I once sat down and calculated that there are a collective 15,000 kilometers between our offices in Kenya, Uganda, and California. Each day, we attempt to make those 15,000 kilometers feel closer. On Fridays, Isaac, Anthony, Gerald, Geoffrey, Solomon, Martin, Zita, Stephen, Nathaniel, Caroline, Tobias, and Nancy connect over Skype to discuss challenges and developments in our core program. On a weekly basis, our management teams in Kenya, Uganda, and San Carlos, CA straddle the 10-hour time difference to ensure our team has the vision and support we need. On any given day, our team participates in dozens of calls, across thousands of miles. Dennis in Hoima connects with Stellah in Soroti. Winnie in Soroti has her weekly one-on-one with Dianne in San Carlos. Kathy checks in with the finance team across all field offices. Tadeo joins Violah to call Nafees in Hoima. You get the picture.

For only one week each year we are all in the same room. Because once a year, we hold our Innovation Summit .

My job often requires translating the day-to-day work and experiences of our team into soundbites. For instance, Violah and Peter’s recent expedition in the DRC becomes ‘conducting a feasibility study in Eastern Congo examining potential impact of implementing microenterprise programming in and around protected forest areas.’ And Caro and Nathanial going house to house conducting spot checks translates to ‘mobile technology supporting rigorous monitoring and evaluation of our program.’

But some things are too special, too personal, too hinged on the people in the room, to be condensed. The Innovation Summit is one of those things.

When I originally sat down to write a blog reflecting on the summit, I tried to write about synergies between functional teams. Delete. Try again. I tried to write about using breakout sessions capturing best practices. Delete. Try again. I tried to write about strategic goals, strategic plans, etc. Delete.

There isn’t a way to write about the summit without writing about the people, without writing the individuals who makes working at this organization a profound joy, without writing about how special it is to spend a week learning and laughing together.

So in that vein, here are a few snapshots of my favorite ‘people’ moments from this year’s summit.

Mildred

One of the weightiest topics at this year’s summit was examining the process by which we advise our business owners on how they can select their enterprises. It was also one of the first presentations of the summit. And of course, the power went out. As innovations associate, Mildred Wengonzi, launched into her portion of the presentation, the projector switched off and the fans in the room slowed to a stand still.

A moment of silence ensued.

“And so,” continued Mildred, “we sent to business mentors to the field to collect information from business owners about how they select their businesses.” Without skipping a beat, Mildred brilliantly continued her presentation sans the Powerpoint she had doubtless spend hours preparing. Her years working in the field as a business mentor, improvising during torrential rains and hours of being unable to find transport, have prepared her for anything. The show must go on, and Mildred wasn’t going to let a few minutes without power stop us.

Dema

About a week before the summit, Uganda Assistant Country Director, Peter Dema, returned from two weeks spent conducting a feasibility study in Eastern Congo. Sleeping in tents deep in the forest, cooking over an open fire, and crossing rivers on motorbikes are just a handful of the adventures he had.

Throughout the summit, the team was eager to hear about Dema’s adventures. So naturally, everyone was thrilled when during the talent show, Dema performed a freestyle rap about his time in the Congo during his team’s rendition of “Where is the Love.”

Arach

During the first day’s morning tea break, we were led in an energizer by David Arach, on of our Innovations Associates. Arach had us gather on the lawn and asked us to form a circle and turn to place our hands on the shoulders of the person next to us. It was the first day, so the team was still warming up to one another. We awkwardly shifted amongst ourselves and timidly placed our hands on the shoulders of the person in front of us.

Arach yelled out instructions, “When I say apple, jump forward! When I say banana jump backward!” Soon enough, he had the team jumping back and forth and spinning to face the opposite direction.

As we exclaimed with laughter, stepping on each other’s toes and nearly falling down, the awkwardness of the morning melted away. Unphased by our awkwardness, Arach had forced us to take our first step towards the sense of team, belonging, and love that would color the rest of the week.

