By Natalie Committee | Senior Project Advisor
After extensive training, seven young women excitedly purchased the items needed for their businesses in the first round. In this particular group, five of the girls chose to open hair salons while two of them chose to open bakeries. They purchased all the items needed for their businesses and headed back to their villages filled with hope for new beginnings.
Rhema was one of the women who has so far successfully repaid 100,000 shillings out of the 200,000 shilling loan. After opening her hair salon in June, she reports having about 5 customers each week from her home in the village of Bungatira. Recognizing that she could get more clients if she were in a better location, she has decided to partner with another girl in her village so they can rent a space in the village center.
She said, “No other person in my village knows how to do every hair style and treatment like I do, so I am sure that now that I will be in the center, people will notice me even more and I will more than double my customers.”
Rhema also recognizes how her life has changed as a result of starting her own business.
She said, “Before I went to ChildVoice and before my I used to have to beg for money if my daughter was sick. I could just go home and watch her suffer. But now that I have my own business, if I need money, I can just go and braid someone's hair and take my daughter to the hospital. Life really is so much better now.”
As ChildVoice continues to proudly counsel seven girls with their new businesses, we thank the donors who have supported the program and made it possible. ChildVoice hopes to share more stories like Rhema's by extending the opportunity to more young women who are ready to take the steps to create better futures for themselves and their children.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
