One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyratira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth.
She was a worshipper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. Acts 16:14 (NIV)
Lydia was an impressive entrepreneur. Not only was she a very good businesswoman, but she was quick to use the proceeds of her business to support Paul and his missionary companions as they passed through her area. Lydia is credited by Biblical historians as one of the key people in planting the church in Europe.
In the spirit of Lydia, PEER Servants sponsors the Annual Lydia Awards and we are very pleased to announce that the 2011 Lydia Award winner is Florence Achia from Northern Uganda, the second story below. Congratulations to Sara Skhosana from South Africa and Juana Vera Huallpa from Peru, the two other Lydia Award semifinalists, whose stories are also below. Our 2012 Lydia Awards will be announced in May 2012 - check back on this page by April 15 to read the stories of the 2012 Semifinalists and vote online for our 2012 Lydia Award recipient.
Helping children is a passion that drives Sara Skhosana’s life. In 2006 this passion led her to start a crèche, a pre-school day care center. She opened her crèche in a corrugated tin house with 15 children. However, business was hard, as her tin house was cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and parents were reluctant to leave their children in such an environment.
Realizing she needed to make changes to make her business prosper, Sara decided to take advantage of the loan program at Aloga, PEER Servants’ microfinance partner in South Africa. Sara used multiple loans from Aloga to construct a 6-room brick building to house her crèche. Through Aloga’s training she learned how to utilize good business practices such as recordkeeping.
Now Sara’s business is thriving. She has over 90 children in two facilities, and employs 5 people. She makes sure that her business conforms to all governmental requirements for day care centers, and follows the latest dietary guidelines for the children. Since caring for younger children is more labor-intensive, she now has a sliding fee scale based on age. And parents recognize the quality of her crèche, so she has been able to increase her fees.
For Sara, though, the success of her business is just a means to an end, which is caring for children. So Sara offers free care to the children whose parents are unemployed. Many other parents work Saturdays, when Sara’s crèche is closed, so she takes their children to church with her and cares for them there. On Sundays she teaches Sunday School to help children understand God’s love for them. After church she does house-to-house evangelism, where she often hears of people’s physical needs and is able to use the profits from the business to help. Sara hopes to expand her business to help HIV-positive children and to train adults in basic job skills, so that people’s lives will be improved and she will have the great joy of joining God in extending His Kingdom.
In many ways, society would probably have understood if Florence Achia’s business had never become much more than a dream. The odds were stacked against her: she was a widow with 5 children in addition to daily struggling with a chronic disability. Thankfully, Florence was not deterred by the life challenges that she faced every day. Instead those very challenges inspired her to work hard to see her dream of a secondhand clothing business become a reality. Today Florence’s second hand clothing business supports her family, provides badly needed employment in her community, and allows her to funnel her profits towards projects that empower and serve others.
2007 saw the birth of Florence’s business, but it wasn’t until 2010 that dramatic growth occurred after connecting with Christian Action For Empowering Church and Community (CAFECC), PEER Servants’ partner in Uganda. She used her first loan to cover the cost of purchasing and transporting used clothing stock to her shop. With this purchase, she was able to make a profit sufficient to continue a rapid expansion of her business. The expansion of her business brought new challenges as the shop needed to remain open longer in order to meet the increased demand. Florence’s disability would not allow her to work these long hours, and so she recognized an opportunity to provide employment to a young woman badly in need of a job.
Looking for ways to create jobs for others is a hallmark of Florence’s approach to business as she has now employed a second person and hopes to hire more. She views her business as not just to serve her and her family but also to serve her community. In 
the future, she desires to acquire sewing machines that can perform minor repairs on damaged stock and thus provide jobs to some of the orphans in her neighborhood. Additionally she hopes to hire local women to transform unusable stock into small handcrafted items such as pillows. These innovative ideas speak more broadly to her belief that nothing should be wasted and value can be found in anything.
In her community, Florence is often called a role model for others who have overwhelming obstacles to overcome. Whether it is serving as chairperson of the local widow’s savings and loan association, spending time encouraging HIV/AIDS orphans or speaking at local events, Florence always credits her success to God and the power of prayer. Her obstacles have been daunting, but God has graciously given her a spirit that has chosen to persevere.
Not that long ago Juana Vera Huallpa found herself in a seemingly hopeless situation. She had been abandoned by her husband, had no income, no job skills, and three children to support. She began to sell groceries out of her home in Cusco, Peru, but that was not earning enough in order to make ends meet.
About that time she learned about Kallarisunchis, PEER Servants’ microfinance partner in Cusco. Juana took out her first loan for about $250 in May 2006 in order to start a hardware store. She decided that hardware would be a good business because of the low cost to get the business started. Her hardware business prospered with the help of regular short-term loans from Kallarisunchis that allowed her to maintain adequate inventory to keep the business attractive to customers. Soon Juana was adding another retail business in small appliances and ceramic dishware.
Today Juana’s three businesses employ 8 people, including her teenage children and members of her extended family. She arranges flexible work schedules to allow her children to go to school and study as well as work. She has computerized her inventory tracking in order to more effectively manage her business, and has obtained government certification that allows her to do business directly with the government and larger institutions. She has created catalogs that she can provide to her customers so that they can learn about all the products her business has to offer.
With the help of Kallarisunchis, Juana has been able to discover and develop her natural entrepreneurial skills. As a result, her businesses have transformed her life and the lives of her extended family. Not only is she able to support her family, she is able to pay for her children’s education. She deliberately started three businesses so that each of her children would inherit one from her, and she is training them in business skills. Best of all, through Kallarisunchis Juana came to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. She and her family have become active members and faithful supporters of their church. Now Juana takes every opportunity to tell all her customers about what God has done for her, and what He can do for them, too.
Online voting for the 2011 Lydia Award winner is now closed. Check back around April 15, 2012 to vote online for the 2012 Lydia Award winner. The online voting counts for 25% of the overall Lydia Award voting, and will be added to the votes from the Lydia Award Committee (50% weight) and the Annual Lydia Awards Celebration (25% weight). Thank you for taking this time to learn more about these amazing 2011 Lydia Award nominees!
