‘Do you want to slaughter the chicken?’

Harriet and Philomena are both looking at me expectedly as the bird wriggles under Harriet’s armpit. Behind them one-year-old Israel crawls back and forth across the immaculately swept floor of the compound, leaving little wet patches where he sits. Six-year-old Ken shimmies up the mango tree to attach a rope swing, completely ignored by his mother and grandmother as he balances precariously in the branches.

‘No thank you,’ I say, avoiding making eye contact with the soon-to-be dinner. ‘I’ve not done it before, and I think it’s best to leave to you. I can help with cooking though?’

Philomena nods, takes the chicken from her daughter, and disappears in the thatched hut that I believe is the kitchen and storeroom. Harriet frowns critically at my dress. ‘You need to cover up because of the fire,’ she tells me, and fetches a green scarf to wrap around my waist, protecting me from waist to ankles. I do as I’m told although this additional layer is vaguely torturous in the heat. In what seems like less time than it takes me to buy a chicken in Carrefour, Philomena is back with a dead, plucked animal.

‘I’m not actually a very good cook,’ I tell them both as I follow to the thatched hut that houses the charcoal fire. They both turn to stare at me, incredulous. I get the feeling they would be less surprised if I told them I had two heads than if I said I was a woman who didn’t know how to cook.

‘We can teach you!’ Harriet proclaims enthusiastically. Philomena agrees, but very quickly they decide that I am more hindrance than help. ‘Siobhan, take Auntie round the village with Chairman,’ Harriet instructs, shooing me away.

*

I have worked at Village Enterprise for the past six years, but this is the first time that I have spent a full 24 hours in one of the villages we serve. While I am passionate about our impact and team, can cite statistics, and have met many entrepreneurs we’ve trained, I learn very quickly in this visit to Opadoi Village that this is not enough. What I have been seeing is the Big Picture; but I have been missing the Whole Picture.

Let me explain another way. When I was a child I was given a ‘painting by numbers’ kit. This was a picture made up of lots of different small shapes, each one with a number in the middle. On the back there was a key that told me what color corresponded with what number. For example, all 1s were to be painted a spring green, all 2s a dark green, all 3s a deep blue, etc. The idea was that when the painter completed the picture, what had originally looked like a random collection of small shapes revealed a beautiful landscape.

At the start of the week I thought I had a pretty good understanding of what made up Village Enterprise’s beautiful landscape. However, impact, case studies, and drive-by field trips don’t capture the way that expressions flit across Philomena’s face like clouds across the sky on a windy day. They don’t capture the fierceness of Harriet’s hug, or the sweaty small of your back from dancing until the whole village collapses in exhaustion. They don’t capture the fact that although Village Enterprise is an important part of these people’s lives, they are not defined by their business success. It is almost as though a color is missing in the paint-by-numbers picture I had. I could see the Big Picture, but not the Whole Picture. I was missing the color that gives warmth, depth, and vibrancy.

I was missing the yellow.

*

Siobhan is seven years old and delighted to be appointed as one of my tour guides. She narrates life as only young children can; telling me so-and-so is fat, that those boys are definitely going to fall off the motorbike if they continue to drive like that, and all men like playing cards. A potentially unreliable guide on her own, she is joined by John, the Village Chairman. John was elected Chairman four years ago and takes his role extremely seriously. He is obviously well-respected by the village he serves, and seems related by blood or marriage to a good number of the households. As we walk I hear him remind a group of men sitting under a tarpaulin that bar-holes are not going to be open tonight, in honor of the visitor.

‘See! I told you!’ crows Siobhan as she notes the men are playing cards.

‘Yoga,’ I say, greeting the men who smile at me and gesture me to join their game, in spite of the fact I have potentially ruined any fun plans they may have had for later.

‘We need to keep going,’ John tells them, marching me forward. ‘We have a lot to see.’

There are a total of 114 households in the village, with an unpaved road running through the center. In the time I am there I don’t see any cars; most people are either walking or riding bicycles. There is no power (although plenty of houses have small solar lights and some also have solar radios), and jerry cans snake in queues as women gather at the water points. Most of the village is navigated by small, dusty paths that weave between homes and dry grass. ‘Climate change,’ John tells me. ‘It makes our businesses hard.’

The first house we visit belongs to Deborah. She sees us in the distance and starts running towards her compound, carrying a chair for me to sit on. Her home is typical of the rest in the village; a dusty plot of earth surrounded by small, thatched huts–each one a separate room with a separate function. Deborah shakes my hand and smiles shyly as I compliment her on her Village Enterprise t-shirt. She tells me that the Business Savings Group all saved to buy matching t-shirts. I am told to sit on the chair, and Siobhan perches on the tree trunk that serves as a second seat.

