By James Rosita Nkeiruka | Project Leader
Progress Report
Name of Organization: Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation.
Project Title/Name: Train 3K Widows in Snail Farming in Southeast, Nigeria.
Focus Country: Nigeria.
Project Locations: Southeast, Nigeria.
Focus Area: Skills development, Financial sustainability and livelihood.
Project Type: Direct service.
Proponent: Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation
Address Klm 1 Eke-Ahiara Junction, Umuofor Nnarambia
Ahiara, Ahiazu Mbaise, Imo State, Nigeria
BRANCH OFFICE: 88 Murtala Muhammed way,
Yaba, Ebute Metta, Lagos.
EMAIL: support@samonyemaechihumanitarian.org
WEBSITE: https://www.samonyemaechihumanitarian.org
Introduction;
Encouraging widows’ entrepreneurs is vital for economic growth as their participation has a direct bearing on improving the standard of living, helps in job creation and allows them more social independence that bring about better outcomes at the community level. In Nigeria, it is usually traumatic when a woman loses her husband. In certain ethnic groups in Nigeria, the plight that befalls widows is usually a tale of woe, from the psychological and financial challenges to the burden of raising their children alone. There are also cultural demands of widowhood that vary with varying cultural norms and practices. As succinctly highlighted by a 2011 UN resolution, widows are constantly faced with a myriad of economic, social and cultural factors, including lack of access to inheritance, land tenure, employment and/or livelihood, social safety nets, health care, and education. This project aimed at, providing business management skills and equipment support to widows in Southeast with the objective of improving their financial sustainability and livelihood. Majority of widows are not financially buoyant to start this heliciculture business due to financial constraints. So, by getting support from this project, they will earn more for their families. Thus, their poverty will be reduced and they can become empowered.
Executive Summary:
Snail farming in Nigeria is a trending and lucrative agricultural business one can venture into due to its low capital intensity and presently, is providing one of the finest opportunities to make money within a short period of time. Empowering widows into Snail farming will help the trained widows to continue their livelihood in the long run. If these trained widows can earn money from this business, their poverty will be reduced and they will be treated as valued members in their families and society. Instead of staying idle and becoming sex trafficking because of their situations. They will be earning money. Their children would continue their study and they contribute to economic growth.
Widows are strong human beings. Speaking from my personal experience, I have seen many widows fighting for their rights and for their way of life. They bore children and they raise them on their own. They face the scorn of society and still find the strength to go on every day all on their own. Educating a widow is giving her the power to affect change, maybe on a small scale, but she will be able to do it. Education and giving the power of knowledge to a woman is not only beneficial to society, it is in turn responsible for the positive effect on the generations to come.
As an advocate for empowering widows, I find knowledge to be a vital key that can change our society and give widows their much-need place and acceptance in the society. Window's empowerment is a must when the question of national economic stability arises. It is required to drive away poverty and establish widow's position at home and in the society. Unfortunately, many widows are the worst sufferer in this prospect, most of them go about begging to support their family. They are not given priority in family decision-making for their poor income. Self-income generating activities can tackle this problem. A widow entrepreneur is therefore a confident, creative and innovative woman desiring economic independence individually and simultaneously creating employment.
Organizational Background
Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ started in the year 2012, officially registered September 7, 2017. Joined GlobalGiving community May 29, 2021, with a vision to create a new way to support and provide business management skills and equipment support to widows in Southeast with the objective of improving their financial sustainability and livelihood. To grow and strengthen their businesses and build their skills, confidence and knowledge. To foster growth and development among widows.
In the first 3 months of its operations, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ did a rapid assessment in the region to discover a dearth of serious, structured interventions with young and aged people in the area. The team from ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ visited more than 20 rural communities and several NGO functionaries operating in the area to learn about the involvement of youth and adult in social initiatives in the area. In these visits, most of the principals, teachers and social workers voiced a need to build leadership among young people on social issues and motivate them to take up social action initiatives. The educators expressed their concerns and difficulties involved in mobilizing young people for social action initiatives.
