Soap Making Project

Dear our donors,

Greetings,

We are grateful for your strong support, we appreciate your positive impact on our beneficaries. We are honored to share with you our qualitative evaluation of our Soap Making Project , your feedback is very important for us to improve our work.

Here is our evaluation:

The Evaluation of Soap Making Project in South Darfur, Sudan

 Evaluation is an assessment to prove if you achieved the goals of your project. It also helps with gaining knowledge, learning lessons, and improving with your future performance.

 Darfur Women Network, DWN, has evaluated its soap making project for 2021-2022. We executed it in South Darfur State to benefit displaced, poor, and affected families to find out if the goals have been achieved.

 DWN has used SWOT, qualitative and quantitative evaluation which is an in-depth assessment on certain aspects to determine if the project the project is achieve its goals. The evaluation helps us to move from being a start-up project to growth, to minimize the risk, and to develop and improve our economic empowerment program.

 Darfur Women Network has conducted comprehensive evaluation to enable us to improve our work such as organization performance analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), qualitative evaluation, and quantitative evaluation.  

 Introduction:

The DWN is A National Nonprofit Charity Organization based in South Darfur, Sudan. It committed to provide services which enable women from displaced, poor, and conflict affected families to overcome poverty, adapt to means of sustainable development, and to empower women to improve their livelihood. The DWN has been building collaborations with various non-governmental organizations to further its goals and is applying its extensive experience to assist internally displaced and vulnerable families in Darfur, as well as other regions in Sudan.

Darfur Women Network committed to serve the survivors of genocide in Darfur due to their devastated situation.  We conducted six workshop in August and in October 2021, where we trained 70 women from four displaced camps, who fled their villages due attacks by Sudanese government military and it militia, as a result, over 400 thousand were killed, destroyed all the resources, and burnt their villages to the ground.

 Now, our beneficiaries live with their children in crowed camps and scattered resettlement around cities. They have no education, no skills, no jobs, and no social service, most of their children dropped outs to join child labor market to survive.  The soap making project targets women and their families whose lives have been negatively impacted by decades of conflict in Darfur since 2003.  

Most of these internally displaced people are women and children.  In addition to the challenges with mental and psychological wellbeing, these families are suffering from poor physical conditions resulting from the lack of access to basic social services, such as health, education, water and sanitation.    Continuous conflict in the region subjects these vulnerable communities to violence and lack of protection; which consequently places tremendous challenges to their livelihood and wellbeing. The DWN work diligently to raise funds enabling us to provide a soap making incubator project. The fund helped with DWN registration, training, and operation, as well as securing a women's center, tools, soap making ingredients, and volunteers.

 During 2021, International Women’s Day organized by International Market Place/Global Village, DWN competed with other organizations and won first place (Prize $1500) which helped with training 27 more women from displaced and vulnerable families to learn technical and entrepreneurial skills and knowledge about making high quality liquid and bar soap and detergent. Also, it helped with operation and marketing.  

 We received generous donations from individuals and institutions, we are grateful for the support.  This project aims to achieve part of the vision of the Darfur Women’s Network, which supports the United Nations vision of sustainable development 2030 with its 17 articles.

DWN provides a soap making incubator program to displaced women from four displaced camps to train them on soap making and resources to make three different types of soaps: laundry detergent, bar soap, and liquid soap.

 Our Mission:

Work to empower refugees, displaced women, and vulnerable families to build a peaceful and sustainable livelihood through education, economic, social change, and resiliency.

     The specific goals and objectives of Soap Making Project:

• Providing technical training, entrepreneur skills, and knowledge for our trainees to ensure making high quality soap
• Ensure technical and financial support to empower women to earn steady income
• Produce hygiene items for a reasonable price to low income communities
• Build strong foundation for societal peaceful living
• Help vulnerable families build resiliency and strengthen their communities through education
• Secure training, fund, and job opportunities for displaced women
• Reduce numbers of child laborers and dropped outs
• Building information systems to enable organizations to meet their needs.

 Qualitative Evaluation:

Quantitative evaluation relies on numerical or measurable data. Quantitative data measure the depth of an implementation of projects or program. A quantitative evaluation is essentially a statistical assessment applied to organization or business. The method measures things such as product costs and sales, administration cost, salaries, stipends, and the cost of the project, and in-kind give away items mathematically.

 Darfur Women Network had conducted qualitative evaluation of soap making project. First, we analyzed the data that we collected from various sources such as documents, accounts, and relevant records to prove the success of the performance of employees, inputs, and outcomes. As well as tools, equipment, and assets. The result can be expressed numerically to ensure it is efficient, successful, and sustainable.

 A quantitative evaluation may analyze how well a production line is doing with a collection of data which includes the number of detergents, bar and liquid soap made within 2021. The fund (revenue) 2.510. 180. Operation is 85% of the total fund. Administration is 13% supporting service (food and beverage) 50000 SUP. There are about 70 trained displaced women.

 The participants produced three types of soap which sold for 118800 SUP (income/revenue), 5% of fund. The women from displaced families who have produced soaps have earned 83700 SUP, and additionally received transportation fees. DWN also gave away hygiene items to soap making productive groups for no cost, which cost DWN 90000 SUP.

In conclusion, DWN has implemented this project to achieve specific goals. We registered DWN in South Darfur smoothly because of the great leadership of humanitarian commission affairs and Ministry of Social Affairs. They also helped DWN to locate an office in Darfur.  

 Based on the analysis assessment of the numbers from our resources (documents and accounts), it will reflect and show us if the soap making project is successful when we achieve our specific goals, efficient, effective, and sustainable.

 Thus, the soap making project is efficient because it had achieved its desired results, by reaching maximum production while using less resources, ensuring volunteers get paid a stipend instead of salaries, and Women Center/Workplace’s rent for minimum cost. This proved that this project had done the required activities for minimum cost (13%) of the fund.

 The project is effective due to its ability to achieve the desired outcome or result, which were capacity building-displaced women who have gained knowledge, technical skills, teamwork, and entrepreneurial skills.  Furthermore, the participants have made high quality of liquid and bar soap and detergent. Moreover, the project has secured steady income for displaced women from the sailing the three types of soap that made by the participants. The displaced women have improved the livelihood of their families. As a result, this project is sustainable. However, we need to tackle the challenges and scale up our project. Eventually, this evaluation has confirmed that this project has reached to the peak level of performance because it has used the least number of inputs to achieve the highest amount of production and income.

Thank you 

Mastora Bakhiet