(From left to right) Ms. Nadiya in her grocery store with a credit union manager and her store employee Ms. Nadiya’s mother with WFCU President Mike Reuter during his April 2024 field visit

Russia’s ongoing full-scale invasion made many families unite and develop joint business initiatives to ensure sustainable income within the household. This is the case for Ms. Nadiya and her mother.

Nadiya’s mother has long dreamed about opening a grocery store in Chervonograd, Lviv Oblast, to ensure fresh products and quality service for her community. But due to some bureaucratic challenges along the way, her dream never materialized. After the full-scale invasion, her daughter Nadiya decided to quit her job and commit to launching a family business.

Having previously worked for local authorities, Nadiya had the needed knowledge to register as a private entrepreneur and receive the required licenses. Her extensive experience in social media management also helped her build the store’s branding and communications strategy around mother’s care, with a key theme: “Mom will never give you bad advice”. Training by the CAP Project on women’s leadership gave her the required confidence and knowledge.

Once the preparation work was done, Nadiya needed financing to open the brick-and-mortar store. A local credit union was an obvious choice. Nadiya used to participate in the women’s leadership training organized by this credit union under support of the USAID CAP Project, so she knew she could get the proper assistance there.

Nadiya was also happy to find out she would qualify for a low-interest business loan under the Resilience Initiative launched by the USAID CAP Project and Worldwide Foundation for Credit Unions (WFCU) to ensure access to affordable finance for vulnerable groups of Ukrainians, including women in business.

The UAH 200,000 (approx. US $5,200) loan enabled Nadiya and her mother to open the doors of their new grocery store, introduce electronic record keeping and even organize home delivery for customers. Now the family plans to expand the range of products through cooperation with local farmers.