‘No Siobhan!’ I tell her, ‘Deborah is the grown up, so she gets to sit down!’ Siobhan rolls her eyes at me and disappears to play with some of the children that have been following us since we left.

‘I used to be the one who begged for food at my neighbors,’ Deborah begins. ‘But now that I have a business, I can feed all my children.’ As she says the last part she visibly grows in stature. I ask her what her business is, and she describes that after Village Enterprise’s training she interviewed her neighbors and found there was a demand for fish.

‘That’s right,’ John confirms. ‘Everyone comes to Deborah’s house now when they want to buy small fish.’

Deborah has seven children, and is so proud she can now feed them and afford medicine. As we walk to the next house I ask John what this means for gender relations and whether it caused any problems. ‘Oh no. Actually, we men were having a lot of pressure to get money for the family and we are happy it is now a team effort!’

The crowd of children following us is growing in number and Siobhan takes my hand proprietarily. Emboldened, another little girl pushes forward from the group to take my other hand, and the rest trip along happily at our heels.

‘This is Janet,’ John says, introducing me to an older woman when we arrive at the next household. ‘She is also a Village Enterprise participant.’

Janet is enthusiastically whooping and waving her arms. She pulls me into one of her huts and my eyes take a moment to adjust to the sudden darkness. One side of the hut is portioned off with a blanket hanging down. She reaches underneath and finds what she is looking for–a plastic basket. Opening this she shows me a mat, some plates, and some mugs. John is poking his head in the doorway. ‘She is showing you what she bought with her SWAP savings!’

‘Wow! They are very beautiful!’

Janet nods in delighted agreement and wants to be photographed with her new belongings.

Siobhan meanwhile has badgered one of Janet’s adult children to shake some mangoes from the tree. ‘Shiv! They’re not ripe!’ the man says in futile protest, even as he starts shaking the tree. Siobhan just shrugs, concentrating on trimming her fingernails with a razor blade she found on the floor. A couple of mangos fall down.

‘I’ve just realized!’ the man says, handing them to her, ‘At dinner last night you said that expecting mothers like unripe mangos… your Mum is having another baby?!’

John smiles at this sideshow and turns his attention back to me and Janet. ‘Village Enterprise has really changed this community,’ he says. Janet adds something as I show her the photos I have taken on my phone. ‘She says she was the one playing the drum when you were dancing,’ he translates. ‘And she will do it again later.’ My big smile is swept aside by an enthusiastic hug before we proceed to the next household.

‘This must be the last one,’ John tells me. ‘Philomena will be waiting for us.’

Siobhan’s hand is now sticky from mango juice, adding to the layer of sunscreen, sweat, and dust I am coated in. ‘We are lucky because you have come to see us, Auntie,’ she confides as we trek along the path, side-by-side.

‘No,’ I correct, ‘I am lucky because I have come to see you.’

Siobhan pauses a moment, squints up at me, and then nods at the veracity of this statement. ‘Yes. You are lucky to come and see us.’

I recognize the owner of the next household from our dancing earlier in the day. Her energy and smile had been unmatched as she danced for joy, not for Instagram.

John says his greeting and then turns to me. ‘This is Alice. Her business is cassava.’

We walk thirty meters behind Alice’s compound and there is cassava drying in the sun, a machine for grinding, and several bags ready to take to market. I ask Alice about her business, and she tells me that this is something that she did before Village Enterprise. I am initially surprised, as we consistently refer to our participants as ‘first-time entrepreneurs,’ but of course. Of course people like Alice aren’t just sitting around waiting for help. Of course they are trying to do something.

‘What’s different now?’

Alice looks puzzled.

‘I mean, compared to before Village Enterprise?’

‘My children are in school and we eat different foods.’

I nod enthusiastically. ‘That’s wonderful! But what made the difference?’

Both Alice and John seem non-plussed by this question. It takes several attempts at asking it in different ways before Alice understands what I am asking. ‘We now make a profit,’ she tells me. ‘And if we are not making a profit, we know we need to change the business.’

‘So the business was not making money before?’

‘No–we didn’t know how to make money.’

‘Or how to know if they were making money,’ John adds. ‘Because they weren’t thinking of profit or record-keeping.’

Alice eyes up the bags of cassava. ‘But even now lots of people are doing cassava. We are thinking that we might change to millet to make more profit. And I have planted greens in my garden for my own household business.’

As we contemplate this decision an elderly gentleman approaches on his bicycle.

‘Ah, this is also John!’ John says. ‘John is one of our savings group treasurers and a village elder, and is joining us for dinner.’

