Benedetta, the basket weaver of Tala
Prior to getting involved with Hand in Hand, Benedetta Kalondu, a mother of two in her forties, was one of many women in her area just surviving on casual jobs. Today, Benedetta runs a small basket weaving business based on recycling, which produces an income of KES 7,000 (US $80) per month, employs two neighbours and has earned the respect of her community.
Starting out
Benedetta lives in a hamlet near Tala, a town of around 200,000 56 kilometres east of Nairobi. Dry terraced fields cover every hill and subsistence farming sustains the families living here. However, the arid conditions mean that crops fail and famine regularly strikes the local community.
Looking back, Benedetta reflects that the first step on her journey to becoming a businesswoman was also the hardest. There were no immediate apparent benefits and no handouts available at the start of the Hand in Hand training. Instead, Benedetta and her friends were asked to start to plan their daily cash-flow and to save, moving away from a lifetime’s habit of living ‘hand-to-mouth’.
“My eldest son will finally complete school this year”
Finding a business niche
The business module of the training made Benedetta realise that what she had always thought of as an enjoyable hobby – making baskets – could in fact be turned into a money-making activity. As many types of baskets were already readily available in the local market, her Hand in Hand trainer, Mary Katoni, encouraged Benedetta to think of a way to differentiate her products.
Benedetta spotted an opportunity to recycle discarded silver foil paper into bright, shiny silver baskets. After showing her group a few prototypes, they encouraged her to follow up on the idea. Benedetta took out a loan of KES 10,000 (US $112) from the group fund to buy and transport raw materials.
Two of her fellow group members have since been trained by Benedetta in the technique, allowing her to expand her production. Marketing is the biggest priority for Benedetta as she lives in a remote hamlet, so she regularly walks with all her stock to the nearby Tala town market.
Tala, Kenya
A path out of poverty
What Benedetta appreciates most in the Hand in Hand approach is the support of her group, which she feels has alternatively challenged and encouraged her in her business ideas. She also learned from other members to grow vegetables on her ‘shamba’ (ancestral piece of land) to reduce her living costs. “I thought, if Alice can do this, I can also.” The group has set aside a welfare fund to pay for hospital bills when members become ill. To reward those members who invest in education, the group also contributes KES 1,500 (US $17) for all members’ children’s final exam fees once a year.
With Benedetta’s additional income, her family can now easily cover their daily needs and school fees are no longer a struggle. Benedetta’s eldest son – who had missed an entire school year as his parents were unable to pay for his fees – will finally complete school this year.
Benedetta’s results
Monthly income of KES 7,000 (US $80)
Access to bigger markets
Eldest son finishing school
Chris, training slum dwellers in business
Local hero
Like many of his colleagues at Hand in Hand, Chris studied co-operative management. Two years into his job and responsible for coaching around 400 Hand in Hand group members, he clearly enjoys it: “Working with the community is the best thing I have ever done.”
A former Scout leader, he has always volunteered in community projects and was keen to continue with social work. “I meet different people – some are rude, some are good, some are kind. I feel that now I can speak to anyone and make a difference.” The most challenging part of his work? “I am out in every weather, visiting up to four groups a day and following up with individuals, in the heat, the cold or the rain.”
Some people are harder to train in financial literacy and business skills than others. “I have some clients who may not even have been to primary school. At first they only know about waking up, looking for food for the day, and that’s their life, so it can be difficult to get through to them.”
But in most cases, he feels he is making a tangible difference. “I was able to teach the groups about financial discipline. They may know how to use numbers, but not how to figure out how much they can afford. They are so used to just thinking about making enough to eat that day. Now they understand the point of having at least a small reserve for an emergency,” says Chris.
‘A good teacher’
Irene Wanjiku, one of Chris’s trainees, says about him: “I had a business before but it was Chris who advised us to move away from our old shop because the rent was just too high. And he was right, in the new shop we will pay so much less rent. He is a good teacher. ” Thanks to Chris’s intervention, Irene’s monthly income will increase from 5,500 to 9,000 Kenyan Shillings (around US $105) a month.
