My name is Pearl Rudo Mbazima nee Mutambanengwe. I am a 42-year-old mother of 4. I have been blessed with two sons and two daughters. I run a cooperative called LASACCO which stands for LaFemme Savings and Credit Cooperative.
My background, I am the third child in a family of four. I have two older brothers and one sister. My parents were civil servants and we grew up in a small farming community called Concession, in Mazowe. I attended my primary school there at a school called Amanda’s Primary School then I did my high schooling at Chisipite Senior School, completing in 1998. I was then hired by Ernst and Young to do my Articles of Clerkship starting January 1999 and I was there till 2001. While there I studied for my Bachelor of Accounting Science with UNISA. When I left Ernst & Young, I worked for several large organizations as an Accountant or an Auditor variously since I am qualified and trained to do both.
Eventually, in 2012 I began working for the SME Association of Zimbabwe as a member consultant. This job entailed me using my knowledge from my previous jobs to advise SMEs on how they can grow their businesses. The services we provided included getting access to funds for clients. The SME Association of Zimbabwe had a SACCO and I was responsible for administering it. I noticed that over 90% of the funds would be borrowed by males and we had a high rate of default. I also observed that women wanted to borrow funds but took so long to decide to take the risk that by the time they decided, the funds would be gone. Furthermore, women would find it difficult to come up with the security needed on the loans since their assets were primarily controlled by their spouses.
This is how the idea to come up with a SACCO strictly for women began. In 2016, together with 10 other friends, we registered LASACCO with the Ministry of Women, SMEs and Development. My reason for starting this SACCO was to give women access to cheap, quick, short-term funding with no need to physical collateral. I strongly believe that with access to funding, women can start and run businesses that will grow and provide much-needed development to their local communities.
I have been running LASACCO for 6 years now and it has helped me grow as a business leader. The challenges we face and who I have to become to solve them has shaped my thinking in many ways. One of my most recent lessons is that sometimes you have to stop being “nice” in order to get things done. I have supplemented LASACCO with two other organizations that support women in business namely Fempreneurs Africa Magazine which showcases women in business and keeps them motivated, and Entrepreneurszw which offers training courses in Entrepreneurship.
Our Plans
- 100 active members
- US$250k in loans issued
- An average annual savings rate of USD240 per member
- To have helped a documented 20 members to grow their businesses
- To start using payroll deductions to collect savings and loan repayments
We Need Help With
Human Resources. We need an administrator to man the offices. They would need to help members enrol, receipt payments, and issue loans that would have been authorized by the loans committee. They would also chase up outstanding debts and hand over doubtful debts to the debt collector
Publicity. We would benefit tremendously by getting exposure to our target market, which is women running SMEs. If they know about LASACCO they can decide to onboard which would grow our pool of funds
Expertise. We need a knowledgeable group of people to form our Technical Advisory Committee. Some of the things that led to our downfall in the past were bad debts. We need advice on how to better structure our loans