Income Generation for 5,000 Poor Ethiopian Women

Pathfinder International and the Addis Ababa Women’s Association

GlobalGiving Progress Report

Income-Generating Activities for Ethiopian Women Project

September- November 2013

BACKGROUND 

Pathfinder International and its partner, the Addis Ababa Women’s Association, received funding from generous GlobalGiving donors to support low-income women to engage in income-generating activities (IGAs) and to empower them to become self-sufficient and productive. With the generous support of these donors, 97 low-income Ethiopian women have started their own business.  Each woman was provided with business skills training in addition to reproductive health information. Beneficiaries are engaged in various types of businesses including poultry, small-scale restaurants, vegetable gardening, petty trade, animal fattening and dry foods preparation. Testimonials from beneficiaries demonstrated that GlobalGiving support continues to bring about positive change in the lives of these women and their families by providing household food security, the ability to send their children to school, personal satisfaction, and control over their own income.

UPDATE

Local Woreda Ceremony

During this reporting period, the project focused on strengthening our existing and established IGA groups. In a recent local ceremony, the project transferred seed money (1,500 Birr) to 15 beneficiaries of an IGA group recruited this past summer. The ceremony was hosted by the woreda (district) administration, with woreda high officials present. The contributions of the GlobalGiving donors were acknowledged and beneficiaries praised their generosity, which came about during an especially challenging time in these women’s lives. As our donors may recall, one of our IGA groups, a small dry foods preparation business, suffered a setback when a fire broke out in their goods storehouse in May 2013. This new seed money will once again economically empower these women to re-establish and rehabilitate their business. The women are doing their best to revive their work and regain their previous customers. However, they still lack equipment like a refrigerator and electrical cooking materials. This has slowed down the pace of their recovery, but the beneficiaries are feeling the gracious support of the GlobalGiving donors and their woreda community.

Visits made by International Conference on Family Planning Participants

The International Conference on Family Planning was recently held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on November 12-15, 2013. This global conference gathers family planning advocates, government officials, Ministries of Health, and NGOs from across the world that have a vested interest in women and their health.  Among the many pre-conference activities was a visit to the Addis Ababa Women’s Association, its partners and grassroots network. Conference participants visited the GlobalGiving and Pathfinder projects, including the IGA project. . Fruitful discussions were held about the project and the support of GlobalGiving donors led to talk of opportunities for new future funding. The visit paved the way for the Association to promote its work and for the beneficiaries to have interactions with these stakeholders from the international family planning community.       

• IGA for Ethiopian Women- Dec 2013 (PDF)
  

Pathfinder International

GlobalGiving Progress Report

Income-Generating Activity Project

June – August 2013

Background

Pathfinder International Ethiopia received funding from generous GlobalGiving donors to support low-income women to engage in income generating activities and to empower them to become self-sufficient and productive. With the generous support of these donors, 97 low-income Ethiopian women have started their own business and each of them were provided with business skills training in addition to reproductive health information. Beneficiaries are engaged in various types of businesses including poultry, small-scale restaurants, vegetable gardening, petty trade, animal fattening and dry food preparation. Testimonials from beneficiaries demonstrated that GlobalGiving support continues to bring about positive change in the lives of these women and their families by providing household food security, the ability to send their children to school, personal satisfaction and control over their own income.

New beneficiaries assisted during the reporting period

With the assistance of Addis Ababa Women Association (the main implementing partner of the project) Pathfinder was able to recruit 15 new beneficiaries. These beneficiaries ran a dry foods preparation business as a group and were successful in generating income that sustained their families. However due to a fire that broke out in May 2013, the entirety of their group properties was damaged leaving them unable to feed their children or pay house rent.  With the aim to restore the business and hopes of these 15 women, this project recruited them for income-generating activities.

Following their recruitment, the women were trained for five and were provided with an increased knowledge of enterprise management, record keeping, market assessment and client negotiation skills. In addition to these business skills, they were also given reproductive health information and referrals to health services. With the help of the sub-city administration, the women were provided with a new business space and assistance with registration.  

During this reporting period, we also followed up with the previous recipients of seed money. Most of the recipients are on a good track, but a few continue to face challenges in the market for their goods. Their linkage with the sub-city trade and industry office was strengthened for market search and further assistance.  

PROFILES OF NEW IGA BENEFICIARIES RECRUITED DURING THE REPORTING PERIOD

Please see the attached PDF version of this report for photos of our beneficiaries.