“Working with the community is the best thing I have ever done”
Chris has found working with Irene and her group really inspiring: “The moment I met them, I admired how they survive. They taught me that by being a hard worker you can do anything. They don’t have an education, they don’t have a job, yet they are very creative, they have ideas for a business, they believe they can make it. It’s all about determination – they know what they want. People around them might do drugs, or give up.
“The moment I feel like giving up, I think of them. If they are making it, then who am I to give up? It really motivates me.”
Najma, the cycle repair shop owner
Najma did not know life could change so much for the better, even after the age of 40. As she works alongside her husband in their new cycle repair shop, she feels extremely proud of her capabilities and her newfound role as entrepreneur.
From unpaid housework to respected entrepreneur
Najma joined the Self-Help Group in her village where she found that she was part of a community of women who spoke about common problems and who encouraged each other. She learnt about regular savings, basic accounting and the power of loans. She was given enterprise development and vocational training.
First, the group was allowed to lend money internally. When their repayment record was established and their training complete, they became eligible for external loans, facilitated by Hand in Hand.
Najma found the confidence to ask for an INR 12,000 (US $200) loan, which she used to set up a cycle shop. She purchased spare parts and basic tools for cycle repair. She knew she could do good business with villagers wanting spares and repairs all the time.
“It feels good to be able to earn some money”
A brighter future
Her earnings have helped her family raise its standard of living. It has also made a big difference to her status in the family and in society. Najma feels proud that she can sign papers and manage the finances of the business so well.
She expects to repay the loan soon with the income from the shop and, in fact, plans to take another loan to upgrade the business. Najma has successfully made the transition from unpaid housework to respected entrepreneur.
Sisters of Faith, social entrepreneurs
Water scarcity
Four in 10 Kenyans do not have access to safe, clean water. Erratic weather patterns cause regular droughts and there is a limited renewable water supply. As a direct result, sanitation- and hygiene-related illnesses are the number one cause of hospitalisation in children under age five in the country.
The Sisters of Faith experience the effects of water scarcity more than most: they live in Machakos county, 65 km southeast of Nairobi and one of the driest areas of Kenya. Deforestation has led to gradual erosion of the hilly terrain here. Most people live on family farming in terraces (to reduce erosion and capture water), but due to the lack of water the county has still experienced famines on a regular basis in the last few years. There is no piped water in the Sisters’ neighbourhood.
Prior to their training by Hand in Hand, the Sisters typically survived on casual jobs, relying mostly or entirely on their husband’s incomes to support the family. The group’s chairwoman recalls the start of the group in 2011: “When we first heard about Hand in Hand, we liked what we heard because they did not just talk about money. Like so many other groups, they also talked about knowledge and skills – and that is what we needed.“
Machakos, Kenya
Sisters of co-operation
They rapidly raised a group saving fund worth KES 50,000 (US$ 690). Together with the business training, loans from the saving fund allowed almost every group member to establish a small business within a year, ranging from crocheting floor mats to retailing vegetables or raising poultry. One of them, Virginia Nzioka says, “I used to be a housewife who had to go to others’ homestead to ask them to give me a job. Now I am someone in society, we don’t struggle to pay my daughter’s college fees and we can still afford salt and sugar.”
The group started selling water on tap, serving their community with affordable, safe water and making a profit
An ambitious venture
More than half of the group have opened their own bank accounts with encouragement from Hand in Hand and this has made it much easier to manage their family finances. Typically, only 38 percent of people living in rural Kenya have access to a bank account.
One year on, their Hand in Hand trainer, Robert Ithibua, suggested that the group should explore a more ambitious venture serving an underserved market. The Sisters identified water as one of the scarcest goods in their immediate area. Safe water was only available from a few isolated water distribution points and a handful of traders selling water at extremely high prices from donkey carts.
The group agreed a contract with the municipality to deliver water weekly by truck, sourced water purification chemicals and raised a microloan to buy and install a big tank on land donated by their church. In June 2013 the group started selling water on tap, serving their community with affordable, safe water and making a profit before interest of KES 12,000 (US$ 138) a week.
