Jun 28, 2022 | Uganda, Women Stories
Jane, 62, belongs to a Nyaka Grandmother group in the Kanungu district of Uganda, which WE supports with funding for their microfinance program. Jane cares for three grandchildren, two of whom are from her son who passed away. She operates a small restaurant at a bus stop stage. She prepares breakfast and lunch for the boda (motorcycle riders) who park next to her restaurant. With a recent loan of 700,000 UGX (approximately $188), she was able to pay rent on the verandah space and acquire some materials like sauce pans, utensils, and food supplies. During the COVID-19 lockdown throughout the country, her business suffered with fewer motorists as customers.
Now, with things opening up again, she wakes up at 5:30 every morning to go to the restaurant and start preparing the meals. Her daily sales are now up to almost $19/day, and she has been able to send all of her grandchildren to school, pay back her loan, and rear and sell pigs at home to boost her income. She is working hard to grow her business, so she can acquire a plot of land of her own for the restaurant and become a landlord herself, charging rent to others.
Your support represents a chance for women like Jane to create her own opportunities and has a life-changing impact for generations to come.
Jun 28, 2022 | Mexico, Women Stories
Rebeca’s parents brought her to the U.S. when she was a child, only to be torn from her family decades later when she was deported to Tijuana, Mexico. She was forced to leave behind her parents, brother, and an infant son, finding herself alone in a new city with no connections.
Rebeca was just one of an inaugural group of mothers at a local border shelter who sought a sense of community and hope in the Via Migrante program, run by WE Partner, Via International. She found friendship and family in the group and is now participating in Via’s microcredit program, which WE funding supports. Rebeca is using her first loan, and the training in financial management that she is receiving through the program, to launch a successful mobile pedicure business.
Your support represents a chance for women like Rebeca to create a safe and stable life for themselves and their children.
Jun 9, 2022 | Featured News/ Events, News
We are very pleased to announce that WE will be renewing partnerships with the following organizations and awarding grant funds totaling $201,230 for the 2022-23 grant year. Programs providing resources and training for women experiencing poverty in San Diego, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, and Uganda will be funded because of generous donors like you!
Adelante Foundation – renewing our partnership for one year, granting $35,000. Adelante provides microloans and financial services to women living in poverty who lack access to funding and resources. The end goal is to break intergenerational cycles of poverty, provide inclusive opportunities that address gender inequality, and improve household resilience to external stressors. Adelante was one of the first organizations to provide microfinance in Honduras and continues to be one of the only microfinance nonprofits that prioritizes those experiencing the highest levels of poverty.
“Women’s Empowerment has been an incredible partner through thick and thin. I cannot tell you how much we appreciate and are motivated by your unwavering support. Thank you for being part of and supporting Adelante’s mission. On behalf of each of our beneficiaries and the entire Adelante staff, we show our sincere gratitude.”
Fonkoze – renewing our partnership for one year, granting $33,330. Fonkoze’s Boutik Sante (Community Health Store) program brings access to health products, services, and information to some of the most rural parts of Haiti through a network of trained women entrepreneurs, Community Health Entrepreneurs (CHEs). This year, Fonkoze will be expanding gender-based violence (GBV) trainings and high blood pressure monitoring services for its CHEs to bring to their communities. GBV rose over 300% from 2019 to 2020 in Haiti and hypertension accounts for 17% of all deaths in Haiti.
International Rescue Committee San Diego – renewing our partnership for three years, granting $50,000 for the first year. Through one-on-one technical assistance and responsive training, the IRC’s WE STAR Program addresses core barriers that low-income, immigrant women face when opening and operating a successful small business. The program provides microenterprise development training and technical assistance that is both culturally appropriate and in-language, geared to meet the specific needs of aspiring and existing women entrepreneurs.
The IRC’s holistic programming will add several new offerings this year including: a 14-session Steps to Success trainings (STEPS) for existing Afghan child care providers to ensure a true path to economic security and mobility, a Microenterprise Home Kitchen Operation (MEHKO) Training that will support participants earning a permit from the County of San Diego and developing a profitable microenterprise, and a new training program to support women and women BIPOC entrepreneurs in certifying their business as woman-owned, minority-owned, and small disadvantaged-owned, which is helpful in marketing and obtaining government funding.