There are just a handful of some of my favorite moments. They are joined by board member Pat Brown being blindfolded during our team building, Tobias showing off his smooth moves on the dance floor, Isaac portraying Senior Institutional Giving Director, Caroline, in a skit, and many, many more.

These are the parts of the summit that make it special, the parts that can’t be articulated in outcomes, objectives, or concrete lessons learned. Our presentations and breakout sessions will help us shape the direction of programming in the coming year. And for that alone, the summit is valuable. But next time I’m getting rained on in the field, the power is out all day, or the internet just won’t stay connected, I’m going to think of Arach’s energizer and Dema’s rap. These memories remind me why I’m here — because I love the team that I work with. And for that, the summit is invaluable.

The post It’s for the heart: Why our annual Innovation Summit is the most valuable week of the year appeared first on Village Enterprise.

When Anna, Stephen, and Julius received their first installment of seed capital last July, they started small. They launched a small business buying cabbages at the weekly market and selling them daily in their village, at a slightly higher price. With cabbage in high demand, this small business generate a quick profit.

The three business owners met together weekly to strategize how they could best reinvest their profits to expand their business. Julius had experience making chapati. These delicious flatbreads are in high demand and the simple recipe (flour, water, oil, and salt) translates to high profits. The team agreed that they while Stephen and Anna would continue to buy and sell cabbages, they would invest in the stove and ingredients for Julius to make and sell chapati in the village.

Julius making one of his famous chapati

Julius’ chapati were a big hit, and soon customers were lining up everyday for Julius’ chapati. Anna saw an opportunity: diversify. As the community lined up to buy chapati, why not also entice them with a mandazi (local spiced donuts) or two? Julius and Stephen agree that selling mandazi alongside Julius’ chapati could significantly increase sales. And so Anna made mandazi and joined Julius’ thriving chapati business at their small stand.

With Anna’s mandazi and Julius’ chapati, the group’s small snack stand generated enough profit for the group to consider long term investments. They purchased a goat and a sheep, which Stephen cares for and is preparing to breed so that they can sell the offspring. He also continues to travel to the local market once a week to purchase some goods, like cabbages, tomatoes, flour, soap, etc. which they sell at their snack kiosk. Anna, Julius, and Stephen spend their days busily maintaining their portions of the business but they don’t miss a week without meeting.

Stephen sells cabbages to eager customers

Each week, the three of them gather to give updates, share profits, and plan for what is next. True entrepreneurs, Anna, Julius, and Stephen are never without a plan. The horizon for this business group looks bright. They plan to invest in expanding and supporting each arm of their business. They will build a small permanent structure where they will continue to sell their mandazi, chapati, and foodstuff. In July, their group’s Business Savings Group will have their first annual share out. Julius plans that they will use a portion of the money they have saved this past year to buy additional chapati stoves so that they can employ two additional people to help make chapati to fill the growing demand. Finally, Stephen hopes to continue saving to purchase a motorcycle to reduce his transportation costs when he travels to the market to purchase their retail goods and ingredients.

Starting group businesses is a core component of our model. At times, it can be difficult to convince our program participants of the merits of working in a group. Our business owners have often struggled with social isolation and have had to fight to support their families at any cost. As such, when an opportunity to lift themselves from extreme poverty arises, they are hesitant to work and share with others. Anna, Julius, and Stephen demonstrate the power and the potential of group businesses. While each member is actively engaged in their own part of the business, their sense of shared success and willingness to innovate together has driven their ability to sustain and grow their business.

The post Shared effort, shared success appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Over the past few weeks, our innovations team held mentoring workshops in each of our offices. Business mentors gathered for two days to share their triumphs and failures as well as their best practices. The innovations team will now aggregate these practices into a new mentoring manual. This manual will contain the collective wisdom of all of our business mentors and serve as resource guide and reference. Additionally, the mentoring manual will be used as a key technical assistance offering to other organizations seeking best practices around mentoring businesses at the bottom of the pyramid.