The Sisters are planning to set up a second tank once they have paid off their first loan. And other women in their church can’t wait to start Hand in Hand training. “We are giving Robert [their trainer] more work!” said Virginia.
Sisters of Faith’s results
Group savings fund worth KES 50,000 (US $690)
Weekly profit before interest KES 12,000 (US $138)
First loan paid; planning to expand
Feroza, the 22-year-old mother with plans to expand her enterprise
Feroza was one step ahead of Hand in Hand when we arrived in Balkh, the north Afghanistan province she calls home. At 22, she already earned a small income tailoring clothes for her neighbours. Still, even by the modest standards of her small village, money was tight. So when she heard Hand in Hand was offering business training she jumped at the chance.
Since then her income has quadrupled, bringing the new mother off subsistence wages and elevating her status at home and in the community.
Balkh province, Afghanistan
Tailored market research
“Before (joining a Self-Help Group) I didn’t know about market surveys or pricing,” says Feroza, putting the finishing touches on an ornate red shawl as her daughter looks on. “I’ve also started sewing seasonal products and selling at the markets in Mazar-i-Sharif (the closest major city). It’s made a huge difference; I now earn 3,775AFN (US $68) a month.”
“My new income means I can support my children the way I think is best, without waiting for anyone’s approval”
Future sewn up
Afghanistan’s child mortality rate is the highest outside sub-Saharan Africa: 99 out of every 1,000 children die before turning 5. (In Sweden, as a point of comparison, that number is 3 per 1,000.) Education, though improving, has historically been rare.
Still, Feroza has every reason to be hopeful about her children’s future. Besides enabling her to buy more nutritious food, a growing income will help pay for crucial healthcare to protect them from illness, and school supplies when she gets older.
“My new income means I can support my children the way I think is best, without waiting for anyone’s approval,” she says. It’s no surprise.
And that’s not the only benefit for the future. To meet the growing demand for the bedding and clothes she tailors, Feroza has taken on three young people from her village as apprentices, some of them mothers themselves. Each earns a share of the income from the pieces they sew, and all have plans to become fully-fledged tailors.
Ever the entrepreneur, Feroza has no intention of stopping there. “I plan to expand my enterprise, hire and train more people, increase my production and target new clients,” she says.
Feroza’s results
Monthly earnings 3,775 AFN (US $68)
Able to provide healthcare, nutritious food and education for her children
Hired three apprentices from local community
Meet Najia, Nahri Shahi district’s most canny businesswoman
Najia is a canny entrepreneur in more ways than one. Armed with nothing but her wits and the skills she learned at a Hand in Hand Afghanistan Self-Help Group, the mother of four increased her income from zero to 40,000AFN (US $720) a month – all by selling canned goods.
Financial success has of course been rewarding, says Najia, who like most Afghans has no surname. But a newfound sense of empowerment makes the long, often gruelling hours especially worthwhile. “My life has totally changed,” she says. “I’m no longer dependent on anyone else’s income and I can easily purchase clothes and school materials and take my children to the doctor. I’m even saving for emergencies – and to expand my enterprise.”
Loans, not grants
Like any budding entrepreneur, Najia needed credit. There was just one problem: she didn’t qualify, not even for a microloan. Self-Help Groups offer members the opportunity to learn, to develop opportunities, even simply to socialise outside the home. They also offer access to group savings funds, available to members who’ve paid in and undergone training. As soon as she was ready, Najia applied for a loan using a strategy every bit as simple as it was effective: serving her food to group members and letting it do the talking. The group was convinced; Najia got her loan.
“I had the talent,” she says, “but I didn’t know the basics of enterprise. Hand in Hand Afghanistan mentors helped me establish myself, both in terms of training and funding.”
“My life has totally changed. I’m no longer dependent on anyone else’s income and I can easily purchase clothes and school materials and take my children to the doctor”
Najia secured two loans – 21,000AFN (US $378) from her group then 10,000AFN (US $180) from Hand in Hand, both now paid off. The first went to setting up her operation, the second to diversifying her product range.