In the same period, a team from ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ participated in the ‘Change Makers program’ that was conducted jointly by The Nonprofit council with the aim of understanding the current community development initiatives of other NGOs across Nigeria. During this phase the team studied the program design and the community mobilization methods of these NGOs. The team also underwent a one year long mentoring and handholding under this program. In the process, the team also participated in a several learning programs with several NGOs working on community issues from across the nation. In these sessions, the team interacted with more than 12 NGOs and their several community leaders working in different parts of the country.
Equipped with an understanding of local issues and an understanding of the best practices of NGOs from across the country, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ started conducting basic life skill and active citizenship programs in communities in Southeast. The program was named ‘change for life’. These workshops caught the interest of educators and students alike and they welcomed ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ team to conduct repeat workshops on several issues in 15 communities with around 8,367 in attendant. This program also had an indirect outreach of another 4200 people. ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ also initiated a pilot program named ‘Metamorphosis’ that involved families in community outreach program. This program involved around 10,600 farmers from 15 different communities in the area. In the same period, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ conducted two parent counseling workshops in two different communities to discuss the issues of their children. This program titled ‘Parenting and grassroots child-care' helped us put forward our standpoints and increased our acceptance with parents who are the prime decision makers for their children
Now in its second year of operation, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ has started conducting life skill and active citizenship workshops in 10 additional Communities. This program so far had a direct outreach of 2700 families. Parenting and grassroots child-care has been conducted in two new Communities in the year. Currently, ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation is actively working with 23 communities in Southeast working on different issues in different communities. In order to give a push to these projects, 'Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ has identified the need for:
a) Help the vulnerable improve and maintain a healthy and independent lifestyle and to maximize their quality of life.
b) Starting of 2 Resource Centers in southeast to address the needs of farmers
a) Resource Centers for youth to learn vocational skills.
b) Resource and Empowerment Centers for farmers to equip them with skills in farming.
Vision and Goal
The vision and goal of Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian foundation is to help widows learn how to navigate many of the challenges typically faced through their own experiences of grief, loss, or trauma after the death of a spouse, economic insecurity, discrimination, stigmatization, and harmful traditional practice. To help them build knowledge, confidence, character, and skills to lead businesses successfully. Create a society where widows are empowered and socially integrated. We aim to contribute to the building of a society in which people are encouraged and enabled to productively develop with a strategic plan in order that they can reach the targets successfully.
Core values
Involving people, applying knowledge and making things happen. We take as our Motto “Peace, social justice, diversity, fun and democracy as key values” which guide us.
Organizational Structure
‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ is registered as a Trust with Mr. AKARAONYE, Engr. Greg, Mr. Joseph and Ms. Rosita as the Board of Trustees. The ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ Team is currently led by Chief Anyanwu and comprises of Mr. Dominic, Ms. Agnes, Mr. Ezekiel, Ms. Anthonia etc.
Aims and Objectives
The aim and objectives of Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation is to help widows build self-reliance and leadership skills, development skills, financial stability, economic sustainability and livelihood. Help them discover their own insights, abilities and solutions as they start and grow their business. Support their self-directed learning and help them come to their own conclusions and decisions.
Target Beneficiaries
The project will be implemented in the rural communities in Southeast and Southwest, comprising of widows both low-, middle- and high-income earners. The direct beneficiaries are widows. This a long-term project of ten years. The project aimed at mentoring three thousand widows who will be groomed and empowered in Snail farming to continue their livelihood. As the main activity is food production, the children of these widows must be included among the direct beneficiaries as snail is highly nutritious. The additional income will also help pay for the children to attend or stay in school. The agricultural program is geared towards creating sustainable economically-independent farmers. This empowerment in snail farming will be carried out bit-by-bit with a maximum of three hundred widows on a yearly basis.
