Stories

A former beauty pageant turned social entrepreneur; Zindaba Hanzala Zulu, is the founder of the social enterprise “Springfield Agro”. Her company champions a farmer scheme called Mulimi, which supports Zambian farmers and agri-related businesses by offering a wide variety of services such as funding, insurance, and sales and marketing of…

Reverend Francis Chipoya, a board member and pastor of the Kuku church in Lusaka, is responsible for managing a small grocery store in a deprived neighborhood in the capital city. Through his operations basic staple groceries are sold to the local community. He participated in the Lendahand SME Academy to…

Shinebayar is one of the first Mongolian entrepreneurs that received a loan through Lendahand’s local financial partner Vision Fund. Despite the fact that he dropped out of school at sixteen years old, Shinebayar managed to create a successful venture for himself. After joining the army and working at a car…

T. Tsooj operates a hair salon and hair products store in Darkhan city, the second largest city in Mongolia. She already operated a hair salon but was not able to access a loan through traditional banks. It was through Lendahand’s local partner Vision Fund that she managed to get access to…

Stephanie Cuevas is a purpose driven manager at social enterprise Rags2Riches, which is a fashion and design house in the Philippines. Rags2Riches closely works and empowers artisans from local communities. As a borrower of Lendahand’s local partner NPFC she was invited to take part in the Lendahand SME Academy. As…

Jojo Mallanao, father of three, is the owner of Pidiong’s cashew nuts, situated on the outskirts of Manila. He has been running this business for 15 years. As every businessman he would like his business to be bigger, therefore when he was invited by NPFC to take part in the…

Van restmateriaal stoeltjes maken voor lokale bassischolen? Waarom niet! John: "Ik ben succesvol ondernemer en zo kan ik iets terugdoen voor de gemeenschap. John Alforque is Alforque Woodcraft Industries begonnen in 1998. In eerste instantie verkocht het bedrijf uit hout gesneden kunstwerkjes, maar toen de vraag hiernaar afnam stapte Alforque over naar stenen…

Ann Margaret is the CEO of Eslan EDUFORUM, a business that takes care of education materials for schools in Mandaluyong City and surrounding areas. The vision of the organisation is to make quality education possible and accessible to Filipino children - both in cities as in more rural areas. The company…