Financing immigrant women businesses

By Yumna Mohamed and Lilian Tse

Fauzia Abdur-Rahman’s  food cart on 161^st Street and Sheridan Avenue in New York is fully equipped with a grill, electricity, and running water. She starts every morning at 9 a.m. by firing up the grill. Then she decides what she would like to cook for her customers that day.

“I don’t have printed menus because I decide what I am going to cook each morning,” she said. “I think food is exciting, so I enjoy changing the menu every day.”

The jovial 49-year-old’s mind rushes through her menu ideas, from her native Jamaica’s famous jerk chicken, to Mediterranean salads, to German chocolate cake, a favorite among her customers. By 11 a.m. her hand-written menu goes up on the front of her shining silver cart and customers start to trickle in.

Abdur-Rahman has been running this cart for 16 years. Six years ago, she decided to take out a loan to upgrade her cart but couldn’t find a bank that would provide her with a small loan. Eventually, she was able to secure a $16,000 loan from ACCION, a microlending institution.

Immigrant women like Abdur-Rahman are one of the fastest growing groups of entrepreneurs the United States, according to a 2007 report by Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation of Missouri. This group has been recognized by local and international microfinancing organizations that are increasingly choosing to invest their money in women.

The Kauffman Index of Entrepreneural Activity reported that immigrant women started businesses at a rate 57 percent higher than American-born women, and their likelihood to start their own businesses has led many organizations to lend their financial support.