Story of the year
Economic Development Section
Shamsabad

Mr. Mohammad Ali Detho is 85 years old. He lives in Qabool Pur in HDF unit 3 in Shamsabad. One unit in HDF terminology is equal to 1000 households. At this time HDF is working in 5 units in Shamsabad, which means it is serving 5000 households. Generally people of this age are not active and are left out of the many activities of life. But Mr. Detho has been running a grocery shop in that village for the past 23 years. He had a very limited inventory in his store before HDF started its program in the area.

“I heard about HDF credit program that was being provided to business people. I thought that I can benefit from this program”, he said before he became a member of the local DO, called Al-Sakhi Tanzeem.

In HDF projects, the community members are organized into local volunteer organizations. These organizations are called Development Organizations (DO). The people choose a name for their organization. There are separate men and women Development Organizations. Most of the HDF programs are managed and implemented by these organizations. This is part of our philosophy of “Helping People Help Themselves” rather than making them dependent on HDF. So the loans are approved and then implemented and managed by them, with the help of HDF staff.

In November 2001 he applied for a loan of Rs. 10,000 for to his DO which was approved. He thanked God for this opportunity. He added more items to his shop and his profit margin improved. He is one of those members who pay their loan installment without ever being asked. He would go to the post office before the first of the month to pay his installment. Besides paying his loan installment and family expenses he was also saving a little on the side.

In October 2002 he was diagnosed with having kidney stones. The operation was going to cost almost Rs. 30,000. By that time he had saved about Rs. 20,000. which was still not enough to meet the medical bills. So he had to borrow the extra money to meet the deficit. On top of that his business suffered a major loss due his absence for 3 months.

But he applied for another loan of Rs. 16,000 and reactivated his business. His business has improved tremendously. He earned Rs. 70,000 from his first loan. Not only did he pay the loan back and saved some money but bought some new household items.

He has developed a strategy where he has permanent customer who pay him on a monthly basis. He is a shining example of the success of the HDF economic program.