“We prepare cans of pre-cooked meals with ingredients including okra, eggplant, peas, noodles and meat. I also make ketchup and jam,” she explains. “My meals are good quality and I supply them to the market quickly.”
Super markets
Starting out, Najia sold her food in neighbouring villages. Drawing on the lessons she’d learned about market linkages, she soon moved into Mazar-i Sharif. Then came her biggest success yet: a deal supplying food to the Ariana Supermarket.
Today, Najia has 18 part-time staff. She hopes to hire them full-time soon. “We plan to establish a small food product manufacturing plant with modern labelling machines to compete with imported cans,” she says.
Building confidence
Impressive as it is, Najia’s success is not unique. According to a recent independent review commissioned by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), Afghans are reaping the benefits of Hand in Hand’s programmes, citing the value of training and savings, as well as a newfound freedom of movement. Others meanwhile credited interaction among group members with instilling a new sense of self-confidence. Not surprisingly, Najia was among them.
“I feel happy I decided to start my own business,” she says. “And confident to expand it.”
Najia’s results
Increased monthly income from 0 to 40,000 AFN (US $720)
Expanded business to other districts and local supermarkets
Employed 19 part-time staff
Chanar Gul: from subsistence to success
Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day. Give him business training and access to credit and he’ll establish a profitable calf-rearing business with eight partners, more than tripling his income, then use the waste to help offset his fuel expenses. At least, that’s what Chanar Gul did.
“Before (joining Hand in Hand) I was only earning enough to feed my family. Now I can pay for school expenses and even save some money every month,” says the married father of two from Sholgara district, north Afghanistan, not far from the Uzbek border.
Mixed tidings
Chanar’s district is highly populated and ethnically mixed, with substantial Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek and other communities.
A newly paved road from Mazar-i-Sharif, the region’s biggest city, connects with a vibrant marketplace in the district centre – a boon to commercial farmers such as Chanar. Still, there are reasons to be concerned. Explosives discovered along the road in recent months have prompted major questions about the area’s security, and earthquakes in the region are common. Floods are too. In spring 2013, heavy rainfall forced thousands of families from their homes, killing dozens and destroying thousands more livelihoods.
“I am more hopeful for my family’s future”
Sholgara District, Afghanistan
Bullish growth
Cows are big business in Sholgara district, where families treat livestock the way Westerners treat savings accounts: as a source of security. Given his experience working on a neighbour’s farm, Chanar was sure his own business could be commercially viable. But lacking the right skill set to strike out on his own, he was stuck earning a subsistence wage of 2,000 Afghanis (US $36) a month – far from enough to cover his growing family’s expenses. Anxious to improve his situation, the 27-year-old joined a Hand in Hand Self-Help Group to receive business training and learn about peer-to-peer lending.
Just a few months later, after establishing a strong sense of mutual trust, Chanar and eight group members went into business. Armed with a small loan and help from a vocational mentor with livestock management, animal health and more – both supplied by Hand in Hand Afghanistan – the group achieved total self-sufficiency in only two months. They’re also well on their way to paying off their loan, thanks in no small part to the money they’ve saved using cow dung as a cheap, energy efficient and sustainable source of fuel.
“Now I earn 6,000 AFN (US $108) a month and I’m more hopeful for my family’s future,” says Chanar.
Chanar’s results
Monthly income of 6,000 AFN (US $108)
300% increase over previous income
More hope for his children’s future
Meet Palwasha, the trainer who returned home
Hand in Hand Afghanistan entrepreneurs aren’t the only ones making a difference. Across the country, in a growing number of provinces, trainers are too.
Take Palwasha Rafiqzada (pictured above, left). In less than a year, the vocational trainer has instructed 154 women in five different villages on skills as varied as poultry rearing and knitting. It’s a small contribution to the thousands of jobs created by Hand in Hand Afghanistan, but one that Palwasha finds hugely fulfilling all the same. “I’m proud to work with poor people toward a change,” says the 41-year-old.
