– Winnie Auma

Winnie Auma is the Uganda Country Director of Village Enterprise. She has been a part of Village Enterprise since 2010 and held numerous positions within the organization. She holds degrees in Education and in Business Administration and Management, and was selected by the Harvard Kennedy School in May 2019 to participate in their Emerging Leaders Program for rising U.S. and international leaders. Winnie narrates an audiobook chapter of Peter Singer’s 10th-anniversary edition of his landmark book on reducing extreme poverty, The Life You Can Save, alongside celebrities Kristen Bell, Stephan Fry, and Paul Simon.

Peter Singer published his landmark book The Life You Can Save in 2009 to demonstrate why we must help those living in extreme poverty and illustrate the many ways to save lives by giving effectively.  In the decade since, the book has created massive change reducing global extreme poverty, founded a nonprofit organization of the same name to promote the idea of effective giving, raised millions of dollars for effective charities, and improved countless lives.

The 10^th Anniversary Edition of The Life You Can Save addresses the continuing need for change and aims to inform, inspire, and empower all to help those in need. Village Enterprise’s Uganda Country Director, Winnie Auma narrates a chapter of the audiobook version alongside celebrities Kristen Bell, Stephan Fry, Paul Simon, and more, and Village Enterprise is prominently featured in the section “Better than Aid” of the book. Download the ebook and audiobook here for FREE today.

The post When you touch a life, you’re changing generations appeared first on Village Enterprise.

I follow Santa through tall grasses, past banana plants that are slightly bent as if in a mid-bow after a tremendous ballet, and by sorghum and maize fields. She pushes her hands ahead and breaks any branches or plants that are blocking the path. We reach a sea of white cotton buds and enter the thick bush to find her fellow business owner busy harvesting. They share a greeting, and then Santa also begins plucking the fluffy crop from its beige cocoon. Santa began this cotton business a few months ago through the Village Enterprise market linkage pilot program in partnership with The Gulu Agricultural Development Company (GADCO). The business has given Santa hope. It has given her the ability to see that there are more possibilities in this world, which is something she hasn’t always been able to realize.

Life has been difficult for Santa. She spent more than five years in a refugee camp during the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency in northern Uganda when she and thousands of families were exiled from their homes. The camp was only a few kilometers from her family home and it was there that she gave birth to a child that only lived a few months. Then her husband was killed by the LRA. Santa was destroyed. She did not know how to carry on with life.

Eventually, she married her current husband and together they planted beans and sorghum during their first year of marriage. But the LRA burned everything to the ground. Then, they bought an ox and plow, but the ox died. Things felt pretty dire for Santa. It was one thing after the other. She carried on for a few years without a source of income and struggled to put food on the table.

Mirriam Aguti, a Village Enterprise business mentor, is the person who put an end to Santa’s difficult situation. She invited her to join the Village Enterprise program and learn how to start a business of her own. She rigorously applied herself to the lessons presented by Mirriam and became energized by the independence she gained from knowing how to earn and spend her own money. She was so inspired that she has since recruited many people to join the Village Enterprise program to start businesses of their own. She is an inspiration in her community due to her hard work and commitment to her cotton growing business.

Santa’s energetic joy cascades around her being and it is contagious: she was elected the Chairwoman of her business savings group, which is composed of ten three-person businesses or 30 individuals, because of her determined spirit. People are drawn to her because of her charisma and wisdom. She has an exceptional ability to bring people together and make them feel confident and strong.

Santa learned from Village Enterprise business trainings the importance of caring for her community: she goes and advises people in order to help people in her community feel cared for and to resolve conflicts.

“You are stronger and do better in a group than alone. Someone may be in a poor situation, Village Enterprise can uplift that person by helping him/her start a three-person business. When three people are given $150, together they come with different ideas and different skill sets, and they think through the smartest ways they can use that money to build a successful and profitable business.”

Santa dreams to build her own concrete house for herself and to build a strong, caring and united community. She is a leader determined to continue to uplift her village and to be an inspiration to those who haven’t been empowered yet.

This #GivingTuesday we want to fund two entire villages in northern Uganda so more people like Santa can realize their potential. Join our campaign: donate.villageenterprise.org/givingtuesday2019

The post Santa the Chairwoman from Paicho appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Years ago, I had a cup of coffee with Debbie Hall to learn more about why she was involved in Village Enterprise. She enthusiastically told me how exciting her work was and how encouraging it was. Her passion was contagious, and I had to learn more. The nonprofit work I was doing at the time was heart-warming and felt important, but I didn’t leap at the chance like she did to tell others about the progress we were making and share my passion about why they too should get involved. Over time, I became a donor, then helped with development and social media, and then joined the board. This month, I was asked to take over for Debbie as the board chair for Village Enterprise. I could not be more honored or humbled to be board chair of this amazing organization. What an exciting ride it has been!

