produce from her gardens.
Her impact is wide and her ventures sustainable, and she has created employment opportunities for others in the community. Additionally, she has been able to send her own children to school, with some continuing on to college. Through all of this, she continues to care for local children in need.
GWOCO leaders from left to right: Jane (coordinator/accountant), Josephina (founder), Levina (Treasurer), Renarda (chairwoman), Martha (secretary) and Imani (vice chairwoman)