Change a Girl's Life Through Microentrepreneurship

Dear donors,

You’ve closed 2016 with grand style.

• 20 more new girls trained and supported this November.

• A meeting with 2-year long beneficiaries in a microfinance institution, to facilitate their access to loans.

• 3 bigger grants given, one transformed into a loan of 600$! (we paid the opening of an account in that microfinance institution)
• Also, an exciting 200% bonus to anybody who signs for monthly donations is available! Tell your friends!

This is a lot of information, so we will only focus on the first part in this report and you will know more about the rest this January. We also want to take the opportunity to share with you what we think we can do this 2017, if you keep trusting us.

This November 2016 we began selection of 20 more girls to join the program. This did not require any door-to-door work as in the past because we have already been identifying potential girls while doing our follow-up work in the community. Also, community stakeholders (the traditional authorities, 2 women groups, a small local NGO and even some of the old girls, as you learned from Renata in last report) have provided some additional names, and others were trained and registered during the Innovation Challenge this August. (check it out!). Like Remy, a young single mother of 19 years who fixes clothes and zips for a living. She will be starting a second-hand clothes business with your help, a first step to something bigger. It’s striking to see somebody so young to have such entrepreneurial capacity, she also had a great proposal during the Innovation Challenge.

You might be already familiar with this: We train first, we give a first small grant and do 1on1 coaching during the following weeks and months, after we give a bigger grant if they have proven to be constant and follow the bookkeeping, that’s the start. The first 2 steps were done this November and early December, giving out 20 grants of 30,000 francs, a total of about 1000 dollars USD in grants in one day in the Chiefdom Hall for everybody to see. It was a big day in the community and for us.

“The chiefdom is part of this project, and we will be following-up each one of you alongside Reach Out. We will do our separate follow-up. This is Christmas period, avoid temptation, use the money for your business, we are all responsible for the image of the village” Said the representative of the chief of the village.

The core of the training was similar to this March’s training (here) except for key insights that came from self-evaluation: Smaller (20, not 40) and shorter is better, focusing on key messages and assimilating them. This time more practice and no long talks. We facilitated, tried for them to come up with the answers and hand out none. We have a culture of constant evaluation, most of what we did in March was great, and yet we decided to change much of it, because it could be better. It was great to see the girls question and answer each other and interact on how to improve on their business propositions, and we still learn a lot from them.

We love teaching bookkeeping, but we knew somebody that could teach it better. Somebody with their same voice and perspective. The girls that had succeeded at doing it! We called on Elekta, who was supported this March and again this August (and has a small fully-funded microproject for her because of her relentless drive and strength! ) to come to the training and explain how she does it. She was a bit nervous at first but later on relaxed and did a great job, we hope to keep repeating. With time, we have learned to talk less and less, our job is to make their voices be heard, not ours.

The core of the training (bookkeeping, coming up with a business and short business plans) is complemented by two lessons (one each day) on Gender Based Violence and Sexual Reproductive Health. Reach Out Cameroon has a holistic approach and we believe in the synergies between Health, Human Rights and Economic Development. We were lucky to have staff from other departments to come and do the talks for us, and the girls loved it. In a community with high rates of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections, the talk was highly necessary. 120 condoms were distributed, and more will be distributed as we do our 1on1 coaching sessions during the following weeks.

This has been a great year for this project, you have directly and meaningfully supported 52 girls, more than in the last 3 years combined (and with bigger grant sizes!). When you reflect on what you have achieved this year, don’t forget all the lives you continue to change here. 2017 will be the year to expand to another community, and we aim to help at least 80 girls! We know it won't be the same, as we have an exceptional relationship with the community in Tole, we have a few challenges ahead of us, but we know the program is good, and it's time to start helping more people. We hope you can trust us with your support.

As the girls took their 30,000 francs (50 dollars grants) they all made their short speeches, this is my favorite one:

“I’m not here for this money, I’m here for the 50,000 to come 3 months from now, when you see how much I’ve worked on my business, and to make myself out of poverty forever.“ Fokanji (19 years)

It’s been a pleasure to work for them.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Have a great 2017, you deserve it.

P.D: No better way to support them than a monthly donation, these donations, no matter the size, give us the security to plan ahead. Also, if you sign up for a monthly donation GlobalGiving gives another donation 2 times the size, as a bonus! Sign up here:

P.D2: Our website is back ! Browse through it and give us your feedback! Our first blog post talks about this project and the story of Marie, the girl that just took the 600$ loan, but you can also get to know more about what Reach Out Cameroon is all about: Health, Human Rights, Governance, Gender Equality, Sustainable Agriculture.. a rich story of 20 years of work for the underprivileged!

