Giving the overview of the GGEM, the Executive Director GGEM Community Development, Cecilia Decker said the microfinance services started in 1993 by the Catholic bishops from Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone to strengthen the values on family life education in secondary schools.

“As a microfinance service provider, we have supported hundreds of projects for the less privileged and lower income earners in the country. We have also empowered grassroots and community people who are now bigger and are self-entrepreneurs,” Mrs. Decker said.

She went on to say: “As a microfinance service, they have all reason to be thankful to God Almighty for bringing them thus far. With the first five years of services, we were able to generate six hundred and forty million Leones (640,000,000) and a current earning of six billion, seven hundred and thirty-seven million Leones (Le 6,737,000,000).

Delivering the thanksgiving message, Reverend Rashid Turay said: “Hardworking and industrious people always do extremely well even when tested. He added that: “Doing well comes with values and if you don’t have values, nobody cares about you.” Reverend Rashid also called on workers of GGEM Microfinance Services to work harder because “if you serve diligently, you will always be rewarded.”

The Executive Director of GGEM Microfinance Services Michael Kamara said: “In the next ten years we are expecting GGEM to have the capacity to serve over twenty thousand clients across the country and to have offices in the four regions of Sierra Leone. “We are also planning to deposit funds that will help fund lower income earners to save. This will be one of the possible ways to enhance their livelihood, self-sufficiency and be able to contribute to poverty reduction in Sierra Leone.”