Topics at the mentoring workshop ranged from best practices in rearing goats and pigs to how to helpfully intervene in instances of domestic abuse. Our business mentors come from a variety backgrounds and have unique strengths. Prior to the workshop, we identified business mentors’ various areas of expertise and asked them to come prepared to share best practices with the team. Here are some examples.

Field Coordinator, Nathaniel Maiyo shares an example of a time he successfully mentored a business.

Free shampoos and smaller cabbages: unexpected business advice

The innovative spirit is alive and well in our business mentors. For instance, when planting crops like cabbages or watermelons, farmers will often leave significant space between each seed to allow for large harvests. Eldoret business mentor, Nelson Kemboi, advises his business owners to instead limit space between seeds, producing smaller cabbages. Most of our business’ clientele have little disposable income. When business owners can sell smaller cabbages in higher quantity at a price accessible to their clientele, they accrue higher revenue than if they were selling large cabbages at a high price.

Another suggestion came from Nelson’s colleague, Fred Stingo. When some of Stingo’s business owners started a salon, he innovated a stellar way to market their business. Rather than charging for a shampoo and a style separately, Stingo suggested that the business owners combine the services, slightly raising the price of a styling, but marketing the wash for free. Sure enough, a free shampoo with a styling session was a hit!

Ibrahim shares his best mentoring practices

Mentoring beyond the business

Ibrahim, a business mentor in Hoima, provided the team with phenomenal advice on how to provide emotional and motivational support and encouragement to business owners throughout the program. For example, when Ibrahim presents examples of poor business management, he avoids using the names of business owners in the group because he recognizes that this might make a business owner feel discouraged. However, when he brings positive examples, he does use the names of group members because he has found that doing so encourages business owners to emulate the good behavior.

Thomas in Lira, Uganda, is an example of how to use personal experience and empathy to support mentoring. Thomas shared that he motivates his business owners by sharing his own personal story. Having grown up in an extremely poor household, Thomas was able to lift himself out of poverty thru creative business: he sold mandazi in the early morning. His business skills are a lesson to all his now students: he gave tasters to groups of boda drivers to get them hooked! He is able to use these life examples of hope and motivation for this business owners.

Bottom-up works

We are dedicated to bottom-up innovations, not because a bottom-up approach is trendy, but because our long experience shows it works. Our business mentors are our best sources on the information needed to succeed in the communities where we work. The mentoring workshops were an exciting opportunity to harness the knowledge that exists among our business mentors in a way that will better inform our programming, and hopefully improve implementation of similar programs. Growing smaller cabbages to reach the right clientele or sharing a personal story may like simple interventions, but examples like these are the key to innovating for the bottom of the pyramid.

The post Mentoring workshop generating bottom up solutions appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Almost always a business owner will shyly request that rather than exiting their village, we continue to provide support. Or, they might earnestly ask how we will remain in contact with them after they have completed the program. These are hard questions. We don’t take them lightly. While situations like this might seem like indicators of dependency, I’ve come to see it as something else.

Our business owners tend to be the most marginalized members of their communities. They are socially and economically disempowered when they enter our program. Through the Village Enterprise training, they are provided with an opportunity to transcend these circumstances. They see an incredible opportunity and don’t want to let go. They need to be reminded that we’ve designed our program with their future self-sufficiency in mind.

We spend the year that we have with our business owners providing them with the tools they need to lift themselves from poverty. A priority of our microenterprise graduation program is sustainability after exit. And one of the mechanisms of this is providing knowledge that lasts a lifetime.

Each step of our graduation program is crucial. By establishing savings group we provide a social network and access to financial capital, both of which contribute to a strong exit strategy. Our seed grant gives new entrepreneurs the capital needed to start a new business. Ongoing mentoring allows for support in the first fragile months of managing the business.