John dismounts and greets us. We say goodbye to Alice, and John pushes his bike behind me. Siobhan has disappeared–hopefully to give some mangoes to her mother before she eats them all herself, although I have my doubts.

‘John has a very good business,’ John the Chairman tells me.

John the Treasurer nods. ‘I sell hides. Skins of animals.’

It’s hard work, he tells me, and no one else wants to clean the skins so everyone knows that he is the one to do it. He has been doing the business for years, but it is only since Village Enterprise that he has managed to make a profit. Before he didn’t know how to run a business–only how to clean hides. He is now doing very well.

‘So well,’ John the Chairman adds as we arrive back at Philomena’s, ‘That he managed to pay for his neighbor to take her son to hospital when he had a motorbike accident yesterday.’ John the Treasurer acknowledges this with only the slightest flicker of his mouth as he props up his bicycle.

Village Enterprise often talks about Ubuntu being our north-star value, and not for the first time I see how brightly this star shines in Opadoi Village. Obviously brighter than I am currently shining, as Harriet takes one look at me and instructs me to bathe before dinner. By the time I return from my bucket shower it is getting dark.

‘Switch off the light,’ Chairman John tells me. ‘We do it natural.’

I obey and the night sky above stretches out with an impossible number of stars. We eat in the moonlight; tearing the chicken with our hands.

‘The whole village says they are sleeping with Auntie Mzungu tonight,’ Harriet says with a laugh. She and Philomena are eating on a mat on the ground with the children, while the men and I sit on chairs in front of a low table. ‘But it is really only me, Ken, and Israel.’

I suspect the fact we shared a room for a night will be a story that Harriet tells for many years to come. And I know that it will be a story that I tell for many years to come.

For today is the day that Opadoi Village helped me to find the missing yellow.

The post The Missing Yellow appeared first on Village Enterprise.

– 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.

As I turn the corner at the bottom of a hilly dirt road, I see a white tent on the right-hand side. It stands tall and sturdy and is ready to welcome members of the community. I imagine a wedding party with hundreds of guests dancing and celebrating the newlywed couple — there would be music playing and people circulating in and out of the tent. As I approach it, I see plastic chairs arranged in rows under the tent. A few people sit waiting. As I walk in, I take a seat amongst the dozen people who own the tent and we begin to converse.

I travel all over Uganda and Kenya meeting with our business owners. I ask them about their progress and challenges, and we discuss the impact Village Enterprise has had upon their lives; their kids are in school, families are eating three meals a day, and they now have time to think about more than where to find money for food. I often hear about the way the program creates stronger communities, namely because the three-person businesses require people to work together and share their varying skills. But, I had never seen a business group of thirty people (!) working on a group project until I met two outside of Kitale, Kenya that were: Hunter’s Business Savings Group and Liondo Business Savings Group.

The Village Enterprise Graduation program is recognized as successful because it addresses the needs of people living in extreme poverty. One way we do this is by creating a culture of saving. Village Enterprise works with our participants to form self-managed Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) that we call Business Savings Groups (BSGs). Saving as a group is vital, because once Village Enterprise completes our 1-year program, the savings groups remain. BSGs continue to meet at their regular time and pool savings for future business expenditures as well as for loans to other BSG group members for medical care, school fees, etc.. In case of an emergency, the group is there, prepared to help anyone in a dire position so that unplanned expenses do not plunge them back into extreme poverty.

In January 2018, the aforementioned business saving groups decided to begin putting away money in order to purchase tents and chairs. They knew that their neighbors were traveling great distances to rent tents for weddings, funerals, and other functions, so they wanted to provide a local service. The local market was there and they knew this tent business would be a profitable venture. The BSG members saw this as a great way to make some extra money, in addition to running their original businesses started with Village Enterprise.

The group knew it would take a while to accumulate the large sum of money required to make the purchase. Hunter’s Business Savings Group needed to save $925 to purchase a large tent and Liondo Business Savings Group needed to save $650 for a small tent and chairs. In February 2018, the sixty group members began contributing 100ksh ($1.00) each week, which totaled $30 per group per week.

By September 2018, the Hunter’s and Liondo Business BSGs had saved enough money to purchase the tents and chairs. They now rent the big tent for $30 per event and the smaller one for $20. They plan on expanding this unique business by creating a catering service to go along with the venue.

What is the benefit of having a group business? “It brings us together. If someone wants to quit the BSG, this will bring her back because she has interest,” the chairman of the Hunter’s Business Savings Group mentioned. It has also motivated people in the community who aren’t already in a BSG to join one because they see the benefit of working together. These BSGs have helped eliminate tribalism between members of the groups; it’s bonded them together and created less divide.

