Change a Girl's Life Through Microentrepreneurship

Esther is a 47-year-old internally displaced widow, forced to abandon her home in Bafut, North West Region of Cameroon. Before the crisis started in 2016, Esther lived with her husband and five children in her hometown in Bafut, where she practiced subsistence agriculture as her source of livelihood.

When the crisis began in 2016, Esther lost access to her farm and was unable to meet her basic needs and those of her family. In a quest for survival, she moved to Buea in 2018 with her husband and children, and settled in Muea where they rented a plank room that cost them 12$(6000 FRS) monthly.  Esther and her family began to survive by taking up daily odd jobs to be able to feed.

Life became harder for Esther in 2020, when she lost her husband and was left to fend for her five children alone in the midst of an escalating armed conflict. After her husband died, Esther and her five children did daily jobs and later rented a farm on which they depended for their survival. Esther was unable to send her children to school and she and her children could barely afford a meal a day.

In 2021, one of Esther’s children got critically sick. The money she made from petty jobs and her small farm was unable to cater for the medical bills. She was forced to take loans to settle the medical bills. After battling the sickness for a while, Esther lost her child.

In July 2022, Esther was identified by our social worker during a door-to-door identification process. After conducting her social inquiry and going through the vulnerability criteria, Esther presented a realistic business plan for her vegetable business. After going through a 3-day intensive training program on business management, bookkeeping, savings, and reproductive health and rights, Esther was given a business grant of $100 (50,000 CFA). “The money I received has really helped me and my children. Life was really hard before now but with my vegetable business we live more comfortably.”

From her business, she has been able to pay the debt she incurred from her sick child. She can now send her children to school. Esther now supplies vegetable to restaurants in town and has an average monthly income of about 170$ (85.000 FRS) with an average monthly profit of 50$ (30.000FRS). When she has bulk buyers, she employs other market women and pays them to work.

Esther is just 1of the 107 women and girls in conflict-affected areas whose lives have been changed through micro business with your support. Thank you so much.