INCOME
Received through globalGiving = $45
Difficulties and Challenges
This project has not started yet. It requires enough capital to start. One of the challenges also that hinders our progress and drawing us backward in realising our project goal is lack of capital and sponsorship. We call on all to support us in the fourth-coming little by little fundraising campaign coming up in April 4th through 8th.
Sustainability of the Project
The ability of our organization as a whole to survive and to meet our mission goal, we embark on an entrepreneurial venture, as a way of raising money for community, financial and organizational sustainability. The foundation runs a food production, processing and packaging factory. We have been partnering with a company in processing our food items for sales. We are working hard to build our own factory for our organizational sustainability, and to help youth that have vocational skill to acquaint themselves with entrepreneurial skills to be resourceful and useful to themselves and society at large. The procurement of the necessary equipment for production, processing and packaging of organic raw materials(food) and construction of a multi-purpose hall that will accommodate our factory and other activities is our priority, we can achieve this through external sources like grants and long-term funding or through internal sources like income-generating activities or membership fees. And to actualize our mission and goal, we have these points as our guiding principles: Collaborative leadership, member-driven decisions, effective communication, change-ready and adaptive workforce continuous improvement, on-going evaluation and measurement, sound financial infrastructure.
Annexes
Annexed below is a sample of this section that has been drawn from the project report of ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ – a non-profit organization that works with young adolescents, youths and adult in rural Communities.
*Overview of the Program:
We at ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ very much value exposure, interaction and peer learning processes. Our recent interactions with more than 20 Communities have reinforced this belief. We are now looking out for support to create 2 youth resource and Empowerment centers in southeast, Nigeria where young, adult etc. can come together, co-create learning experiences and contribute positively to the community development. We plan to utilize these resource Empowerment centers as spaces for involving the youth and adult in “self-development” and ‘social action’ projects of various kind. 'Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ has the required experience and expertise to design and run social action campaigns. We feel campaigns are great opportunities to demonstrate leadership skills, highlight social issues, develop deeper understanding about issues and mobilize young people. Campaigns give energy and take care of youth and adult needs such as fun, interaction, novelty etc. We want to organize a campaign each year highlighting youth action.
What we have achieved so far?
‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ is now an accepted name in more than 35 Communities. Our volunteers are personally known to tens of thousands of families in southeast. As a part of self-development initiative, we have conducted workshops in more than 25 Communities in the last 3 years with a direct outreach of approximately 4000 people in the last 3 years. We have so far organized one major campaign in nearby villages where they went and identified families who were not buoyant enough to Carter for their family’s needs.
Since the beginning ‘Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian Foundation’ has been running out several programs in Communities promoting spirit of volunteerism and celebrating youth led social action. We have organized a major social action project titled ‘Change for life’ in 10 large Communities with an approximate outreach of around 23000 peoples. This project involved collecting and donating used and unused clothes blankets, shoes, food items to the needy.
What we propose?
Sam Onyemaechi Humanitarian foundation wants to transform how people in the community think, act and talk about dementia. To this end, in the next 12 to 18 months, SOHF plans to purchase enough land and build snail farming where we can train widows in snail farming (heliciculture), supported by volunteers. They aim to make more of an impact, circulate more information into the community and expand activities and events to support more people. This will depend on obtaining funding and other forms of support as any costs currently incurred to run events are out of pocket expenses. Additionally, they are actively engaging with more community centers, the local council and NGOs to support the SOHF and its expanding activities.
Awareness Campaign:
We will design and run campaigns involving adolescents’ young people and adult from rural and urban areas every year starting with the end of year 1. The theme of the campaign will be designed by the adolescents. This will help them to consolidate their learnings and create awareness about social issues.
Conclusion
Training widows in Heliciculture business is a great achievement to reckon with. It will help them to be ambitious, independent, self-confident, creative, energetic, passionate and committed. As an entrepreneur in the snail farming sector, they have a high need for achievement and a willingness to take moderate risks. Entrepreneurs are important to market economies because they can act as the wheels of the economic growth of the country. By creating new products and services, they stimulate new employment, which ultimate results in the acceleration of economic development.
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