In addition, the members of Hunter’s Business Savings Group and Liondo Business Savings Group feel as though they have built up their names and are more respected because of this project. People in the community now see them as an inspiration rather than the low, poor people they were before Village Enterprise.

As I sit under the large white tent, it’s hard to believe that something seemingly so simple could change a community so drastically. But it has and listening to the business owners discuss their dedication to the project is truly exciting. It made me wonder what would happen if more BSGs around Kenya and Uganda came together and started similar projects. This type of creative endeavor starts from someone realizing that there is something missing in their community and takes the initiative to find a solution. This is one reason why the Village Enterprise program is so impactful. By providing the extremely poor with a way to escape the cycle of poverty, the participants are able to think about more than where their next meal will come from or how to pay school fees. They have the capacity to start noteworthy projects, such as this tent business. And that tent business will carry on for many, many years and continue to positively impact the community for a great deal of time.

The post How A Party Tent Changed a Kenyan Village  appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Village Enterprise works in rural East Africa where over 60% of the population lives below the global extreme poverty line of $1.90 per day, and where little or no formal employment exists. By equipping these first-time entrepreneurs with the tools and resources to create sustainable three-person businesses — training, mentoring, $150 in seed capital, and access to savings and growth capital — we break the cycle of poverty for our entrepreneurs and their families. Since 1987, Village Enterprise has started over 43,000 businesses and already trained more than 169,000 East Africans.
This is the story of Anik’s transformative “Fund-a-Village” donation for the village of Sabwani Marinda.

It’s a bright, sunny day in Sabwani Marinda when Monica Sitienei, a mother of six and a kiosk business owner, leads me through a field of green grass. We pass a cluster of saplings, greet a group of villagers, and the distinct sound of pig squeals becomes audible. We come across a makeshift gate, enter, and face a large barn made from mud and sticks. Two women and a man work together with fixed determination to capture their six pigs which they are eager to show off to us.

After the three business owners gather their swine, Monica conducts introductions: Florence Jeptekei, Beatrice Tengan, and Richard Simatwa own the piggery together. They show me their growing pigs and the barn where they are kept at night. They proudly explain how they used their Village Enterprise grant to begin a small garden, where they raised tomatoes and greens. They sold the produce and used their savings to purchase the profitable pigs.

When I ask how their lives have changed since they started the business, they instantly begin sharing various examples. Richard mentions that he is now able to pay for school fees and uniforms so that his children can go to school. He also saved enough money to pay for his son’s wedding.

“We used to be weak and tired,” Florence explains, “and now we have energy.”

These tangible transformations are common amongst the fifteen business groups that I interviewed in this small village in northern Kenya.

The businesses in this small village were funded by Lurn Inc., a platform founded by Anik Singal in 2004 that strives to empower others to create and grow passion-based businesses. With the $25,000 grant from Lurn, Inc., Village Enterprise trained 150 new entrepreneurs, started 50 new three-person businesses, and transformed the lives of approximately 1,000 children, women, and men. Each new business improves the standard of living for approximately 20 individuals based on the average family size in the region. At Village Enterprise, we look to partners like Lurn, Inc. to fund the implementation of our one-year, cost-effective Graduation program that empowers the rural extreme poor to lift themselves out of poverty through the income and savings generated from small sustainable businesses.

As we continue along our journey, we arrive at a large open field where two older men stand proudly in the middle of their cabbage patch. Esokori Etabo and Marko Ewoi attribute the success of their business to the Village Enterprise agriculture training they received. Since starting the business, they have earned 250,000ksh ($2,500) and have been able to purchase a generator to pump water for their irrigation system. They grow and sell tomatoes and cabbage and own a cow and a sheep. They now even employ others to help with the day-to-day upkeep of their farm.

 

Monica leads us away from the field and onto a long dirt road. In front of us is a herd of brown cows that slowly walk in our direction. “That one is mine,” Monica says when the cows pass us. She was able to buy a cow with the profits earned from the small business she owns with Caroline Simiyu and Lomeyen Kerio. The small produce stand is positioned on the edge of the main road that runs through their village. It’s an opportune spot to sell small bags of flour, handmade donuts, dried fish, seasoning, and packets of dish soap. The three women harmoniously work together to care for their sheep, travel to town to purchase new stock and sell their wares. “I used to depend on my husband, which caused so much conflict. But now I have my own source of money. I can even put my children in private school,” Caroline said as she poured a small amount of sugar into a piece of newspaper which had been folded into a cone shape.

