At a popular Charismatic Church service in Accra, the capital of the West African nation Ghana, hundreds of worshipers gathered to pray. It’s a regular ritual as they seek spiritual solutions to their problems.
Among the worshipers is Miriam Hayford who told the Africa Feeds that she attends church regularly but now finds it difficult to do so.
Beyond Miriam’s inability to attend church regularly like she used to do due to other activities, she spoke about other hindrances preventing her from being an active member of this congregation.
“Most often than not, I have to call a friend or someone to find out or this week, what is happening, what is going on, who is getting married, who is having a naming ceremony, what is happening, are there any changes in the church executives. Sometimes you don’t get to know about those things unless you talk to people about it”
Miriam’s problems are however a business opportunity for a group of young entrepreneurs who have developed an application called ‘Asoriba‘ simply meaning Church member.
Majority of Ghanaians love their church as over 70 percent of them are Christians from various denominations. The trend is not different from other African countries. But gradually it is becoming challenging for them to attend church services due to busy social life especially work.
Some Christians are not able to follow their favorite pastors and make financial contributions regularly and that is where the ‘Asoriba’ technology comes in to provide a helping hand.
These young entrepreneurs work from a small office in Accra’s East Legon owned by the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School for Technology.
From this office they manage and market the application that their clients sign up to. Patrick Ohemeng Tutu is a co-founder of the business.
Patrick shared the story of the Asoriba Application which was founded two years ago.
“As founders we realized that we are all passionate about church, some of us have our parents being pastors and clergy men, and one common trait that we found among ourselves was that data management, financial management, engagement with church members was a problem, as a team we decided to venture into it to tackle this issue facing the churches and Christian organizations”
So what does the application do? Saviour Dzake, another co-founder is the chief product officer for the company. He revealed the components of the application.
“So Asoriba has two products, a web CRM for church leaders and a mobile application for church members. The web CRM handles every administrative task on the church leaders’ side, talking about collating member data, trying to communicate with the members on daily basis, managing our financial inflows and outflows. The mobile as I talked about is for the members, it essentially put the church experience in your hands”.
That is not all that the application offers church members, the application allows them to pay their tights, offertories, follow church activities among others without physically going to the worship center. Over 70 thousand Christians have subscribed to the App and the numbers keep increasing daily.
These individuals are likely to not to be present at Church due to varied reasons. Dzake said the services they offer their subscribers should not in any way be seen as an encouragement for them not to go to church in person.
He said “Asoriba is not cutting out the church factor, we are rather encouraging people to go to church even more because we are building closer communities. Even though may be in the comfort of your home, you can still follow your favorite preacher, you can still make your donations and all that”.
Another Co-founder, Obed Asamoah Boateng is in charge of the business unit at Asoriba. He talked about the business side of this project and the progress being made. For him business has been booming.
“We are rapidly expanding not just in Ghana but across the world and its exciting. As far as the company presence is concern, we have presence in Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa. So currently in the business unit, we have fifteen people. For the product itself, every time we present it, you have the same response, which is a wow”.
Africa Feeds met Pastor Philip Teteku of Light House Chapel International who pastors a congregation of 250 members in small community Ghana. He uses the services of Asoriba and spoke greatly about the application.
“I have been using it for over a year now, Its amazing, its fantastic. It has helped me to have my church available to me anytime, pastoring has been easier, in terms of administration, communication with membership and all that, its made the work very effective”.
Many Christians in Africa like Miriam Hayford who are ow hearing about the Asoriba App are eager to sign up and spread the message.
“I think its great because most often than not I would want to send my offertory to church and my tight I have to wait till my brother is around or someone is going to church in order to send it to the church so if there is something of that sort I think it will make it much easier. And I would even want my church members to get to know about it, especially the youth”.
Thousand Christians in Africa who won’t be able to attend Church services are rest assured they would not be missing an action thanks to Asoriba.
Source: Africafeeds.com/ Isaac Kaledzi. Follow @IsaacKaledzi