But what binds each step together is our training program. Each of our 15 modules is carefully crafted to ensure that business owners will be able to use their newly acquired knowledge to be lifelong entrepreneurs.. Our modules prepare participants to use their seed capital effectively, providing guidance on everything from business basics and selection to business planning and management. After program completion business mentors continue to reinforce learning and provide further insight as they follow our participants through their first year as entrepreneurs.

When I asked Sabita, a business owner in Budongo district in Western Uganda, what she found most helpful about our program, she explained that she felt that the trainings were invaluable to her as a business owner. “Money gets finished. Knowledge does not,” Sabita explained. “When you get the skills and training, it never ends, you can use it for other things.”

And this is exactly what our business owners do. Business owners often run several small businesses in addition to the one they start using the seed capital we provide. For instance, a woman might prepare mandazi (local donuts) to sell at Business Savings Group meeting or a man might buy a sack of silver fish to sell to his neighbors. In doing so, our entrepreneurs are putting their newly acquired skills to the test.

We strive to balance our mission of ending extreme poverty in rural Africa with our dedication to the success of each and every individual participant. It is from this balance that I draw my response when business owners question our exit. I delicately explain that after a year of training and mentoring, we know that they are capable of carrying on their success–and we need to continue to bring this life transforming program to new communities. We provide the tools, knowledge for a lifetime and the resources to apply it, but they build their future.

The post Knowledge for a lifetime appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Innovation conjures images of people in white coats examining test tubes with awe. Or the CEO of a trendy tech start up, dressed all in black, introducing a revolutionary technology. Innovation makes us think of spur of the moment ideas and historical discoveries.

You might not think that small church with dirt floors in Kicunda village, Uganda, 30 km from the nearest town center could be a hub of innovation. But at Village Enterprise, villages like Kicunda are our labs and staff members like Mildred Wengozi are our innovators in white coats.

Yesterday I accompanied Mildred as she conducted an audit on a module we are piloting on business planning. We designed this tool to empower our business owners, many of whom are illiterate and have never attended secondary school, to plan for the various activities that will make their business successful.

Mildred explains the audit process to our business owners.

Mildred and I sat with business owner after business owner asking questions about their use of the tool, probing as much as possible. Designing tools like these for the ultra poor requires in-depth feedback. Lacking formal education, our business owners often do not have strong critical thinking and problem solving skills. As such, our tool needs to provide both a concrete tool for immediate use as well as foster the soft skills needed to complete the process in the future. Gauging its success in both of those areas is a multi-step, labor-intensive process.

Innovation is core to who we are as an organization–it is in our DNA. Our SMART tool (Smart Market Analysis Risk Tool) was recognized as one of the Rockefeller Foundation’s top 100 next century innovations. We are also immensely proud to be on the cutting edge of using Taroworks and Salesforce to digitize our Monitoring and Evaluation (M & E) systems. But what I love most about our innovations team, and what I think makes Village Enterprise’s innovations so extraordinary, is that Mildred and I returned from a day in ‘the lab’ in a local taxi, covered in dust, having spent a day making sure that we are innovating with and for our business owners. Our innovations are bottom up.

One of my favorite examples is our Family Support module. Our Business Mentors (field staff responsible for training and mentoring our business owners) reported that many women business owners were struggling to maintain high savings and invest in profitable businesses because they did not have the support of their husbands and families. Saving money each week for growing a business requires sacrifice and family buy in. For example,  it could mean that a family is eating chapati or meat less often or foregoing sugar in their tea in order to put a small sum of money away each week for the future.

Out of this need, our innovations team went to work designing a “Family Support” module. The module is the one of our first trainings. Business owners are encouraged to attend with their spouses and children. Family Support is now cited by our business owners as one of the most helpful trainings. In fact, one of our business owners, Ronald Okello, was so inspired when he attended the family support module with his wife, Jessica, that he continued to attend trainings and even began to train others in his community based on what he learned.

