Strenthening and Transforming families in rurals

This is our rainy season and that simply means it’s our time to work on our farms! The climate change is still affecting us in one way or another because we haven’t had our dry season the way it has always been.  December to April is always our dry season but we didn’t experience that this year.  Anyway we, had to be patient and wait for the right time to start planting our crops.

The strengthening and empowering widows program has turned out to be the best program in the community. The program's primary objective is to empower the widows directly and help them avoid the challenges of poverty and forced wife inheritance. Through this program the widows can take care of their children, the children attend school comfortably like other children, and above all the program prevents child labour and institutionalization.

We are happy to report the success of this program, we have just completed our first phase of three years with our first group of thirty (30) widows. The program has been successful in helping 30 out of 30 widows (100%). Five women faced challenges due to terminal illness affecting them or their loved ones, or their children's university education. But they still worked towards the completion. The program provided necessary support and resources to these women, which helped them to overcome their challenges.

The good news is that Our First group of thirty widows has completed their three years. They were provided with free farm inputs, (planting fertilizer, top dressing fertilizer, and seeds) for free for the last three years. This year they were able to buy their farm inputs from what they have saved for the last three years! This means they are stable and can sustain themselves. We will continue to monitor them and work with them to see the future progress.

The program already added a new cohort of 30 widows to work with for the next three years. They have already planted their crops and awaiting harvest in two months. They have started their savings towards the fourth year’s inputs and will continue to do so in the future. They have all seen the power in saving from what you have and we can see a brighter future not only in their lives and their children’s lives but in the entire community

We are now remaining with 12 groups (these should be 360 widows) to achieve our goal of empowering 420 widows from the villages we work with. It is our wish to work with more than one group to be able to reach out to all the groups in a shorter period.

For one widow to have food throughout the year it will cost Ks 17,700 per year and Ks 53,100 for 3 years.  After that, she will continue to have the same using her savings and will have food for her family.