This is an especially exciting (and a bit overwhelming) time to get more deeply involved in Village Enterprise. Today, 767 million people live in extreme poverty and over half of them are in Sub-Saharan Africa. By 2030, 88% of people living in extreme poverty will reside in Sub-Saharan Africa. The time is now to scale the most cost-effective and impactful solutions. Graduation programs like ours are proving to be an extremely effective method for lifting people out of extreme poverty. Village Enterprise has a graduation program that is both unique and flexible. It is unique because it is the only graduation program focused on group-based entrepreneurship. We train three individuals to start a business, which enables three families to be helped, costs to be less, and risks to be shared. Village Enterprise is flexible because it is easily adaptable to various contexts with a focus on vulnerable populations, such as women, refugees, and youth to name a few.

This takes me back to the individual. By helping a refugee to start a business, Village Enterprise doesn’t just start a business. We are enabling a family to send their children to school. We are enabling a family to not have to marry their daughter at a young age to provide for her needs. We are enabling individuals to think bigger and have hope for the future and resilience for the challenges ahead.

How do we know it works? Village Enterprise participated in a large scale, independent third-party randomized control trial. This trial proved the program to be both high impact and cost-effective. Our program led to increases in all the poverty alleviation indicators evaluated: consumption, assets, savings, and income. Significant improvements were also found in food security, nutrition, and subjective well-being, as well as enhanced standing of the women in the community.

We are also proud to say that Impact Matters completed a thorough evidence-gathering audit that we are the most cost-effective poverty alleviation program in Africa. By receiving training and resources in small groups, business owners are able to confidently share their knowledge and share the risks associated with starting a small business.

We have countless (well, I guess we counted and reached one million…) stories about lives touched by going through our program. As with many of our entrepreneurs, once we have trained them in how to start a business and participate in a savings group, the business owners begin to see opportunities all around them. Many of the people I met in Africa now run multiple businesses. Catherine, for example, still works closely with her business partners rearing sheep and has a small poultry business on her own. She and her partners have also begun selling silverfish at the market. Another woman I met in Uganda realized once she had her first business up and running that she had a mango tree in her yard. After going through the Village Enterprise program, she began to gather the mangos that she and her family used to eat, and she started to sell them at the market to pay to send her children to school.

My husband and I have been so excited about the successes that we have seen again and again with Village Enterprise that we decided to invest in the very first Development Impact Bond (DIB) for poverty alleviation in Sub-Saharan Africa because Village Enterprise was chosen out of a field of organizations to implement their program. This DIB shows that Village Enterprise can scale with impact.

Village Enterprise is the only nonprofit to get the top ratings and recommendations from all of these organizations: Charity Navigator, Great Nonprofits, Guidestar, The Life You Can Save, Impact Matters, and Founder’s Pledge. While it is great to have these endorsements, I am most proud of our highly talented local African staff. Over 95% of our staff are local Africans who care deeply about innovating our program to have the highest impact with sustainable results.

I may not be counted as one of the million lives influenced by the Village Enterprise program, but my life has certainly changed by being a part of its story. My kids think about the privileges that they have in a new way. My son talks about the man he met in Uganda who makes soap to sell at the market, how hard it was to stir the vat of soap, and how grateful he was that the man encouraged him to try. My daughter remembers the kids that enthusiastically took her to the hand washing station in their village to proudly show her that they had learned the importance of hand washing and hygiene as part of a Village Enterprise partnership.

If you want to hear more stories of individual lives changed as a result of Village Enterprise, I encourage you to go watch a few short videos or read some stories here.

Katie Boland has been the Village Enterprise Board Chair since 2019. She is the co-founder of The Delta Fund, an organization focused on supporting and growing provable and scalable efforts to alleviate extreme poverty. Katie is on the board of several nonprofits and consults with organizations working to decrease disadvantages in the current societal systems. Prior to her work on The Delta Fund Katie worked as an educator, teacher trainer and in curriculum development. She has been an advisor for education improvement initiatives. Katie holds a B.S. in Biology and Natural Sciences & Mathematics from Washington & Lee University and an M.Ed. in Science Education from Vanderbilt University. She lives in Bellevue, Washington with her husband and two children.

The post One Million Reached, One Business at a Time appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Zita Akwero, Field Associate

Nwoya, Uganda:

“I am proud to be working with women in our program because they are the backbone of every nation. When you empower one, you have empowered the whole nation. And when you want to cause change, you begin with a woman. You will be amazed by the impact it will create. Women are selfless.”