Business Mentor, Chris, trains business owners in Kicunda Village on business planning.

Innovating from the bottom up requires an established process. What starts as a problem, like female participants not being supported by their families, must inspire an idea–a solution. This idea must then be translated into a feasible implementation strategy. Our business mentors must then be trained on the strategy and why it is important. Next, we have to develop an M&E plan to determine how we will evaluate the piloted innovation’s effectiveness. The pilot must be rigorously monitored and evaluated to determine if it should be integrated into our program. This process requires thinking critically about how best to adapt implementation to our demographic. It requires Mildred and the rest of the innovations team to spend hours on public transportation and engaging with business owners. It is rarely glamorous, but it works.

At Village Enterprise we pride ourselves on combining rigor and cutting edge programming with interventions that work for the very bottom of the pyramid. Our system of innovations illustrates how when you’re working for the bottom of the pyramid, innovation must be driven from the bottom up. And while rural Uganda is not the most likely of innovations hubs, we’ve found it to be the best of laboratories.

The post The best of laboratories appeared first on Village Enterprise.

Our incredible field team poses for a picture before heading out for a day of learning in the field.

Our field team works in seven different languages and come from nearly a dozen different tribes. They are spread across six offices in two countries. And yet, we are one team. Our mission? Ending extreme poverty.

From San Carlos, CA to Kitale, Kenya, the Village Enterprise offices are a combined 15,000 kilometers apart. We work across borders and time zones. I can’t count the number of times in a week when we fiddle with our computers asking, “Can you hear me? How about now?”

The days our team spends interacting face-to-face are precious.

Last week, our 11 field coordinators (FCs) gathered in Soroti to kick off the new year with a week of learning, listening, and growing. Our field coordinators are critical to our ability to deliver a high quality program. Each one oversees the work of 4-6 business mentors (each of whom holds a portfolio of 30-45 businesses per year), organizes Village Enterprise training programs, perform spot checks on businesses, and disburse and monitor grants. They must understand every nuance of our model, and be able to nimbly adapt it to local conditions. Many of them have been with Village Enterprise for a very long time, and most started as business mentors themselves.

This first ever Field Coordinator Retreat was inspired by a desire to learn from one another and harmonize program implementation across all areas of operation. “We felt it was important to give the FCs opportunities to have face-to-face interaction and learn from each other’s varied experiences,” explains Kenya Assistant Country Director Nancy Chumo.

In Northern Uganda, our team works in post conflict rehabilitation. In Western Kenya, we battle rising inequality. Conflicts over land and oil pose obstacles to our work in Western Uganda while drought conditions and unpredictable rains affect programming in Eastern Uganda. In every area of operation, our team faces challenges that perplex the entire development industry—we have a lot to learn from one another.

The team met this baby goat in Amuria District and were inspired by its caretakers dedication to caring for it after its mother died. “It is a lesson of never giving up on life, no matter how hard it may get,” said Gerald Kyalisiima. “Messages of self belief are key to our business owners.”

During the retreat, the team spent sessions reflecting upon the varying challenges and implementation needs that arise in our various areas of operation. Trainings were conducted on report writing, data collection, team management, and more.

But what makes experiences like the Field Coordinator retreat special? Is it creating synergies and conducting SWOT analyses? Agreeing on benchmarks and investing in capacity building? No, those activities deepen competence but they don’t deepen relationships.

The FC retreat is special because we sit with someone we don’t know at dinner. Because our interactions aren’t constrained by poor Skype connections or frequent power outages.

Because we have the chance to remember that we are one team, with one goal.

“We need to establish a strong relationships between all our offices and create a good rapport to work as one body,” Zita Akwero who serves as our FC in Nwoya District reflects. “When we understand each other individually, we build stronger individuals, stronger teams and lastly a stronger organization at large,” says Kenya FC Nancy Shikuri.

