Kenya – Makoa Poa Housing Loan

Damarice Waceke –  Property Owner and Entrepreneur

“I believe everything is possible in life through hard work and determination”

The Damarice Waceke Food Kiosk is situated just a few meters from the entrance of the Magana Flower Farm in Regen Estate, along Nakuru-Nairobi Highway.  Damarice and her husband, who have three children, started on the road to successful entrepreneurship as newly-weds. Damarice notes that “We started from humble beginnings – we used to hustle and work as casual labourers at the Magana Flower Farm, living from hand to mouth.”

But Damarice and her husband always dreamed of having their own business and after working as casual labourers for four years, they had accumulated savings sufficient to establish the Damarice Waceke Food Kiosk, which served workers from the Magana Flower Farm. Due to the success of the food kiosk, they were able to cease casual labour work and focus on managing their business. Damarice pointed out that the growth and success of the food kiosk was in large part due to the location of the business and the concomitant access to customers.

This initial business success increased Damarice’s confidence in their entrepreneurial talents and she and her husband began thinking of how they could ensure their financial stability over the long-term. They decided to maximize the income-earning capacity of the small area of land that their food kiosk and home are located on by constructing informal housing (mabati) units for rental to casual labourers employed on the flower farm.

Their rental housing business was so successful that Damarice decided that she wanted to improve the quality of the rental housing units by replacing the informal structures with formal structures and thereby to increase the revenue from the business.

Damarice learned of Letshego’s low-income housing loan through a friend and decided to visit Letshego’s Kikuyu branch to determine whether she qualified for a low-income housing loan. Damarice recalls that this was the first time she had ever applied for a loan from a financial institution and that she and her husband were pleasantly surprised when their application was successful. Further, thanks to the quick turnaround time of the application process, they were able to construct the formal rental structures almost immediately.

Damarice said that “Letshego built me these houses and made my dream come true.”