Enterprising Albanian Women

Albania is the poorest country in Europe, and business credit is not available. Microcredit loans are the poor entrepreneurs' only hope. Opportunity International began working in Albania in 1999. They found that loan groups of four to six people who guarantee each other's loans was a good way to introduce people to the principles of credit.

Ismete Demo leads one of the original loan groups. The other three group members are neighbors. Once they were merely acquaintances, but now they are close friends who share struggles and triumphs. If a member cannot make a payment, the others help her out.

Ismete had a little grocery prior to her loan, but without a refrigerator, she could not sell dairy products. With her $200 loan she bought a refrigerator and is doing so well she plans to buy a cow with her next loan so she can sell meat.

Neighborhood Grocers
Two other group members have little food shops. Another buys food wholesale and sells in smaller quantities to shopkeepers. The women often buy on credit so they can extend credit for daily necessities to their poor neighbors.

Ismete plans to enlarge her store to supermarket size and build a coffee shop on the second floor. Two other group members have ambitious plans as well. The other, a widow with three children, remembers her family's months of hunger and said she would be content just to keep food on the table.