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Among the most powerful insights I’ve gained through my fellowship with Village Enterprise so far is an understanding of the complexity of what it means to live in extreme poverty. CGAP, the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, says this about the extreme poor: “Food insecurity, unreliable incomes, and a lack of assets and land ownership are shared features of extreme poverty. Beyond “measurable” household characteristics, family dynamics with high dependent/earner ratios, poor access to social networks, and lack of self-confidence tend to mark the difference between the extreme poor and those somewhat better off.” Graduation programs like ours that offer a series of interventions delivered in an intentional sequence have been recognized as successful because they specifically address the needs of those living ‘at the very bottom of the pyramid’. Our Uganda country Director, Winnie Auma, frequently says that people in the demographic we work with do not need “light-touch” solutions — they need transformative and holistic interventions.

One of the interventions included in most graduation programs is encouraging a culture of savings. However, the mechanism used by different programs varies. Village Enterprise works with our participants to form self-managed Village Savings and Loans Associations that we call Business Savings Groups (BSGs). After nearly four months of meeting with our business owners — listening to their stories of transformation — I cannot imagine our program without this essential component. The capital, both financial and social, available to program participants through their BSGs is consistently cited as the most beneficial part of the Village Enterprise program.

A Village Enterprise Business Savings Group in Orkweswa Village

Industry experts and program participants alike agree that two of the most challenging aspects of living in extreme poverty are an inability to weather crisis and a lack of social capital. Savings groups provide a solution to both. The savings that group members contribute each week are pooled in order to provide loans to members. This loan system provides families with access to funds needed to weather uncertainty. For example, one participant in Dokolo recalled a time when his child was sent home from school because he was unable to pay school fees during planting season when money was scarce. Because he was a BSG member, he was able to take a small loan and pay the fees immediately, which allowed his daughter to remain in school without causing financial disruption to his family. However, the value of the group goes often goes beyond financial risk management. “Being in a group has also brought unity to our community,” explains Ambrose, a business owner in the same group. “In case of an emergency we unite and take care of it as group.”

Many of our business owners use their savings to pay school fees for their children.

This practice is not unique to Ambrose’s group. I recently met with a savings group in Okwangai village that continues to meet three years after having graduated from our program. “Even at a personal level, when a child is sick, it ceases to be a household’s responsibility,” one group member explained. “It becomes a group responsibility. Our group mobilizes and makes sure that the child has access to medical treatment.” Another group member adds, “Now we have a real community bond. There is love between us! There is friendship and there is sharing, all as a result of being in this group.”

The ability to weather financial vulnerability and gain access to community and social capital are deeply connected. The stronger the interpersonal relationships among group members, the more durable the safety net that the group provides. Cohesive savings groups will last longer and save more. The BSG I met with in Okwangai is now saving double what they saved in their first year of operation. That means twice the capacity to empower families to overcome crisis and improve their livelihoods.

We believe that strong savings groups are crucial to the financial success of individual members. To test this, Village Enterprise is completing a Randomized Control Trial (RCT) through Innovations for Poverty Action, which is measuring the marginal value of Business Savings Groups. While the RCT will provide essential concrete evidence on how much savings group contributes to overall success, I have been increasingly convinced that the true value of our savings groups to our members is immeasurable. There is a component of unity and love among our savings group members that transcends the realm of our program. By providing a functional solution, we are simultaneously investing in a social network, the benefits and value of which will last long after we exit a village.

When I think about the time I spent in Dokolo, Okwangai, and Koch Goma attending BSG meetings, I am inspired by the fact that long after I say my goodbyes and Village Enterprise graduates a new cohort of entrepreneurs and moves onto a new village, Ambrose and his group members in Dokolo will continue to meet each Tuesday afternoon. Every Friday, as the sun starts to set, a savings group in Okwangai will announce their weekly savings. And every Wednesday morning in Koch Goma, a community fostered by our program lives on. Now, that’s an exit strategy.

