Gender Equality Zimbabwe Project #44075

Tools Empowering Women in Zimbabwe

by A Self-Help Assistance Program (ASAP)

Project Report | Nov 22, 2022
Resilient and Energized for Action

By Elizabeth Bara | Project Leader

Savings groups meet to contribute and borrow funds

As our world comes back from the global pandemic, we are energized to reactivate this project. With ASAP's boots on the ground in the Nyanga area, a mountainous region near the Mozambique border of Zimbabwe, women walk for kms to fetch water. Here, between 2001 and 2008 ASAP helped over 50,000 women start and mange Savings Groups in this region; known as Kufusa Mari - Save for the future.

Women like Sipiwe, who lost her husband during the COVID pandemic. Sipiwe explained: "I have four children and without my husband's income, would be begging without Kufusa Mari." Women here are still meeting regualry in their Savings Groups, to help them feed their families and educate their children.

With your support for this project, ASAP will be able to provide the trade tools and training that these resilient women need to not just survive - but to thrive. Thank you for your compassion, care and support!

Sipiwe is grateful for Kufusa Mari

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Mar 23, 2020
Save Women From Sextortion

By Elizabeth Arsenault | Project Leader

Alice is eager to help women overcome sextortation

57%!

A recent survey by Transparency International revealed more than 57% of women in Zimbabwe have been forced to have unwanted sex in order to get a job, access medical care or to get their children accepted in school. Shocking! YOU can help ASAP Empowers change this.

We know - after working to empower women for over two decades - that it is only when a woman has her own money does she gain a voice. A voice that gives her power at home, in business, at school.... all the places where powerless women are exploited victims of sextortion.

Tools Empowering Women in Zimbabwe provides women with small business and micro-finance skills training and trade tools. With the knowledge to run a profitable enterprise, access capital, plus the tools to help her generate income - permanent change is possible.

Women like Alice, pictured here. Not long ago Alice rarely smiled. A widow for over five years, she had given up. She could no longer afford to send her four children to school. Her crops had failed repeatedly on her subsistence farm when the country was stricken by drought. Her family was destitute, surviving on food aid when she heard about this project at her church.

Alice worked hard. She formed a savings group with a few of her friends. When it was her turn to use the pooled fund she bought fabric. By sewing clothing for her neighbors and friends, today all of her children are in school. Her business grew and she starting getting orders from local schools and churches. Today, Alice can't keep quiet about her success. She's so eager to share it with other women so they too can enjoy freedom from sextortation.

Here in the US volunteers have been working diligently collecting and refurbishing tool donations. Sewing machines, fabrics and sewing accessories will help more women like Alice overcome sextortion and a live joyfully again.

Please help ASAP empower more women through your generous donation today.

Volunteers refurbish Trade Tool donations in GA

Links:

Tools For Empowerment overview

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