economic opportunities

We help fund income generating activities for women. We favour the formation of Income Generating Groups as we believe in the power of pulled, human as well as financial, resources. Groups are involved in numerous income generating activities including handicrafts, bee-keeping, chicken rearing, pot making and crop diversification.The RWDA monitors the group activities and works together with the groups to identify means of increasing output, quality, markets and cost effective means of increasing income.

How it works

Once women have received some training in how to run a small business and attended a gender analysis and awareness raising seminar, they decide on what business opportunities is best suited to their group.

For some it will be chicken rearing, for others, tailoring or vegetable growing or pottery making. Whatever they decide, their next step will be to articulate their business plan including financial and training needs. RWDA then will arrange for training and a micro-loan. Further support is always made available including much supervision and evaluation.
We hope that as women grow in confidence they will aim higher and develop businesses that could contribute to the national wealth of the country. We are aware that poor rural people are not risk takers and that they will not normally embark on an entreprise of which they have little knowledge; or are unaware of its potential; or that requires substantial funding. Yet, we believe that only bold projects can raise standards of living well above subsistence levels. This is why we encourage the formation of groups and provide extensive back up but also why we want to build a permanent training centre. It should give women and the community confidence to try, knowing that help will always be at hand. We have already built a chicken rearing school with a 1000 egg incubator. We now need funding for the second part. Can you help? Find out more here.

Handycraft group

“It is crucial to put rural women’s needs and priorities at the centre of development efforts if hunger and poverty are to be eradicated,” said Phrang Roy, Assistant President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Speaking on the eve of International Women’s Day, Phrang Roy, said IFAD prioritized the economic empowerment of women as one of the fundamentals for broad-based economic growth and poverty reduction.

chicken business

For this to be possible, women need secure access to productive resources such as land, water for agriculture and financial capital.
“We have learned through our experience in rural development projects and programmes that when women have secure access to these resources, and when they can take advantage of economic opportunities, they have great capacity to become powerful agents of change and social transformation,” Roy said. “They can transform their own lives and the lives of their families and communities.”

http://www.ifad.org/media/press/2005/23.htm