The post Two birds with one stone; building resilience and community through savings groups appeared first on Village Enterprise.

“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.”

The post ‘There is nothing that a man can do that a woman cannot also do.’ appeared first on Village Enterprise.

“When you build a house,” I found myself saying, “do you start with the roof?” The members of Osera village laughed and shook their heads. “You start with the foundation!” they cried. We were in the midst of an impassioned discussion with our business owners about the kinds of transformations they experience as a result of our program.

When I started my fellowship in July, my first few field visits were with participants who had just entered our program. They all seemed to tell the same story. The context — a life marked by lack, hopelessness, and insecurity. The change — our graduation program. The result — the ability to ‘fulfill their basic needs.’ This phrase was relayed to me over and over. I would prod and probe for more, but for the people with whom I was meeting, this was the end of their story. For now.

Then I went to Ajeluk Village (which I wrote about last week). The women I met there, who were program participants in 2013, told stories of empowerment, improved marriages, friendship, and community. Their narratives of transformation were remarkably less tangible and seemingly more significant than those of the business owners newer to the program.

As I’ve mulled this over, it began to make sense. It is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Our need for love and esteem materializes only when our need for safety and physiological satisfaction are fulfilled. Fulfilling one’s basic needs is foundational for a healthy and productive life. New business owners have not yet reached a point where they can appreciate the new social capital and empowerment that they are accruing  because they are simply glad to be able to sleep at night knowing that their children will be fed and clothed. It is not that they aren’t able to see the transformation of their life beyond the fulfillment of their basic needs — they haven’t experienced it yet.

In light of this realization, I wanted to use my conversation in Osera to explore the connection between fulfilling basic needs and realizing the intangible outcomes of our program. I wanted to show that the fulfillment of basic needs is what allows for a sense of empowerment, self-esteem, and community. The impact of things as simple as purchasing finger nail clippers or having the ability to eat a balanced diet is exponential. Without this foundation, the other layers of transformation will never arise. So while in Osera, I asked the people with whom I met to think about what that foundation had been for them–which basic needs had they been empowered to fulfill and why was each one important? These were their responses.

“Now that I can wear good shoes, I am feeling so proud when I walk in the community.” -Akareut Lucy

“Before the Village Enterprise program, if someone in our family fell ill it was so difficult to get medical treatment. Then June of this year, my daughter was in an accident and was operated on twice. If Village Enterprise was not there I would have been able to take care of her, she would have died. Being able to access good medical care is so important.”

-Abwooli Sarah

“I became a widow at a very tender age. I had lost hope for life. I would feel like life is just useless. I didn’t even have saucepans to cook with or even a cup to take water. But after joining Village Enterprise I was able to buy those things and now I have hope for the future.” -Kongai Jessica

“Before my kids were very sick because they lacked nutrition and hygiene. I could not afford soap to bathe them or wash the clothes. Because of lack of hygiene my children would fall sick maybe once a week. But now that I can afford soap, they are looking and feeling so healthy.” -Agoe Madelena

“In those days before Village Enterprise I could not even afford a razor to cut my fingernails so I used to have very long nails. So now I can trim my fingernails so that I don’t suffer from any diseases that are transferred through the fingernails.” -Akareut Lucy

“Before when we could not afford soap to wash our clothes, I used to fear what other people in the community thought of us. I knew that when we passed by they were laughing at us for our appearance. But now, our clothes are clean and we have the friendship of others in the village because we can walk proudly.” -Adeke Regina (left)

“As someone who is HIV positive, I need to take my medications with food. Before, I didn’t have any money to buy food to take with my medicine. But now I have the money to buy proper foods to take my medication with so now I am feeling so strong.” -Ingolet Anna

“I used to sleep on a bamboo mat and I only had one set of bed sheets which I shared with all of my children. But now I have been able to afford a mattress for each child and one for myself. Now I can sleep peacefully at night and wake up knowing that I can also afford to change our diet and consume healthy foods. Now we are feeling and looking so strong and healthy because we can consume good foods and sleep peacefully.” -Apoplot Marta

I am in awe of how these simple things, that seem so rudimentary and so insignificant, are the literal building blocks of a future. You can’t start with the roof, you must begin with the foundation.