The next business is run by Elizabeth Kamboy, Sally Chirchir, and Janet Najala, three women who make and sell soap. They initially started a cake baking business, but due to low profits, they chose to redirect their efforts. They used some of their earnings to send Elizabeth to the local Women’s Empowerment Center to attend a workshop on soap making, which is more profitable and less competitive than a bakery business. They have earned around $1,000 and plan to invest in a machine that will help them make bar soap. “I like my business because it feeds us. It has also built our name in the community.” The women supply soaps and detergents to local schools. They are genuinely content with the way their business has changed their lives and do not miss the days when they dug holes and harvested corn for other people.

These businesses in Sabwani Marinda have changed the community forever. There is less conflict and more peace. Women and men are independently earning their own money. Children are in school. And most are eating three meals a day. It is hard to believe that prior to the Lurn Fund-a-Village initiative, food was challenging for most of the business owners to procure. Now? They’ve saved enough money to pay for weddings, college, water pumps, solar lights, and their mindsets have changed. They see potential in their businesses and want to work together to expand and diversify.

Seeing how Sabwani Marinda changed in such a substantial and encouraging way through the Lurn Fund-a-Village initiative shows how investing in entrepreneurs — even those who begin their journeys in extreme poverty — is transformative with results that speak for themselves. As I said goodbye to Monica, she asked that I return one day to see how her village continues to change. I can’t wait to see what’s to come in this bright, flourishing community full people who are determined to continue on this great path of success.

The post Transformative results in Sabwani Marinda village sponsored by Lurn, Inc. appeared first on Village Enterprise.

My situation was not unique amongst my neighbors in rural Kisumu, Kenya. The average number of dependants per household would average ten to fifteen, and to add to this extended family members from afar would also be at the table. This meant more hungry mouths to be fed.

As if that was not enough, our living conditions were deplorable. A dilapidated hovel was our home, thatched roof, a tin door, and the walls were made of a mixture of dung and mud. When it rained, mostly at night, you had to hold a cup directly to a spot where rain droplets were penetrating the roof. This caused sleeplessness, yet sleep would always win this battle and we would wake up with the flu or a congested chest and wet bedding.

Thugs would break into our home and steal the little that was available. It was an easy task for them. All they needed was a jerry can of water which, when dribbled onto the mud wall next to the door lock, would cause the wall to disintegrate – leaving the door at the mercy of the intruder. This was a common occurrence.

My parents would do nothing. Despondency was written all over their faces. Their only solace was the word of God from a dog-eared Bible that was placed near a tin lamp which was oozing with soot from the kerosene combustion. As if to mock us, the three-legged firewood cooking stove would emit spasms of smoke into our small room adding to the misery we were already facing.

Mum would break into a sad religious hymn, humming away her troubles and signaling to us that it was late, we had to sleep, there was no hope, nothing to look forward to. Nevertheless, rest was inevitable and off we drifted into a heavy slumber. Occasionally we would be awakened by the sound of barking dogs or nightmares of being carried away by floods.

Our situation epitomized the definition of poverty. Our lives were not only proximate to despair but were interwoven into a complex continuous web; the cycle of poverty packaged and delivered from one generation to another.

My parents owned a struggling dried fish business. They were in deep debt because they thought micro-finance institutions would rescue their business, but the opposite was the case. Instead, they would end up losing the little they had, including some of the meager family assets, such as chickens and goats. I lost my favorite rabbit to the ruthless debt collector officers. To say that the loans moved them from one level of desolation to another is an understatement. The emotional and financial burden would drive any sane human to suicide.

And then came the day I remember so vividly. I can recall the elated face that my mum wore as she prepared the food for the evening. The tune to her normal hymn had changed and now there was a twist to the words sung — words of hope. I had to ask what had changed. To cut a long story short, an organization had given my parents a grant and entrepreneurship training to boost their business. They never looked back and this was an opportunity that allowed them to lift themselves out of that frantic situation before poverty could snuff the life out of all of us.

The business was thriving and the family income had increased considerably. This provided us with the opportunity to go to school, and the freedom to visualize and build the future we so desired. We had much to look forward to, rather than worry about whether we would eat a meal or not. We could now afford a radio and listen to what was happening around the world, and later a TV was purchased which concreted our ambitions.

That was 30 years ago. My situation changed because of an organization like Village Enterprise that dared to touch people that other organizations did not want to go to: the ultra-poor.

Village Enterprise has been paving a pathway out of poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa for the last three decades, or to put it another way, for almost my whole lifetime. t wasn’t Village Enterprise that came to my specific community, but the approaches are very similar. By providing entrepreneurship training, grants to support micro-enterprises, and the much-needed mentoring, Village Enterprise ensures that people like my parents can enjoy a life free of extreme poverty.