An uphill battle
She isn’t exaggerating. After 35-plus years of near-continuous conflict, Afghanistan is the tenth poorest country in the world, with a child mortality rate of 99/1,000, the highest outside sub-Saharan Africa, and a maternal mortality rate of 460/100,000, the second-highest outside sub-Saharan Africa.
Like so many others at Hand in Hand Afghanistan – from fellow vocational trainers to CEO Abdul Rahim Nasry – Palwasha knows our members’ struggle first-hand. In the late-1990s, as conflict spread into north Afghanistan, the mother of six was forced to abandon a career in education and seek refuge in Pakistan. It was there, in a crowded immigration camp, that the graduate of Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan University learned how to sew, knit and rear poultry – skills she still teaches today.
“I’m proud to work with poor people toward a change”
Motivation
Hand in Hand hires local field staff exclusively. Beyond suiting our ethos of self-reliance – and helping keep expenditures low – the practice means trainers are invested in their work.
Palwasha returned to Balkh Province after the Taliban fell in 2001. Her husband found work as a doctor’s assistant. She found work with several NGOs, including a stint as poultry team supervisor at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, before joining Hand in Hand more than a decade later in May 2013.
It’s work she has every intention of continuing. “The people I work with face many problems – poverty, a lack of education, inadequate life skills – but by the time they graduate I find them strong and enabled,” says Palwasha. “When they start to earn money they improve their position in the family and in society.”
Balkh Province, Afghanistan
Editor’s note: Palwasha no longer works for Hand in Hand.
Meet Martha, the 68-year-old eco-entrepreneur
A semi-literate 68-year-old farmer living in a rural hamlet in Kenya, Martha Kimuyu is not your typical pioneering eco-entrepreneur. And yet she has launched a profitable ‘green fuel’ business which has multiplied her income by a factor of five.
A family of community leaders
When we meet Martha, it is immediately apparent that she is an influential member of her community. Leading community groups runs in her family: Martha’s mother was the chairwoman of a basket weaving group herself.
When Martha turned 18, she decided to set up and chair her own group: “The people around me were just sitting around all day long, doing nothing productive, so I told them to come together to plant maize and onions”.
Almost 50 years on and she is still the treasurer of the group, although as some of the members have died, their daughters have taken their place. Martha’s own daughter is also following in her footsteps and leads a self-help group in another village.
When Martha was widowed some years ago, she decided to take up a business to help to support herself. Coca Cola were offering loans to set up drinks kiosks and Martha seized the opportunity in the roadside market near her home. Although she managed to gradually pay off the credit, and diversify the range of drinks she sold , the income from the kiosk stagnated for many years at around 2,700 Kenyan shillings (KES) a month – around US $30, barely enough to survive on, let alone support the two orphaned grandchildren who came to live with her.
Seeing green
When Hand in Hand came to the area in 2011, Martha signed up her group for Hand in Hand business training. A session on green, sustainable business opportunities triggered a bold idea in Martha’s mind: on a visit to her daughter, living in the Nairobi slum of Kawangware, she saw her daughter cooking with charcoal dust briquettes.
Charcoal briquettes are made by mixing charcoal dust – which remains after the charcoal has been burnt – with water and soil as binding agents. The briquettes, invented ten years ago by some of Nairobi’s lowest income residents, are regarded as an exciting development by renewable energy experts. They typically reduce cooking-fuel costs by 90 percent, save trees and dramatically reduce the air pollution caused by cooking with charcoal.
At 68, Martha is not your typical eco-entrepreneur. And yet she has launched a ‘green fuel’ business which has multiplied her income by a factor of five
Martha decided to become the first briquette provider in the area. She convinced a few neighbours to collect and sell her their charcoal dust instead of throwing it out. To launch the briquettes into the market, Martha initially gave samples to her neighbours to try. Hand in Hand’s financial literacy training kicked in when she needed to set the price of this new product in her area: with the cost of raw materials at KES 80, she decided to set the price of the resulting briquette production at KES 150 to ensure she would make a profit.