The post What does it take to transform a life? Begin with the foundation appeared first on Village Enterprise.

I spent a recent Friday afternoon in Ajeluk village with a savings group of women who participated in our program in 2013. The tremendous tangible livelihood changes that these women described paled in comparison to the community and friendship that has formed among them. This group takes care of its own. Regardless of how little or how much money each member saved each week, the group pooled their savings to ensure that each woman has her own set of dishes upon which she can feed her family, a mattress to lay her head on at night, and a dress in which she can feel presentable. In grief and celebration they are there for one another, mobilizing funds and support for weddings and funerals alike. The way that they sat shoulder to shoulder, carefully scribing the week’s savings into their record book, completely immersed in the task, served as a beautiful illustration of their dedication to one another.

When I joined Village Enterprise three months ago, I wrote that I wanted to use my fellowship to understand and highlight the gap between the industry and the individual experience, to link theory and practice, and to reconcile big questions with daily challenges. I’ve been thinking about that a lot this week. On Tuesday, the World Bank published its first Poverty and Shared Prosperity Report. The report focuses on Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 10, ending extreme poverty and reducing inequality. The first of an annual series, this year’s report focuses on the complementarity between these two goals. Extreme poverty will not be eradicated without a dedication to reducing inequality and inequality cannot be reduced without mobilizing interventions that target the extreme poor. I spent the better part of this week putting off writing my weekly post because I wanted to write about this report. It is important, filled with important lessons and data. But I didn’t know what to write. Between the ups and downs of what it means to work daily to end extreme poverty, one household at a time, it is hard to find a connection to a report that includes decades worth of data, addresses multiple continents, and approaches poverty alleviation in terms of millions of dollars and billions of people. A comprehension gap exists between institutions like the World Bank and the reality of life in rural Uganda because it is difficult to straddle these two worlds — one in which global trends in poverty reduction are discussed using complex macroeconomic models and another in which weekly savings of a few dollars are carefully recorded in a recycled notebook.

According to the World Bank report, 1.1 billion people have moved out of extreme poverty since 1990. Margaret is one of them. Amina is one of them. And so is every one of their fellow savings group members in Ajeluk. At the end of every data point is a human life transformed. This is the connection I was searching for. While reports, like this one offer critical quantitative implications for poverty reduction, they can’t capture the human side of ending extreme poverty, one household at a time. We’ve provided over 400,000 individuals with business training and grants to lift themselves out of poverty. We know each of their names and have visited each of their homes. Our business mentors know their children and have watched them grow up. Personal connection is important. Relationships are important. These are our program successes that won’t be captured in an exit survey or appear in a World Bank report.

A higher gross domestic product is important. So is joy. Improved consumption expenditure is critical. So is friendship. An increase in productive assets is valuable. So is love. A group of women gathering every Friday afternoon, shelling groundnuts, soaking in the warm late afternoon light, laughing easily, chatting simply, embody the success of our program that can’t be measured. We can’t measure what it means for a group of women to buy a set of plates for each and every group member, for a savings group to commit to each member owning a proper dress, for a community to come together in the face of an individual’s loss or bliss.

As an organization and as a global community we have an obligation and necessity to measure our impact and progress. Without these measures, we would fail to comprehend the outcomes of our interventions, we would falter to separate the good solutions from the outstanding solutions, and we would be incognizant of the work left to be done. Village Enterprise demonstrates that it is possible to expect rigorous quantitative measurement while valuing the lived experience of our business owners. We know that when we say that we transform lives, there are data points that prove it, and behind each data point, a human story.

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