Help Rural Women Start Income Generating Projects

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to you for your continued support of this project. Women are the foundation of every society and yet the vast majority of rural women are disadvantaged educationally and economically.

Empowering disadvantaged rural women by introducing income generating projects is at the heart of our organization and is our strategy for alleviating hunger and poverty and promoting self-sufficiency. We strongly believe that improving the socio-economic status of women in the developing world is key to ending global poverty and to improve women's health. Improving the socio-economic status of disadvantaged rural women not only empowers them to live up to their full potential but it also strengthens the entire community. According to statistics, the following are some of the positive outcomes that are linked to improving the socio-economic status of women:

• Food security
• Families can afford to send their children to school
• Family health improves
• Reduction in the spread of HIV/AIDS 
• Economically stronger and more stable communties

We are pleased to announce that in addition to assisting 6 women with the Chicken Project we are also assisting women in Rimbi village with a Community Gardening Project. According to research, the following are some of the benefits of community gardening projects:

• Increased food security
• Better nutrition as gardens provide fresh vegetables
• Improved physical fitness since the process of gardening involves physical exercise
• Stronger family and social relationships as the community gardening project also serves as a support group 

To date the Tekeshe Foundation gave $200.00 to the women paricipating in the gardening project. The money helped them purchase fertlizer, seeds and much needed gardening equipement. Here is what the project leader had to say:

"I would like to thank the donors for supporting our gardening project. Your help came just in time as we were about to abandon the project because of lack of funds. We were overjoyed when the Tekeshe Foundation offered to help us. This garden means a lot to us as we are able to feed our children from the vegetables we get from this garden. We will not disappoint you - we will work very hard to make sure the project is successful. Thank you for helping us."

As you can see from these pictures the garden is flourishing. In these pictures you can also see the kids who participate in our Youth program helping the women water the vegetables. This really encouraged the women. We are really proud of the kids in our Youth program for lending a hand.

Thank you so much for making a difference to disadvantaged rural women.

Best wishes,

Thelma