Women of Worth project attracts 28 loans- GBTI

GBTIGeorgetown: The Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry (GBTI) has disbursed 28 loans thus far in the year toward the Women of Worth (WoW) Project, amounting to more than $7 million.

GBTI Credit Chief Shaleeza Shaw said most of the loans are “repeat borrows”, meaning that single mothers who took loans before were successful in repaying them.

Overall, some 1400 loans have been distributed since the project began in 2010.

The flourishing project expanded throughout most of the regions in Guyana, enabling poor single mothers to empower themselves and support their family through the establishment of small businesses.

Nevertheless, like any other project, GBTI highlighted some of the challenges it encountered during the period.

One of them is poor financial literacy of the single mothers. Some of the women did not fully understand the terms and conditions of the project and the loan repayment plans.

Another major concern was competition between single mothers in a particular area who decided to venture into the same business.