Bijad is 24 years old and single. He was born in Gidpur, Pakistan and went to school in nearby Sialkot. He started stitching soccer balls to help his family when he was 18. He used to stitch four or five soccer balls in a day.

Bijad likes Pakistani music and playing pool, so when he was 20 years old, he took out a micro-credit loan through our group’s Fair Trade fund at or manufacturer’s Sialkot location and purchased a small building with a pool table. Bijad spent the rest of the loan money on equipment to set up a barbershop.

While he can earn quite a bit of money every day for offering shaves to supplement his income from the pool table business, it is from pool that Bijad earns a good income…twice what he earned from stitching soccer balls. He completely paid off the loan in 25 installments over two years.

The pool table also offers a welcome form of entertainment in a poor village where there is very little in the way of entertainment options for young people. His friend, Mohamed, is keen to point out that “This is the best thing to do here; before we got bored.”