Martha now earns 14,000 KES (US $163) a month. The increased income has made it much easier for Martha to feed herself and her grandchildren a more varied diet – buying additional produce in the market rather than having to rely solely on the produce of her “shamba” (own land).
An eco-pioneer
Like many areas in Kenya, Machakos, the county where Martha lives, has experienced deforestation as trees are cut down to make coal. The hilly terrain is gradually eroding, aggravating the aridity of the climate and making it more difficult for families to subsist on family farming. The county has experienced famines in the last few years.
So it is no surprise that the members in Martha’s group have lined up to learn how to make the charcoal briquettes, which generate an income and help to save trees. True to Martha’s spirit of being a community leader, she has also taken up Hand in Hand’s invitation for her to train groups further afield in the county.
Machakos, Kenya
Martha’s results
Monthly income 14,000 KES (US $163)
Became Hand in Hand trainer
Able to provide family a more varied diet
Meet Gloria, the former refugee growing crops – and profits
It took 15 years for Gloria Kabagwira to get back to her native Rwanda. With the right training and access to credit, it only took three more for the 46-year-old to become one of her district’s most successful farmers.
A country of farmers
Rwanda is on the rise. In its efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals, says the UN, the country was “top-performing”. But despite a sizeable mining sector and ambitious government plans to electrify 70 percent of homes and businesses by 2017, Rwanda’s economy remains overwhelmingly agricultural. Almost 80 percent of the population is engaged in farming, most at the subsistence level.
Gloria’s village is no exception. Here in Mpanga, some 12 miles from the nearest paved road, homes are made from mud bricks, electricity is non-existent and the nearest water pump is a good half-mile away. “And it’s not good water,” she says.
Twenty years ago, the Rwandan genocide claimed an estimated 800,000 lives. Another 800,000 people were displaced. Gloria, who returned from Tanzania in 2009 after the government promised her a free hectare of land, was among them. “When we came back we were poor. The government gave us the land but we did not know how to use it,” she says. “We survived because in this area it is easy to grow bananas and maize. Not much else, though.”
Mpanga region, Rwanda
Life savings
Things began to change in 2011 when Gloria joined a local community savings group, compelled by a mixture of curiosity and desperation. For the first time in her life, the mother of eight had access to skills and business training.
Crucially, she could also access credit via the group fund. “I contributed 400 Rwandan Francs (US $0.60) a week by working in the fields,” she says. “It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it.” Before long, the 30-strong group was ready to start lending. Gloria, meanwhile, was ready to borrow. “I was growing a few crops to eat but I knew that if I grew tomatoes and cabbages then I would be able to sell them, so I took a loan from the group of 25,000 RWF (US $36) to buy tomato seedlings,” she says. “It was a lot. I was afraid how to pay it back, it was so big.” But pay it back she did. Today, Gloria’s crops bring in some 500,000 RWF (US $720) a season, $250,000 RWF (US $360) in pure profit. And she isn’t stopping there.
A capital idea
Between her own savings and help from the Rwandan government’s agricultural grants scheme, also facilitated by the group, Gloria has managed to build a water reservoir and instal her own biogas system, erasing the need to forage for fuel. She’s also expanded her acreage to grow passion fruit and papaya.
She credits her new income with much more than an improved quality of life. “In Rwanda, if you are a woman you look to everything from your husband. If you need salt, soap or clothes you must ask. You feel like you don’t have value,” she says. “Today I no longer have to beg from my husband. We share responsibility.”
For all her success, Gloria has even bigger plans for her children:
“I don’t want them to cultivate vegetables. I want them to get a good education and learn to speak English so that they can get good jobs.”
Gloria’s results
250,000 RWF (US $360) in pure profit per season
One of her district’s most successful farmers
Greater financial autonomy within the family
Hand in Hand Eastern Africa and CARE Rwanda are co-operating to empower some 100,000 Rwandans, mostly women, to work their way out of poverty by running their own sustainable businesses. The three-year, US $3.2 million partnership is grounded in our shared belief in the power of entrepreneurship to fight poverty.