A microfinance organisation is helping impoverished people in Johannesburg make the most of their small plots of land by turning them into backyard businesses.
Blue Dot Housing was set up by a group of young black people to promote social change in some of the poorest suburbs in the city. It is just one of many organisations worldwide that are supported by the not-for-profit Oikocredit, founded in 1975 under the auspices of the World Council of Churches.
One family that has been transformed by Blue Dot's help is the Majodinas, who live in East Orlando in the Soweto suburb of Johannesburg, reports AnglicanJournal.
Sydney and Maria Majodina were struggling to support three unemployed adult children and four grandchildren on a basic income earned by selling cold drinks in a tiny bare-walled pub with a few patio tables. For a while, the family was able to make some additional income by renting out a few corrugated steel shacks cramped between the pub and their tiny one-room house.
Mr Majodina admitted that paying the electricity and water bills were constant worries. "Often there wasn't enough food in the house," he told the journal.
That was before they received an equity loan from Blue Dot enabling them to replace their steel shacks with a proper brick-and-mortar rental unit. Now the Majodinas are looking forward to a future without money stress. With the new four-room building, they should be able to reap sufficient income to pay back the mortgage and increase their earnings at the same time.
Leslie Matlaisane is finance director at Blue Dot and also a member of St Mary's Anglican Church of Pretoria North Parish. "We turn landowners into backyard entrepreneurs," she told the journal.
Mr Majodina is sure that things are only going to get better and better for his family.
"I plan to rent out three rooms [to migrant workers] and turn the fourth room into a tuck shop. It's a good change because our loan payments will be reasonable," said Mr Majodina.
He added: "Our future will be bright."
