In 2020, a young man named Baraka Sadam Saul (pictured above with his mother) applied to join our Unite Scholars Program. Baraka was raised in the remote rural Nankanga village in Western Tanzania with his 13 younger siblings by his single mother, a peasant farmer. (His father died in 2014 and left seven additional children by another woman.) The family faced endless challenges due to extreme poverty, and Baraka had to repeatedly drop from school for months and years at a time to help his mother farm their small plot of land to try and feed all the children. Eventually, Baraka earned a spot at the government Mzumbe School for his lower-secondary education. In four years, he never left the school for even one holiday as he could never afford the bus fare home. Instead he lived and worked as a laborer for teachers over long-school breaks.
Baraka is extremely hard working, determined, kind, and talented. We planned to accept him into our Unite Scholars A-Level Program; however, when the Tanzanian national Form 4 leaving exam results were released, we learned that Baraka had scored Division 2. Since we prioritize Division 1 for our applicants, Baraka was sadly denied a scholarship.
While we did not take on Baraka as a Unite Scholar, we wanted to do something for him as we all greatly believed in his potential. Through our Warrior for Change Revolving Loan Program, we awarded Baraka an interest-free loan to purchase a small milling machine and helped establish a space in which Baraka could operate the machine in service to the peasant farmers in his village. (Since there were no mills in the village at the time, women were forced to walk many miles to alternate towns to have their maize harvests milled into flour, which they could then cook to feed their children.)
Baraka worked hard to provide exceptional customer service, even going so far as taking a second loan from Unite to purchase a wheelbarrow to pick up and deliver client’s maize to and from their homes. Baraka began by working only with his younger brother Uwezo who also wasn’t able to continue with his education due to extreme poverty. The boys hustled and labored and worked around the clock to face and meet challenge after challenge. Eventually, Baraka earned enough to purchase another mill, and he set it up in a neighboring village where, again, there was no milling machine for miles around. And slowly slowly, by combining his earnings with additional interest-free loans from Unite, Baraka established another mill machine outpost, and then another, and another, and another.
Fast forward to today:
Baraka has been awarded and repaid in full four Unite Warrior for Change interest-free loans.
Barca now has five milling machines that cover dozens of villages and serve more than 300 customers each day.
Baraka employs eight people full time.
With his profits, Baraka has purchased three acres of land on which he has planted maize and will have his first harvest this summer.
Baraka married in 2022 and now has a daughter.
Baraka is now building a small house for his young family and expects to complete the project by late April.
Baraka standing by one of his maize mills in the Rukwa district of Western Tanzania.
Baraka’s beautiful wife Bukulu and baby Ushindi standing in his farm. February 2024
Baraka and his wife are fortunate. His wife now dreams of opening a tailoring school where she can teach village girls her craft so they can earn money. And Baraka is envisioning owning and operating a large farm where he will grow mangoes, pineapples, oranges, lemons, cashew nuts, palm oil, coconuts, and more. He also plans on taking short courses to learn more about agriculture and how to optimize and build his business. While the vision and incredible hard work, determination, and dedication is theirs and theirs alone, this young couple knows that their success would be possible without their loans from Unite. So, to “pay it forward,” every month Baraka and Bukulu “bless” widows in the surrounding villages by giving gifts of soap, sugar, cooking oil, food relief, and more. Baraka has also welcomed our Unite Scholars to come and learn about his business and get hands-on experience in customer service and community outreach.
Additionally, for the past two years, Baraka has worked for Unite as a coordinator of our social impact work with small-scale farmers in the area. In this role, Baraka coordinates the purchasing of harvests from local peasant farmers (at fair market prices) and the distribution of hermetic grain storage bags which remove the need for post-harvest application of pesticides and fungicides and ensured the safe storage of crops for up to three years.
Village children whose mothers frequent Baraka’s mills to process their maize into flour which they then use to feed themselves and their families.
Just a few small interest-free loans (each $500 or less) — all of which have been returned in full — empowered Baraka (a young man who was once denied a Unite scholarship to continue his education) with the support he needed to create a vibrant, successful, and socially-impactful life for himself.
Unite’s Warrior for Change Interest-Free Loans have been awarded to 33 individuals (many of whom, like Baraka, have received second, third, fourth and fifth loans once theirs have been repaid on time and in full). These loan recipients have gone on to create and build small businesses that now serve thousands of customers across Tanzania with everything from groceries and home goods to catered meals and tailored clothing, and so much more.
Currently, Unite has a long list of loan applicants in our queue. If you are interested in supporting the growth of our Warrior for Change Revolving Loan Program, please donate below. Every dollar counts. Asante Sana. Thank you so much.