From the very beginning our Microfinance Program has had two main objectives. First, to provide access to credit to women in vulnerable economic situations and secondly, over time, to build a women-led community cooperative that functions independently from us and continues to provide access to credit to all women entrepreneurs.
Over the past 5 years we have been working tirelessly at achieving our primary goal and can confidently say that we have provided 1000 women with access to training and microloans and, by extension, contributed to the establishment of hundreds of successful businesses around our community. From urban agriculture to injera baking cooperatives our women have shown ingenuity, resilience and determination in creating businesses, running them successfully and providing for their families.
And the benefits are not just economic… time and again our women report increased self-confidence after completing our two-week intensive business skills training (designed specifically for illiterate and/or women with low education levels) and that is before they even take the first loan! Women have expressed that before the training they felt incapable or lacking in skills to be able to run a profitable business but by the end they've realized how much knowledge they already have. Through their daily activities these women have extensive knowledge of product quality, pricing, locations to sell items, gaps in the market and great ideas about new businesses. We simply help them to identify this knowledge and unlock their potential.
And there are wider, societal benefits as well… women report greater community engagement through the running of their business and, although many face challenges related to changing roles within their families, the success of women entrepreneurs has also opened up an important discussion with men about the key role that women can play within household economics. In fact, we have a growing community of husbands who strongly support their wives in starting a business and many who even work with them!
We are proud of our large community of women entrepreneurs but our work doesn’t stop here… the next step is to make our Credit & Savings Cooperative independent so the women who run it can continue their important work long after we are gone. The 16 cooperative leaders have been receiving regular leadership & management training from us over the years and, in 2017, we have stepped up the capacity building so that one leader is earning a salary and working along side our team full-time to learn the day-to-day running of the cooperative. Although the leaders have been involved in the decision-making processes of the cooperative from the beginning, our team has been running the daily activities.
By the end of the year, the cooperative will have it’s own office, 2-3 full time staff and the leaders will be overseeing the daily operations. And while we are funding the transition year, the cooperative will take over these costs in 2018. To fund the running costs, the leaders will invest a small portion of the large savings pool within the cooperative to set up and run community focused income generation projects. It is a big step but one we have all been working towards over the past 5 years. It is a testament to the hard work of all the women members of the cooperative and it will be a huge asset to the community – their very own Savings & Credit Cooperative run by women – for women.