Links:

• You can now join our mailing list!
• Our new website
• Like us on facebook! and tell others to like us!

Dear Donors, happy GivingTuesday! (this means there’s a 50% bonus on any donation!). Today we bring you the story of Renata, through whom you will get an idea of what has been happening on this project since the start of 2016.

Renata (25) is living with her young son and an older boyfriend (40). We first met her this February. She was in a list of pre-selected girls community groups have given us, we interviewed her and she qualified to be part of the program. She knew how to do a business well, buying and selling eru (local vegetable) in local markets, but at some point in the past she had an emergency, used up all her money and could not continue. She had just started a smaller business; going around selling boiled egg with pepper, making about 12 dollars a month. By giving her a small sum we would make sure she started a better business again, and with appropriate coaching and follow-up we could try to avoid misuse of the business money. Renata is also semi-literate.

Like Renata, many girls required assistance to write their business plans, the ideas were clear, but they could not put them into writing. That was not a problem, we bring enough staff to the workshops (the ratio should be 1 staff per 4-5 girls) so that nobody is left behind. It’s the sense behind the business idea that matters to get selected, not what is actually written.

Renata displayed more than enough knowledge of her field and had a clear plan, so we gave her a first grant, 30,000 francs, about 50 dollars. And we went to check with her quickly after. Record-keeping turned out to be a problem. We have a system adapted to make sure record keeping is implemented among the girls, it ignores some of the technical terms, limits writing and focuses on something the girls can quickly identify as useful, a clear account of their profits. With Renata it was more difficult. We have spent hours with her during different meetings, trying to make sure some records are kept, we realized there were problems not only with reading and writing, also with numbers, she would often forget a 0, and it will be complicated to know if it was a great or a very poor day of business. We tried to look for somebody around her that could help her, but no neighbor seemed fit to the task, or interested. Sometimes our 1-hour long sessions with her (normally we spend about 20 minutes) had her dropping some quiet tears of frustration, we made it a personal mission to solve the problem. We were going over each market day with her, making her recall quantities and basically do the records all over again, just to get an idea of her profits. She was not doing bad at all, every month she will make slightly above the 50$  we had given her with your help.

She started looking at things differently. “This man can leave me at any time, he will go to Nigeria. I’m ok with that, he never helps me. He is a problem sometimes. I want to make my life with my child and find a small place for ourselves”. Behind her gentle smile there was a strong woman in Renata, with clear priorities.

This August was time to receive 50,000 (about 80$). “You know, at this season eru is expensive and if you give me I will not buy more than what I’m buying now. The money will just stay in the house and I don’t trust my boyfriend. Can you give me next month?” She asked.  We were proud of her, she was setting her own pace, and proud of us, we had earned her trust (she knew we would be there next month and the next one, that we are not going anywhere).

So this September we gave her the second grant, and she is doing great, she keeps going to the market and she started adding other things to the business. Eru is traditionally cooked with other ingredients (such as dry shrimp and cow meat) so it made sense to try. “It’s not really moving, the profit is small, the product stays for too long”. She tried and she discarded. “I want to try now snails, a friend of mine is doing it”. This time it worked, she is now having a healthier stream of profits. We also found a system (no dates, only numbers, no writing), and she found somebody to help her. A child of her neighbor is doing her records every business day.

During one of our conversations Renata asked us if we could help more girls and she told us about Eva. Eva is living with her aunt and 5 other people, dropped out of school when she became pregnant and wants to start a food business, we interviewed her and she qualifies for assistance, this past Thursday she started training with us.

This is our first year with Renata and we have learned so much with her, we know that next time we have a similar situation we will be more prepared to adapt the record-keeping system, and we keep learning insights from the markets of Tole with this determined entrepreneur! Next year will be her confirmation, our job is only finished when their position out of poverty is secured forever.

We hope you understand a bit better the project through Renata and to which extent you are transforming lives.

Today is bonus day and you think of a donation it will be increased by 50%! 100 dollars will be 150! (so two more girls to help will actually be 3!). If you chose to sign for a recurring donation (monthly donations) this will be matched by 200%!! (so if you sign to make 30 dollars a month, we will get 90!). This year will close with 50 girls supported, can we make it to 80 next year?

Thanks Again!

Next report will be next month and will cover the closing of the year: training of the next 20 girls, as well as the disbursement of loans of up to 550 $ to a few who have now reached a higher level and want to go further.

Links:

• Our website is back up!