Keep trying - Pamela Friday’s story

Story and reporting by Mr. Samuel Peter - Regional Program Officer - SALT Nigeria

We all have our goals and desires in life but getting them achieved requires a lot of energy and dedication. This has always been a challenge especially to low-income earners in Nigeria. Here is Pamela Friday’s story she is a member of Progress Ikkuku a savings group in Plateau State Nigeria.

Long before I joined the SALT Nigeria program, I had written a business plan on poultry farming and pig farming. I keep moving with my business plan from one person to another in an effort to raise funding for my intended business but to no avail. I also applied for a government loan to see if my application will scale through but again this didn’t yield any success. After this I was introduced to the SALT savings program.         

Pamela Friday shows off part of her pig farm

With the advent of SALT Nigeria Savings Program, I thought my problem will soon be over and I immediately started saving and after a while I was able to collect a loan from my group first for 50,000 Naira ($106 USD) and later a larger one for 80,000 Naira ($170 USD) which I used in raising up a poultry farm with over one hundred birds. It was actually not a total success but is a work in progress because I have faced some challenges in the area of selling them because finding enough customers to buy has become a big issue but to God be the glory, I was finally able to sell them.

After my first experience I realized that I need to reduce the number of birds I rear, and something reminded me of my second business plan which is pig farming. I discussed this with some people that are into pig farming on the nature of the business and heard about some of the challenges they are facing. In the end I was impressed with our discussion because it seems demand is so much because of religious factors. Not all communities in Northern Nigeria are allowed to rear pigs. One man had talked much on how easy it is to rear pigs because they can feed on almost everything including grains, forage, fruits, vegetables, damaged food, garbage, sugarcane, pumpkin, carrots, potatoes, taro etc. Sometimes pigs can even eat grasses and other green plants or roots. That makes them easier to raise with less cost implications compared to a poultry farm

I am grateful to God, SALT Nigeria and my savings group “Progress Ikkuku” for the privilege they have created for me to borrow needed funds. I later collected another loan of 150,000 Naira ($319 USD) and I developed my pig farm further and from last year (2020) to this year (2021) I have raised more than fifty pigs which can be valued over 600,000 Naira ($1,276 USD).

This is Mrs. Pamela Friday story from Tudun Wada, Jos, Nigeria