By Deborah Smith | WMI Treasurer
One of WMI’s goals is to teach business skills to village women so that they can launch businesses and generate profits that they can use to improve life for themselves and their families. Sending WMI’s team of talented trainers to teach new cohorts of rural women in villages throughout East Africa how to run a successful business in one of the ways WMI expands the reach of its microfinance program.
Through WMI’s partnership with the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy in Kenya, we learned about work being done in northern Kenya to enable the indigenous communities there to live sustainably alongside the wildlife at the Namunyak Wildlife Conservancy and the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary. In 2018, WMI provided a small community outreach grant to Reteti, to fund training for one of the first female caregivers, responsible for the feeding and caring of the orphaned baby elephants.
Improving the local economy has a direct effect in reducing poaching and other activities that threaten wildlife, and foundations such as the Sarara Foundation are working to enable the indigenous communities to thrive live alongside the conservancies. During the Covid Pandemic, a shortage of the specially created formula used to feed the orphaned elephants at Reteti catapulted Sarara Foundation into action. In a bold experiment, goat milk from herds raised by local Samburu women was tested and turned out to be easily digestible, the elephants liked it, and there is a ready supply from traditional Samburu women goat-herders in the surrounding community. Thus, the Milk to Market program was born. Although aspects of the program were working well, Sarara called on WMI to lend technical expertise by providing needed business training and tools to the pastoral women, now known as the Milk Mamas.
In January, WMI’s local director Olive Wolimbwa and her training team made the 11-hour overnight bus journey from their home base in Buyobo, Uganda to Nairobi, Kenya. From Nairobi, they were driven 6 hours north to Reteti, arriving late that afternoon.
The following day, 37 women from 10 surrounding villages in Namanyuk Conservancy arrived for their training session. Olive began by telling her story, how the women in her village were idle because of lack of resources, and with WMI’s support are now operating successful businesses. She told them about the 20 widows who started Bulambuli Widows Association twenty years ago. She relayed that life was not the best, paying for food, school fees, medication and shelter were all problems. So the group resolved to contribute 1,000 shillings per person and give it to one person to support her family. The funds would go around the group like a merry go round. But finding the 1,000 shillings to bring to the group was a problem because they had no business or any other source of income. When WMI started in 2008, they received training and loans to start businesses.
“We started running businesses and now our life has changed, our homes and the whole community has changed. Women are no longer gossiping, they run businesses, they have bought motorcycles, built houses, bought land, and educated our children”. The men in the community never imagined that women can also do this. Her advice to fellow women: “Don’t just sit and wait for your husband to do everything for you. You can also contribute to a family budget if you start a business. Husbands also get fed up when you ask for everything all the time and every day. Women need to make a contribution also.”
For the next two days, the women learned about marketing, organization, financial management (both business and personal), and how to develop a business plan. They also learned about the importance of saving and accurate record keeping, and how to increase sales through negotiation and pricing.
On the last day the discussion turned to the role of education in breaking down barriers to a more equitable world. Olive and the trainers reported that their businesses generated sufficient profit for their own girls to finish not only high school but also to go on to college. The Sarara staff reported: “We believe that education is key to breaking down barriers and creating a more equal world, and our Milk Mamas serve as an inspiring example of indigenous women thriving in business, and the session aimed to inspire them to pass this attitude on to their daughters.”
As Olive and her team were readying themselves for the long car and bus trip back home, they were informed that Jeremy Bastard, manager of the nearby Sarara Lodge and a supporter of the Sarara Foundation, had generously offered to fly them to Nairobi in his four-seater plane. Olive said, “At first we were excited, then we started imagining how the whole thing will be because this was our first time to travel by AIR. In the morning the tourist van came and drove us to the place where the Aircraft was; at 8:10 am we started the journey with the Aircraft and we arrived in Nairobi at 9:30 am. It was a totally new experience in our life. We appreciated Jeremy for that wonderful experience. Late that evening we travelled back to Uganda by bus and reached Buyobo at 10:00 the next morning.
The same day they arrived home, Olive and her team began training 300 new borrowers in the Buyobo loan program. Their dedication to the microfinance program is tireless. Continuing to expand WMI’s network to serve increasing numbers of village women is only possible because of the generous support of our donors. Thank you for your continuing thoughtfulness and outreach to the rural women of East Africa!
By Deborah Smith | WMI Treasurer
By Deborah Smith | WMI Board Member and Treasurer
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