Help Vulnerable Women Become Leaders of Change

Patricia is a widowed mother of four and a proud member of Team Hygiene & Culture.

“I am so proud to see our children attend school on time now and be able to grow up appropriately. Every single time I see the water site [managed by Hygiene & Culture] it makes me happy but it reminds me how we abused our children by making them wake up early and walk two hours to fetch water. A five-year-old child can only carry seven liters of water and you could not allow them to take a shower if you had no hope that someone else could go back to get more water for lunch. Sometimes children would complain about being overwhelmed. Imagine being that child who has to wake up every single morning and find water. How is he or she going to grow up well physically and mentally? It’s impossible.”

Patricia also talked about how the lack of water access affects a family’s income:

“If a cow does not have water to drink, how is it going to produce enough milk for the family and for the market?”

Prior to Hygiene & Culture’s launch, households often spent Rwf 300 per jerry can of water (approximately 35 cents). For women who often make less than $2 a day, buying water for their families was often a real but necessary hardship. Now those same women pay only Rwf 30 (3 cents), a tremendous savings that these same women can now use to buy more water for farm animals and pay school fees for their children. Further those savings are enabling women to do even more for their families: the team has helped women in Nyakusi cell outside Kigali, Rwanda, join a lending circle. The group has grown from 213 women to 384!

The team has also helped women understand the impact kitchen gardens can have on child nutrition. Two team members personally teach community members how to start gardens even on very small plots of land. Nine households now have thriving gardens with more to come.

Finally, Hygiene & Culture has provided training and workshops on gender-based violence and conflict resolution to 160 couples, effectively changing attitudes and behaviors that are enabling women to live without fear of their husbands. 

Your gift – of any amount – will help transform the lives of vulnerable women like Patricia and the other women in Nyakusi. Please, support Global Grassroots today. Thank you so much!

Links:

• Check out our website!

Evelyn does charity work in her church while raising eight children, her four biological children and four orphans. She lived with her children's father but was not legally married to him, although she still referred to him as her husband.

Evelyn said, “I was the Chairperson of Mothers’ Union in my church. But soon after living with my husband, he changed my religion. After some time, he decided to stop me from attending Mothers’ Union meetings and also rejected my request to be married in the church so that I could become a recognized chairperson of the organization. Time came when we would either quarrel or completely not talk to each other. He became abusive and life was becoming so difficult for me. Our staying together was meaningless yet I could not leave home because of all of the children. The worst part of it, he avoided all responsibility for our family.

"One day, I heard that there was a local group called Aketo Koma (Dedicated Workers) giving a free training on domestic violence, I promised myself not to miss it! My husband didn't know that I was attending. But immediately after the trainings, without me saying anything to him, I saw him starting to change. He was coming home early in the evening and, when he started teaching me how to live in a violence-free home, I realized we got the same messages. He had attended the same training but was in a different group from me! One day soon after the training, I came home and found he had cleaned the house and washed clothes for the children – something he never did before. What a surprise! After a week, we were going to church together with all of the children. And now he is pushing for our wedding at church so that I may regain my position as the Chairperson of Mothers’ Union. Since we now live happily and share responsibilities, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to Aketo Koma and its members who were able to bring this huge social change in this village. and to my family.

Links:

• Global Grassroots' website. View our video!