Comfort Azelima, Ghana

With microfinance, Comfort turns her unique skill into an income-generating opportunity.

Comfort Azelima, a batik cloth maker, has been a client of Sinapi Aba Trust (SAT), a microfinance institution in Ghana, for almost two years. Originally developed in Asia, batik is a traditional cloth dyeing technique. Comfort uses a wooden stamp to press a wax pattern onto cloth, dips the cloth in dye, then boils, dries, and finishes it.

Thanks to SAT, Comfort has been empowered to share her unique skill with more and more customers. She purchased cloth and dye with her first loan of 100 cedi (US$90). She then invested in a steel-sided container to house her growing business. With a second loan, Comfort will be able to finance a concrete foundation for her new workshop. “Sinapi has helped me build my business up,” she says, beaming with pride.