Nyaka – renewing our partnership for three years, granting $52,900 for the first year. WE supports the microfinance initiative as part of the Nyaka Grandmothers program, an innovative, scalable, home-based model of care that aids the healthy development of each child orphaned by HIV/AIDS. Grandmother groups meet monthly to share education, training (including business and vocational training), and support. WE funding will allow for this year’s expansion of the microfinance programming to 24 new grandmother groups (with 1,920 women participating) in the Rukungiri and Kanungu districts. Nyaka will also implement a new technology-driven monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system to better track their impact over the whole Grandmothers program.
“Thank you to the entire WE team! This is such an exciting partnership, and we are thrilled to see it continued, and to see such a transformational level of support for our grannies. WE, thank you for making sure that more than 20,000 women have had economic freedom and empowerment.”
Via International – renewing our partnership for three years, granting $30,000 for the first year. WE supports two Via programs, ESTIMA and Via Migrante, which aim to enhance social and economic empowerment among women in Tijuana, Mexico. Women in ESTIMA are working in the sex trade or at risk of entering it, some having been initially trafficked. Many came to Tijuana hoping for better economic opportunities to care for themselves and their children. In Via Migrante, women have fled violence and poverty in southern Mexico and Central America. Some of the new arrivals are deported mothers from the United States.
Most of them are the sole financial caretakers for their children, but have had few opportunities for education and employment. Via program components focus on the basic needs of these women–family health and food security, as well as financial security for longer-term sustainable lives.
Stay tuned for more exciting grant news over the coming months! We currently have grant applications open to new partners and have allocated a minimum of $40,000 for these partnerships.
Read more about all of our Partners here.
Mar 1, 2022 | Haiti, Our Impact Page, Women Stories
Meet Mimose: Community Health Entrepreneur, Haiti
“We have saved the lives of many malnourished children. But unfortunately, we lost some too, because when we found them, their cases were already too advanced.” – Mimose Anicy
Mimose Anicy, mother of eight, became a Community Health Entrepreneur with Fonkoze’s Boutik Sante program in 2017. Mimose’s isolated community in Northeast Haiti is very far from the nearest health facilities and her services are in high demand.
“Headaches, stomachaches, menstrual issues, hypertension—people come to me for help or advice because they know that every month I receive training from Fonkoze,” she says. Anicy is especially proud of the lifesaving work she has done to address malnutrition in her community.
Since joining Fonkoze, Anicy has steadily grown her business. She started selling oil, gasoline and rice, later expanding to sell cosmetics, fertilizers and other supplies. And now, she offers new products through her Boutik Sante inventory. Solar lamps and iodized salt are two of her most popular products.
Soon after COVID-19 spread to Haiti, Mimose shifted her business from the public market in Saint Rafael to her house. Thanks to Boutik Sante’s reliable supply chain, she was able to sustain her business, primarily by selling her Boutik Sante inventory.
It is Mimose’s business that puts food on the table for her eight children and pays their school fees, including for her two children who are in university. Her savings has enabled her to buy cattle, horses, goats and a half-acre of land for a farm that her husband tends.
Women like Mimose bring hope, healing and essential care in the darkest times. You can support WE’s partnership with Fonkoze by Donating Here. Thank you!
Sep 17, 2018 | Haiti, Women Stories
Odette helps her community.
In Odette Midy’s community near Lavale, Haiti, the nearest place to buy over-the-counter health products was more than an hour away. Rather than make the long journey by foot, Odette’s friends and neighbors would often let illnesses and wounds go untreated. Soon, people would get sicker and infections would take hold.
Today, through her community health store (Boutik Sante), Odette is trying to change this. Her participation in Fonkoze’s Boutik Sante Program – an innovative social enterprise that expands access to over-the-counter health products and services in rural Haiti – is enabling her to do just that.
The Program has helped Odette to expand her business and gain skills to serve as a valuable resource in her community. For example, Fonkoze’s registered nurses are training Odette and other Fonkoze clients to administer basic screening services (blood pressure, malnutrition, diabetes, and others) and to incorporate health-related products into their existing businesses. They thus become “Community Health Entrepreneurs.”
When asked about her motivation in life, she says, “I am not married, but I work hard for my eight-year-old daughter. I want to see her succeed in life.” Odette also says that Fonkoze is the one partner she can really “rely on.” She was able to build a home with profits from her small business, which she expanded with loans from Fonkoze.
Having been a Fonkoze client for ten years, she has gained the respect of the 55 other Fonkoze clients in her Credit Center, which they named Tèt Ansanm (Heads Together). They even elected her to be their “Center Chief” – the leader of the group.
Odette is pleased with the progress she is making, saying, “Everything is selling well. My Fonkoze friends are also my clients, and the people in my village are happy to buy from me.” Sometimes, she serves more than 30 clients in a day.
