Breaking Barriers | Camara’s Story of Transformation and Hope
In the Republic of Congo, Camara Bintou built a business—and a life—on resilience. Living with a disability in her foot, she was often dismissed by others, even her own family, who saw her as someone who couldn’t work and instead relied on her to care for her siblings’ children. But Camara refused to let others’ perceptions define her. As a single mother of three, who also supported her niece and nephew, she knew she had to find a way to provide. “I was facing significant financial difficulties and needed support,” she recalls. “To meet my needs, I started selling spices at the market with very little capital, thanks to the help of people I knew.”
Determined to grow her initial income and support her family more sustainably, Camara sought out financial services to expand her business. “Faced with this challenging situation, I decided to turn to a financial institution. That’s how God led me to HOPE Congo,” she says. She quickly found that HOPE’s lending services weren’t the extent of the support she received. “What particularly attracted me to HOPE, beyond the loans, was the culture of prayer present before and after each meeting. Although I [was] Muslim, this practice deeply touched me because I desperately needed God’s help.”
Through HOPE Congo, Camara received not only the financial tools to expand her business—now selling salt and salted fish—
but also the encouragement and training to use those tools wisely. Camara took out her first business loan in 2017. Since then, she has received 13 additional loans, each one helping her take another bold step forward to expand and improve her shop. Today, Camara owns a retail store, has expanded into wholesale, and employs someone to manage her shop. She even opened a second location dedicated to wholesale business, where she keeps 1,000 boxes of salted fish in stock.
But Camara’s transformation hasn’t been only financial. “Through praying with the loan officer and the members of my group during our activities, and witnessing the benefits of these prayers, I decided to give my life to Jesus and leave Islam,” she shares. Her faith journey led her to purchase land in the bustling market of Pointe-Noire, where she built a home that her entire family now lives in. “I became the pillar of my family, even though I am the youngest of my sisters. I gained dignity and respect within my family and my community.”
Once dismissed and underestimated, Camara is now a respected businesswoman, a provider, a leader, and a woman of deep faith. Two of her sisters, once dependent on her, have become entrepreneurs themselves. They, too, have embraced faith in Christ through Camara’s testimony. And her dreams continue to grow: She envisions a chain of wholesale shops across the country, run by people with disabilities like herself, who are often overlooked in the job market. She also dreams of sending her children to top universities and undergoing surgery to improve her mobility and independence.