At the 2018 Skoll World Forum the conversation was anchored on the power of proximity, summed up as: – “In order to address inequality and injustice, we must more deeply understand the current status quo—and how to disrupt it. There is no other way to do this than to engage with and be close to, the people and communities facing deep and persistent biases of all kinds. We heard from community leaders, activists, social entrepreneurs, and innovators who brought a profound appreciation of our shared challenges and who have worked from within and side-by-side with communities to find solutions”. Let us ponder this idea. What does proximity mean to us at Village Enterprise?

Village Enterprise embraces the power of proximity. Changing the narrative that sustains problems, unraveling the realities that face the families rather than relying on assumptions and blanket thinking. Involving those in dire need of attention and moving meticulously from conversations concerning awareness of the situation faced by people like my parents and me proximity allows Village Enterprise to differentiate itself from shallow, costly interventions and concentrate on what really works: a cost-effective graduation model out of poverty.

Giving opportunity to those who need it most, through support, not handouts. We do not believe in coming up with theoretical farfetched solutions without involving the people who face the problems. Our field staff is local, they identify the problems, and we work together on solutions. They are the ones who provide our training and entrepreneurship coaching.

Village Enterprise operates in close proximity to those living in extreme poverty both geographically and strategically. We believe in local leadership, and this ensures we immerse ourselves deeply into the context of the ultra-poor in the society. We cannot be problem solvers from a distance and we are not afraid of getting our hands dirty.

Adopting tried and tested methodologies like Human-Centered Design (HCD) and data-driven decision-making, Village Enterprise has ensured the program has the end user in mind by addressing the components of the problem, not the symptoms. This is our pride.

It does not end here. The story above is my true story. And today I, the Senior Innovations Manager at Village Enterprise for Kenya and Uganda, stationed at the Kitale Office, interact with Business Mentors and Field Coordinators during our bi-weekly meetings to brainstorm a number of challenges that they are facing in the field. I am giving back to society and contributing towards changing lives.

With my education, a blend of local and international exposure, my childhood experiences, the team of dedicated colleagues, the support and faith in the leadership of Village Enterprise, we continue to fight against the scourge of poverty. And certainly, we are winning this war. I am more than glad to be part of this movement. Yes! A movement. A Movement, because we are not just an ordinary organization, we are a movement of like-minded people ready to end extreme poverty in the world. That is our vision.
If you doubt it, check out our Randomized Control Trial (RCT) results carried out in Uganda:

Randomized Control Trial: http://villageenterprise.org/our-impact/rct/
Development Impact Bond: http://villageenterprise.org/our-impact/development-impact-bond/

Dan Ouko joined Village Enterprise as a Program Innovations Manager (Kenya and Uganda) in September, 2017. He has nine-plus years experience working in different organizations and regions in East Africa. He has a background in Sustainable Livelihoods Development and Project Management, and he has undertaken other short courses in Strategic Management and Business Management.

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“We feel so empowered!” exclaimed one of the women in Bed Mot savings group in Olwelai Village. Empowerment. It’s a buzzword. As with many buzzwords in the development industry its meaning tends to be ambiguous, flexible, and overused. And yet there I was, sitting in rural Uganda, being told by our business owners that they felt empowered. Empowerment may be a buzzword. It is also a concrete result of our program.

One thing  I love about the Village Enterprise program is that female empowerment is participant driven. We know that our program radically transforms lives and has the potential to empower women. We also know that empowerment cannot be given; it must be embodied and embraced by the empowered. Over 80% of our business owners are women, partly because women are more likely to live in extreme poverty,  but also because they choose to be part of our program—they see in the Village Enterprise model and opportunity to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. When we target a household and invite them into our program, we leave it to them to determine which family member should participate. 80% of the time, households choose a female household member to join our program in order to benefit their family.

While meeting with the members of Bed Mot (Be Humble) Savings Group in Olwelai, it became clear to me that for many households, the decision to have a woman participate is simple. As Ajabo Nora put it, “Women know everything that goes on in the household—when school fees are due, what is lacking, and what can wait to be purchased until the next week. When women create income from a Village Enterprise business, they invest in the needs of their families.” As a result, the collective impact of the program goes beyond the individual business owner and even their family. Studies show that when a woman generates her own income, she will invest 90% of it back into her family compared to 35% a man will invest. Women prioritize things like health care, nutritious food, and education. As a result, a child in a household where the mother controls the budget is 20% more likely to survive — and much more likely to thrive. Increasing the bargaining power of women has the potential to create a virtuous cycle as female spending supports the development of human capital, which in turn will fuel economic growth in the years ahead. Nora and her peers agreed that they have seen positive changes in the well-being of their entire community since Village Enterprise began working there. One of those changes is the tangible sense of empowerment shared among the women in Bed Mot savings group.

