SELFINA
Neema Mahenge, 35, second-hand clothing store owner from Mbeya, Tanzania
Neema Mahenge, 35 and a married mother of four young children, has run a second-hand clothing store in Mbeya, Tanzania since 2004. Increasingly popular second-hand clothes arrive from America and Europe and are then washed, ironed and sold in bulk by wholesalers in Tanzania to local retailers like Neema. She works at the business for 9–12 hours per day, 6 days per week, and currently earns about $100 a month. Through a loan from SELFINA she is able to purchase more used clothes in bulk. In the future, she plans to open a new business. GBF’s investment will help SELFINA increase the scale of its services, broaden its geographic reach, and deepen its impact in poor rural communities.
