By Jessica Huntley | Social Entreprise and Business Development
Last month we succeeded in raising the £2,000 threshold to secure a permanent page with GlobalGiving.
We raised a total of £2,043 (which goes a long way with current exchange rates: about R36,700). These funds will be invested into the Phetoho micro-business initiative and will make a tangible difference to the resources and training that we can provide for our community entrepreneurs.
Thank you for your generous and valued contributions to this project – we couldn’t have done it without you!
An example of Phetoho at work
Lizzy, an established Phetoho client who has been buying from us for the past year, has identified a strategy that works by finding out what her customers desire and has been selling record amounts. As well as knowing ‘what sells well’ she will also shop to order on occasion, for example seeking out a size 34 pair of jeans for an established customer.
This weekend Lizzy was able to travel the four hours from Mamelodi to Limpopo, and back, to visit her son; using her takings from last week. He stays with her mother so that she can work full time and live in a location where she has access to employment, near the city. Despite the fact that she has a secure job as an office cleaner her pay does not allow her to save for big expenses such as long-distance travel. Through Phetoho Lizzy now has the ability to save and make decisions about how to use the money that she earns from her micro-business.
The future of Phetoho
Thanks to your contributions to Phetoho during the GlobalGiving Gateway Challenge we are making continual improvements that will benefit people like Lizzy and their clothing micro-business opportunities. With seed funding now in place we are drafting our training materials and conducting market research to make sure that our training programmes reach the right people; address the skills needs; and contain the most helpful information for each community entrepreneur to succeed with their individual clothing micro-business. A drive to find more community entrepreneurs who will benefit from the initiative will follow as soon as we have all the resources in place to support a wider pool of would-be entrepreneurs. You can see our newly designed logo in the picture attached, along with Lawrence, a long-standing Future Families friend and 'beading' expert from one of our HIV support groups.
With the target reached we will shortly close the Phetoho project. But our Future Families project page will remain permanent and we look forward to sharing our new projects and future initiatives via this platform, so that individual donors from around the world can find our projects and contribute to them.
I hope this helps you to see the twofold result that your contribution has meant for Future Families.
Thank you for joining hands with us in the GlobalGiving Challenge!
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