I asked the women gathered under the mango tree in Olwelai what empowerment means to them,  and to share day-to-day examples that demonstrate their newfound sense of what it looks like. From owning a chicken, to riding on a motorcycle these women have embodied and embraced what it means to be empowered.

Ageyo Francis Janet tracks weekly savings for her savings group.

My favorite example came from Ageyo Janet Francis. Janet is the secretary of her Business Savings Group. She met Anthony, our field coordinator, and I on her bicycle to lead us to meet her savings group. As she pulled up on her bicycle, Anthony turned to me and said, “This is a strong woman.” I quickly witnessed the truth in these words. As Janet moderated our conversation with her peers, the dedication, confidence , and leadership, that she gained  through our program, shone through. She takes her work as secretary seriously, motivating and encouraging the others. For Janet, the best part of her agriculture retail business (buying and selling sorghum, sesame, and millet) is the sense of empowerment she feels as a woman. “In those days before we were in the group,” she explains, “it was only men who traveled to town to trade. Never women. If you found a woman sitting on a motorcycle to go to town, you would be so surprised! But in these days, we stand before the men. We do business with them. We exchange with them! Now, you can find me taking a motorcycle to trade in town every week. We are no longer cowards like we were before Village Enterprise,” Janet concludes, “we have really felt the change as empowered women.”

The accomplishment that Janet is most proud of is being able to use her business to send her four children to private boarding school; three to secondary school and one to  a teacher’s training college. I asked Janet what she would tell her daughters, who now have an opportunity to attain an education that she did not, about what it means to be empowered. After taking a moment to think, she looked at me, eyes glowing with determination–a woman assured of her power–and said, “I would tell her that there is nothing on this earth that a man can do that a woman cannot also do.”

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Nwoya district is home to lush rolling green savannah.

This region has a complicated relationship with Murchison Falls, the nearby national park transected by the Nile. Elephants and other wildlife threaten the livelihoods of subsistence farmers as they roam freely, often disturbing and eating their crops. Furthermore, like much of Northern Uganda, Nwoya was devastated when the Lord’s Resistance Army’s terrorized the region in the nineties and early 2000s leaving tens of thousands of people dead, internally displaced, or haunted by the horror of the war. And yet, the two days I spent in Nwoya left me exhilarated and inspired. In the wake of harrowing tragedy and crippling poverty, Village Enterprise is partnering with Geneva Global to harness the power of entrepreneurship to send children to school.

Partnering with Geneva Global

Jacqueline’s daughter, Kennedy, demonstrates how she uses the tippy tap to wash her hand.

Our partnership with Geneva Global allows families living in extreme poverty to send their children to school and ensure that they stay there. Geneva Global’s Speed Schools cover the curriculum of the first three years of primary school in just one year. These schools target children who have never been to school or have been forced to drop out because their parents could not pay the fees. To ensure that children will be able to matriculate into a formal school upon completing the curriculum, each Speed School student’s parents participate in our program. 

Having a clean dry place to dry dishes prevents the spread of disease.

Using the profits from their businesses, parents dedicate a portion of their savings each week to a Savings With A Purpose (SWAP) fund to save for school fees. The program also includes a hygiene component that encourages families to construct WASH stations in their homes. WASH (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene) stations include a tippy tap for hand washing, a covered pit latrine, an enclosed bathing area, and a dish drying rack.

Meet Adong Jacqueline

One of Village Enterprise’s newest business owners, Adong Jacqueline is a widow who lives in Lamoki Village. The first thing I noticed about Jacqueline was her arms–pure muscle. This is a strong woman.

Dried silver fish are a staple food in East Africa.

Jacqueline told her story with humble determination. Jacqueline used her trainings and grant to start a small retail business. She buys and sells foodstuff, like dried silver fish. In the two short months since she started the Village Enterprise program, she has transformed her life and the lives of her six children.

Before entering the Village Enterprise program, Jacqueline was unable to pay school fees. She relied on finding petty labor to try and feed her family. She worked on other household’s farms and dug only a small piece of her own land, which rarely yielded enough to feed her six children. “I really used to have short vision, I could not think outside the box,” Jacqueline explains. At one time, Jacqueline’s oldest daughter was living with a relative who was paying her school fees. However when the relative could no longer afford the fees, she dropped out of school and returned home. Now, she is enrolled in a Speed School is progressing well. “Ever since she started she has never missed that school.” Jacqueline says. “Her mind has opened. The Speed School is really offering a quality education.”

Jacqueline explains her silver fish business.