 

 

 

 

Terry Shiundu, Director of Talent Management

Nairobi, Kenya:

“God has given women the natural ability to nurture, tend, care for, and grow things. At Village Enterprise, we have been entrusted by our donors and partners to impact the lives of the people we serve. With over 75% of our business owners being women, when we empower them with entrepreneurial skills, we’re working towards ending extreme poverty. No one wants to be poor and no one ever thought… ‘how nice it is to live in poverty’… not at all! We all strive and have the vision to be better, to have richer lives, to have the ability and means to provide for our families, and there’s dignity for women in having the opportunity to make a difference for our families and to see our children go to school and have a meal every day. As women, we pride ourselves in the ability to nurture our families and that’s why I’m proud to be part of the Village Enterprise family. I know that my input as an individual in the work that I do, and the resources we invest as an organization, is making a difference in the world, albeit in a small way through the millions of households that can now have hope for a better tomorrow!

We’re challenging the status quo belief that poverty is the way of life for these communities. Women are now rising to leadership positions, are bold for change and driving the agenda because they have seen first hand that it is possible!   Happy International Women’s day to all ‘Villagers’ and the women who have been directly or indirectly impacted by our work… and to the many more who will!’

 

Nancy Shikuri, Field Associate

Kitale, Kenya:

“You will never regret investing in a woman. Every woman is unique, smart, and believes in herself and does not forget her willingness to change. Once a woman is empowered, the whole society will benefit.”

 

 

 

 

Donah Chilo, Monitoring and Evaluation Manager

Kitale, Kenya:

“Diane Mariechild once said that a woman is a full circle. Within her is the power to create, nurture and transform. However, there is still more that needs to be done so as to tap into that reservoir of power and talent. If you take a closer look at our communities, you’ll realize that for a long time, women have been trusted with keeping and maintaining a home. This includes, and not limited to, budget making, food production, among other things. This they have done diligently. However, they have limited access to finances and decision making. Personally, I have had an opportunity to taste the sweet experience of women’s empowerment. My guardians (women) taught me to be resilient, hardworking, to be a go-getter, and to never give up on my dreams. That is what women’s empowerment creates. Empowerment is not just about giving someone a fishing rod instead of a fish, but rather it goes deeper into showing this person how well to use the fishing rod. Having said this, I believe women’s empowerment is the sweetest thing that can ever happen to a woman.”

The post Village Enterprise Women Write: Why We Empower Women in Our Communities appeared first on Village Enterprise.

At Village Enterprise, she is not one, but many.

Next Wednesday, March 8, is International Women’s Day. We will be using this day as an opportunity to look around at the incredible women on our team that inspire us and taking a moment to thank them.

On Wednesday, everyone at Village Enterprise will reach out to a woman on our team who inspires them, and thank her.

We are immensely proud of the accomplishments and dedication of our female staff. We are also extrememly grateful for our male collegues who empower us every single day. So in addition to thanking our inspiring female colleagues, we will also be thanking the men on our team who are examples of feminism and go above and beyond in their efforts to empower our female staff.

We invite you to join us. Next Wednesday, reach out to woman in your life who has inspired you or a man who has empowered you. And thank them. 

Be sure to tell us you’ve joined us by tweeting at us @village_ent next Wednesday and include the hashtag #thankher!

The post Thank her. Join us in celebrating International Women’s Day on March 8! appeared first on Village Enterprise.

In the beginning, Agnes and her two other business owners started raising chickens but went out of business when disease wiped out all their chickens. It was a fatal blow to their business and they were left with nothing. However, this did not discourage them. They joined Village Enterprise’s microenterprise development program and today they are successfully running a retail grocery business that is now helping Agnes fulfill all of her family’s needs. She believes that her business became successful because “she worked hard and chose to place her business in a strategic location”, the market center. Today, Agnes can feed herself, her husband and all five of their kids 3 meals a day, every day.

Agnes’s says her favorite part of the Village Enterprise program is training. Through the program Agnes has learned how to plant new crops via S.M.A.R.T. and has been trained on basic business principles that leads to profits. Moreover, she has learned conservation practices and now helps by planting trees in her local area. Agnes says, “Village Enterprise is hope.”

Join our #WomenStrong campaign on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram! We are excited that for this week only for every new “Like” to our social media page we will donate 1 year of business training for 1 woman entrepreneur!

https://www.facebook.com/VillageEnterprise.org

@village_ent / https://twitter.com/village_ent

@village_enterprise / http://instagram.com/village_enterprise

The post Business Owner Profile: Agnes Mulanda appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Tuesday, November 27^th is Giving Tuesday, a day to celebrate the great American tradition of generosity.  Inspired by Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday is a way for all people to give back to their communities, favorite causes, and the world.  The goal is for 2012 to be the biggest giving season yet!

Village Enterprise is proud to be a partner and supporter of this new holiday and we want YOU to get involved.

