Empower 103 Households for their Livelihoods

December 8, 2018

Second report

Project ID: 32851

Project Title:  Empower 103 households for their livelihoods

The chain of poverty;  the community of Yambio County of Gbudwe State, South Sudan continue to depend heavily on agriculture, yet they practice shifting cultivation using rudimentary tools for subsistent purposes. Millions of South Sudanese have lost their lives to the civil war since 2013 and orphans and widows make up for the majority of the population. Most homes are headed by females and there is acute hunger and children are malnourished.  CSD intends to educate the civic population on sustainable agriculture practices. Very sadly again, Yambio community cannot mitigate the effects of our drastic climate change and it depends entirely on an insufficient seasonal rainfall and cannot grow crops for most part of the year.

Single mothers have the desire to seek remedies to their own poverty challenges and Community Skills Development has organized and teamed them up into groups; a) Women Farmers b) Tailoring group and c) Hair dressing group.

Each group is already engaged in some sort of initiative for orientation towards self-empowerment.

Every single mother has her own special story to tell

Community Skills Development majorly supports impoverished women in Gbudwe State where Yambio is the headquarters of that State. The total number of our target population is 17,000 Households in Gbudwe state for various services. Community Skill Development was established in the year 2008 and since then we have provided some farmers with agricultural tools and seeds, fed malnourished children, sponsored orphans and trained two bunches of women in tailoring skills. When needy women hear about community skills development, they come to express their interest to join the groups but for limitation of resources, we admit the neediest and the poorest of the poor.

In 2018, only 30 single mothers were admitted to the farming group and to be supported for 3 years; hoping that the trainings and orientations received will have endowed them for self-resilience. Since CSD didn’t receive enough funding to support both the tailoring and hair dressing groups, the funding through Globalgiving has been placed on the agriculture groups while hoping that our supporters will commit some resources to the empowerment of vulnerable women for tailoring and hair dressing.

When the women get into their groups, they begin to build and enjoy strong bond of social cohesion and mutual support. Mariatha is a member of the women farmers group, had this to say that she is more motivated to wok when in a group, that she cannot do much when alone. Therefore she appreciates team work. The women team representative spoke on behalf of others and said; ‘we are now more committed to our team work and will always support each other but our field is small’ -calling for support for the purchase of more land for cultivation

The step taken to empower 103 households of single mothers for their livelihoods is only possible because of the support of distinct persons who provided the funds and we have been able to purchase vegetable seeds, ground nuts and maize seeds and also purchased irrigation machines; pressure pump, sprinkler and accessories, fuel to operate the machines and agricultural tools. The cost of empowering women farmers alone is US$ 14,705 however we have received US$ 10,700 as a total from June to December 2018.  The financial support you offered us has been devoted towards the empowerment of first group –the women farmers. In the second round of three months (September, October and November 2018) we only received a very small contribution US$ 200. Our set goal is very difficult to realize as a reality.  

 While the empowerment project is targeting three different groups constituting the 103 households, our dream is to empower vulnerable women groups to farm, to create small business via hair dressing and tailoring. We will keep you updated as this project progresses. Have a time to look at the women farmers learning on the job to irrigate their farm with your great financial support.

We remain grateful and thanking you very much.

Ignatius Mborihenga

Director

Community Skills Development

Yambio, Gbudwe State South Sudan