Jacqueline’s passion and determination to transform her family’s life are inspiring. “Every time I went from the training I would come back and meditate on what I had learned and how I could do it well.” Jacqueline states simply. For example, “When they told us about WASH, I was like, ‘now what is the way forward?’…Before…I did not have the idea that there should be a rubbish pit or a toilet or wash facilities.” Pit latrines require a pit almost six feet deep and a covered toilet requires making and carrying dozens of heavy bricks. This didn’t phase Jacqueline. “I dug some soil and built the bricks and even that pit for the latrine, I was the one that made that hole and even if I stand in it, it is taller than me. I did it myself. I even made the blocks and constructed that toilet you have seen. Then from there, I moved to the rubbish pit. I constructed this bath shelter for two days and then I came to the drying rack. Now I’m very happy because now my home is just like a home where there’s a man but I’m a woman.” Jacqueline says with pride.

For Jacqueline, the most important part of the program was learning to adopt savings culture. “Because of the training, I am now saving.” She held up a 50,000 shilling note (about $15) and continued, “For now I am having this 50,000 Uganda shillings that I am going to pay the money (for school fees ) to that school,” she explained, pointing to a simple building across the road. “I strongly believe that my life has changed forever,” she tells me. “I am really full of hope. Because of the training, I am now in position to do everything that I thought I could not do. I have already seen…results and now I can’t even stop, I will just continue to do even better.”

While packing up my camera and preparing to head back to Nwoya town for the night I looked out over the rolling green bush and turned to Jacqueline. “Is there anything else you would like to add?” I asked. Jacqueline paused thoughtfully before saying, “I am pleading with Village Enterprise since you have heard my story. There are so many mothers that are just like me in my previous condition. Do not just stop with me, go ahead and bring in those other ones so that they can also see like what I have seen. This is my humble appeal to Village Enterprise.”

I looked at Jackie and smiled. Then I looked around to our team, “We’re trying,” I said.  

Jacqueline with her family and her business mentor, Winnie.

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Hannah and Zach (COO) visit with the team in Nwoya, Uganda

After only one month with Village Enterprise, one thing is clear to me: there is something exciting going on here. From the sense of humor that emanates from bi-weekly meetings with our Business Mentors, to the creativity and imagination of our Innovations team, to the rigor and extent of our Monitoring and Evaluations systems, to the joy of stepping out of the car on Disbursement Day–Village Enterprise’s culture is special. It is an organizational culture that seems to put our mission of ending extreme poverty in Africa within reach.  

I invite you to join me during my year as Village Enterprise’s Communications Fellow. Let me be your “eyes and ears” here in East Africa as I bring Village Enterprise’s unique program and powerful impact to life. My role gives me a perspective on the Village Enterprise program that is unlike anyone else’s. I can meet our business owners in their homes and meet our staff in their offices; I have access to both breadth and depth. Using this unique access, I will dive deep into Village Enterprise, uplifting stories, exploring innovations, offering reflections, and considering important questions. In doing so, I hope to bring a vivid and thoughtful understanding of Village Enterprise’s program to our community around the world.

This is an exciting year to be brought onto the team. With the addition of our first Chief Operating Officer to achieve our scaling goals, the release of our RCT results, and new emerging partnerships over the next twelve months, we are in a unique time in our history–a position of growth and potential. With Village Enterprise’s increasing visibility, comes a growing responsibility to fill the role of a thought leader in global development. We look forward to sharing the implications of our program for the eradication of extreme poverty across the globe. In an effort to do so, I hope to offer a holistic, well-rounded, and in-depth look at Village Enterprise’s programming. I intend to use this blog and other platforms to bridge the gap between the industry and the individual experience, to link theory and practice, and to reconcile big questions with daily challenges. Over the next few months I will launch a series examining, in detail, each stage of Village Enterprise’s program. From Targeting to Business Savings Groups I will share stories, challenges, and expert perspectives in order to demonstrate why each step of our innovative program is essential to our impact.  

Hannah with Village Enterprise business owner, Jackie Adong and her family in Nwoya, Uganda.

As we dive into this adventure together, you should know one thing, I am a firm believer in people. I believe in the power of narrative, assured that there is immense value in each individual’s story. As such, my mission this year is to use snapshots of our staff and business owners here on the ground to paint a larger picture of what it looks like to end poverty. People like our business owners, those living in extreme poverty in the most rural and remote areas of the developing world, are the people that we talk about far too often in global development. We hold panel discussions, host galas, and participate in Twitter chats all to talk about the extreme poor. I have the opportunity to talk to those living in extreme poverty. In doing so, I hope to uplift their voices–placing their stories where they belong: at the center of the conversation on ending extreme poverty.  

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