With $33 you can permanently lift someone out of poverty.  By helping Village Enterprise equip the ultra-poor in East Africa with the resources to create sustainable businesses, you transform lives and communities.  Our program combines seed capital grants with extensive business training and year-long mentoring.  Our program also creates business savings groups, comprised of 30 business owners. Business savings groups enable rural families to save money and have access to loans in order to reinvest and expand their businesses. For the first time, business owners are empowered and can provide for their families.

Think about where you would be without your job, your education, health care, a home to live in, and a healthy diet.  Income generated from a Village Enterprise business boosts ALL of these aspects of life for the rural poor. And with as little as $33 you can positively impact someone’s life forever.  Now that is a bang for your buck!

For the past two weeks, Village Enterprise has been sharing what we are thankful for as an organization.  See for yourself on our Facebook page. Today, and every day, we are very thankful for our amazing donors who have made our successful programs possible. By giving, you have an opportunity to be a part of this influential group of people.

Our business owners are also tremendously thankful for you because each donation directly impacts their lives.  Many of them have shared their thanks for you in a video. Please watch below.

Thank You From Village Enterprise Business Owners

We hope that you will take this opportunity to participate in Giving Tuesday and transform the life of someone living in extreme poverty in East Africa.

Village Enterprise is thankful for you this season.

Whitney Hooper
Marketing & Development Intern

The post #GivingTuesday appeared first on Village Enterprise.

As Thanksgiving approaches we want to encourage you to think about this question.

On Monday, we launched our Share Your Thanks Campaign on Facebook and Twitter. Each day of the week we are posting a new photo to our page expressing gratitude.

Here is an example:

As you reflect on the past year, we hope you will look through our pictures and SHARE the posts that resonate with you.

Did you switch careers this year, and are grateful for your new job and the excitement it brings? Maybe your family went through a challenging time and you are thankful for strong relationships with each member?  Perhaps, the mere fact that you have a roof over your head and know where your next meal is coming from is enough to make you thankful.

Village Enterprise is extremely thankful for our donors who support our programs as well as our business owners and their families in East Africa.  As an organization, we want to know what you, our supporters, are thankful for.

We will continue sharing our thanks on Facebook next week, so you can check for more expressions of gratitude and beautiful images. Please take this as an opportunity to SHARE Your Thanks and remember that Village Enterprise is thankful for you!

Whitney Hooper
Marketing & Development Intern

The post Share Your Thanks appeared first on Village Enterprise.

This summer, you can help those living in extreme poverty grow sustainable sunflower businesses by taking 10 seconds to LIKE Village Enterprise on Facebook. For Every LIKE 10 grams of Sunflower Seeds are donated to plant sunflowers in Uganda as a part of the Summer Sunflower Campaign. Help achieve the goal of reaching 3,000 LIKES and starting 50 sunflower businesses!

How it works:

For each LIKE 10 grams of sunflower seeds are donated. Seeds and other farming inputs are coupled with training and mentoring to create businesses.  With 1,800 additional LIKES on Facebook, Village Enterprise will start 50 Sunflower Businesses this summer! This is a simple, easy, and free way to support Village Enterprise and those living in extreme poverty in Uganda.

Here is what you can do to help:

–LIKE the facebook page Here

–EMAIL as many people as possible to spread the word about our campaign!

-Use the SHARE button to share Village Enterprise’s Page (Find the SHARE button by clicking the wheel emblem under the cover photo and choosing SHARE.  You can share your message on your timeline or on a friend’s.)

–MESSAGE your friends, include this link to our page

–PROMOTE Village Enterprise by writing a status that includes @Village Enterprise and by liking/commenting on all of our new posts about the campaign. This way your friends will learn all about us!

About Village Enterprise:

In rural Uganda 60% of the population lives below the poverty line. Village Enterprise equips people living in extreme poverty with the resources to create sustainable businesses. Sunflower Business are just one kind of the over 25,000 small businesses Village Enterprise has trained, funded, and mentored in East Africa in our history.

LIKE Village Enterprise on Facebook and let’s watch these Summer Sunflower businesses grow!

The post Summer Sunflowers for Sustainable Development! appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Over the past year, you have helped make the difference in the lives of over 6,600 people like Jonah – hard-working people who are lifting themselves out of extreme poverty. You have provided them with seed capital, business and financial literacy training, and mentoring to start over 2,200 sustainable businesses.  You have given them and their children hope and a brighter future.

For 25 years, Village Enterprise has given East African fathers and mothers the opportunity to work their way out of poverty – and toward economic self-sufficiency – through income-producing small businesses. Parents use this sustainable income to serve more complete meals,send more children to school, purchase more needed medical care, and provide safer, more comfortable homes.

This Father’s Day we invite you to join us in this effort and help an East African father break the cycle that locks his family into grinding poverty. Give a gift to Village Enterprise in honor of your dad, and download a nice card from our website.

The post A Message Of Gratitude For Father’s Day appeared first on Village Enterprise.