Alleviating poverty using small business training

Ndeipi! started off well with parents and guardians of students who are involved with Makomborero attending the sessions. The attendance has been amazing with an average of 95% turnout at each of the 3 sessions we have had. The level of interaction and engagement between the participants and trainer has been very encouraging.

In the 1^st session, Chris who is the trainer spoke to the participants about good business principles - hard work, being accountable of one's actions and taking responsibility for one's mistakes as well as learning from them and not having a victim mentality mind-set. He advised that before starting a business, market research is key so as to identify how best to serve the community and also maintain good customer relations. He discouraged participants from borrowing to start a business but to be content with what they have.  Each participant was given a pen, a journal and an envelope to help with good record keeping.  They were given $1 loans as start-up capital and had to come up with a project at the next session.

Testimonies and brilliant projects were shared in the 2^nd session.  These included: buying and selling of tomatoes, cell phone fast charging cables, perfumes, maize mix snacks, boiled eggs, making of floor polish as well as buying fabric and sewing head scarfs. Significant profits have been recorded across the projects. Some participants bought clothes packs for $1 to boost their businesses and resold these for a profit.. 

More testimonies of the clothes packs were shared in the 3^rd session.  The clothes sold fast and with the profits, participant’s ventured into bigger projects. Here are a few of the testimonies:

One lady bought 4 metres of African fabric and sewed kids' African attires for Africa Day and she has made an additional income of $73.

Another lady bought ladies underwear with the additional income of $12 from selling baby clothes.  Her income increased to $30 and she has now added boy’s underwear to her stock. 

A unique testimony is of one lady who bought seedlings and manure to start a vegetable garden. She noticed that in her community people do not have vegetable gardens. We cannot wait to hear more about her prodeuce has done on the market.

The participants feel empowered.  It’s still early stages, but they feel they can now sustain their families. With the knowledge gained so far, they are confident that their businesses will be successful as they have a full understanding of how to run them in a professional way. 

• Breakdown_of_expenses_for_Ndeipi_workshop.xlsx (XLSX)