MAHASEN ABDEL FATTAH

"I magnified my project with the loan. and with my patience and efforts I raised up my children and they succeeded in studying and sports. With my husband's encouragement, I succeeded in my work and exported my products abroad."

Mahasin Abdel Fattah, a 36-year-old, her husband has no fixed job and has four children at different levels of education. She thought about working at the beginning of her marriage to help her husband in the expenses of her house and children, so she opened her own business, and in order to feel the profit that covers the expenses of her family, borrowed from the Association for the Advancement and Development of Women, and was able to raise her family, and became an example to follow among her neighbors, where she made her children outstand academically and in sports. Her own workshop became as an example to follow, and to know the details of her experience she says:

She started telling us her experience and says: My name is Mahasin Abdel Fattah Ahmed, I am 36 years old, my children are 5 (Zeina 20 years with a diploma, Ahmed 14 years in a military school, Shadi is in the 4th grade and the last of the cluster twins), and my husband works in the field of leather shoes.

About her beginnings she says: I left the preparatory school and got married. My husband had a poor income and after a couple of years we had our kids and his income was not enough. I never loved staying in the house, so I always made food sold it on a small scale from home, and I have customers, but all of this was a very simple income for us.

It continues: 10 years ago I felt that the life was a little hard and the expenses increased, so I thought of doing a project to help my husband with the expenses of the house, and to better raise our children and educate them well.

She added: I wanted to open a shoe shop to increase my income because also it was my husband job. so, I had an apartment that I sold, and I actually opened the workshop where husband and I worked because he had experience in it, and it started to get better.

But after a while I found that the expenses of the house are increasing and the kids are growing up and needing a lot of expenses for their schools and I thought, so I talked to a neighbor of me and told her that I need money so she advised me to take a loan from the micro credit program for the FHHs that is implemented by the Association for the Advancement and Development of Women.

With a smile appearing on her face she says: And indeed I found this is the solution, and I submitted the loan for 2000 pounds and they agreed that they are paying me the loan, and I supplied materials to my project, and worked with my husband. We started the work and when it gets better, I paid off the loan from profit, and the rest we spend it on the house.

She continues: And year after year I felt a big difference when I opened the project and it grew up. I started to change the house and renew it and pay off the expenses of the children and their schools and entered them the best universities and private schools that they want, until they are first in their schools.

Because I want my kids to be the best people, I introduced them to clubs, and they continued to train in athletics including wrestling, and Ahmed my son was training and entering wrestling championships and taking championships and medals in them, all of which happened when I worked hard, and I was able to enhance the profit that made me comfortable financially and psychologically.

She recalls and goes back and says: In the beginning the situation was bad and I could not do all that we wanted and needed but now the situation is better and with my efforts and my husband encouragement I have also saved a lot from the profit which made me able to expand on my project and export to Jordan and Sudan. I also can help those around us and donate as much as I can to the hospitals that need the help.

And about her work she explains in my work I think of expanding on my project that's why I think about taking a new loan enhance my work. I will work in new models of men's shoes, I knew it after I did research on the internet and on social media, and so I will be able to grow my customers and thus increase my profit.

I advise every woman that she must work to expand her home and children, and I am telling her: It is not a condition to get out of the house so that you can work, you can always work from home. You may prepare ready to process food and sell it to your neighbors and those around you, this is a simple example of what you can do.

She points out: The Egyptian woman is like the man; can work and take responsibility for a whole family and canbear even more than the man. I think the man without the woman and her thinking and management for her home and expenses cannot complete his life alone.

About her husband, she says: My husband is proud of me, and always admits to all people that I helped him in many things, and always thanks me. It is important that the husband be convinced of his wife's role in his life, so that she can complete her life with the same strength that she started with.

As for her children, she says: My children also feel the big role I am playing intheir lives, and know that I work to provide them with what they need, and they feel that I am carrying them, and they appreciate everything I do with them, so that they are successful in their lives and studies.