Name:                                                             Workinesh

Age:                                                                50

Location:                                                        Wereda 5; Bole sub city

Marital status:                                               Married

Do you have children?                                 Yes, 4 children

Do your children attend school?                 Two of them are in school the other two stopped due to economic problems

Status of the family; who is the bread winner of the family and what is the mode of economic income?

Our family has a poor economic background. I with my husband, work hard to support the family. My husband is a daily laborer; he goes out at dawn to work while I used to work as a part-time house maid before I joined the Association. Subsequent to joining this mahaber, some things got better in the house once I started being independent and getting a little income from the sale of injera (Ethiopian flatbread) and baltena products. Even if we sometimes do not get any income from the baltena products, we take injera from our small shop to our house for consumption use. However, all this was destroyed by the fire incident which took place a month ago.

What type of activities or trainings do you suggest to be given for skill building of the IGA?

For the future, if we were to rehabilitate, I think that it would be good if we had trainings for each and every aspect of the whole venture, in addition, it would be advantageous if we diversify our food market products.

Name:                                                           Adanech

Age:                                                               40

Location:                                                       Wereda 5

Marital status:                                               Married

Do you have children?                                  Yes, 3 children

Do your children attend school?                 All 3 of them attend school

Status of the family; who is the bread winner of the family and what is the mode of economic income?

My husband and I support the family. I used to sell things outdoors such as charcoal, cow dung (a raw material used as a substitute for gasoline), garden vegetables like tomatoes, in addition, I wash clothes in the neighborhood, however, after I joined the Association, I started working in the small shop; we baked injera and prepared ingredients for the baltena products. My lifestyle changed since I started getting a small income from the Association. I have also socialized with others and supported my children in a good way. Nevertheless, this was short-lived when the accidental fire destroyed all the property of the business.

What type of activities or trainings do you suggest to be given for skill building of the IGA?

I am very happy that we are going to be rehabilitated from this disastrous incident and also grateful to your organization for taking this initiative. I believe that there should be a strong technical support from other concerned bodies to strengthen the mahaber.

Name:                                                             Yeshi

Age:                                                                50

Location:                                                        Wereda 5

Marital status:                                               Married

Do you have children?                                 Yes, 3 children

Do your children attend school?                 Yes they do.

Status of the family; who is the bread winner of the family and what is the mode of economic income?

I support the family by myself. I lost my son in a car accident; he was my only source of hope when he started work as a truck driver. The members of the mahaber were organized by the wereda by economic background. Subsequent to the selection process, we came together as a group and established a baltena and injera income generating activity. We started working on preparing and selling injeras along with also selling baltena products moreover, we were very hygienic while we prepared the food items. Afterward, the profit serves as our monthly salary but there are times when there was hardly any income. There were also days that went by without anything to eat or share so as not to bankrupt the place. Recently, we prepared and stored baltena products for the summer and the fire took place, everything was burned down to ashes; the utensils, the raw food, the packed food stuff.  The utensils were purchased five ago, it was not that expensive back then but now all that has changed, prices have gone up and with the existing inflation, it would be really difficult to replace the things we lost in the fire.

What type of activities or trainings do you suggest to be given for skill building of the IGA?

Firstly I am very grateful to know that we are not left forgotten thanks to the organization. My recommendation to improve the skill-building of the IGA is to have counseling services with the Association and diversify trading ways such as establishment of small scale cafés that provide tea, cooked meals and so on.

Name:                                                             Tewabech

Age:                                                                 60

Location:                                                        Wereda 5

Marital status:                                               Widow

Do you have children?                                  Yes, 4 children

Do your children attend school?                 Two of them are in school the other two stopped due to economic problems

Status of the family; who is the bread winner of the family and what is the mode of economic income?

I am the only person supporting the family ever since my husband passed away. I joined the mahaber a while back and we have gotten along agreeably. We share everything regardless of age or status. We used to comfort each other, take injera from the mahaber for personal use, drink coffee together and live in harmony, at the present, we have become destitute and we need help to get on our feet. We lost everything in the fire and I am in despair. I do not own a house and I have to pay rent every month, I am very old and do not have another source of income.

What type of activities or trainings do you suggest to be given for skill building of the IGA?

I am happy that this organization is ready to help us. I believe that if we had knowledge about financial calculations and transactions, it would be helpful for managing the market transaction;I may be illiterate but I am still strong enough to work on my own.

Name:                                                             Shewaye

Age:                          &n
Attachments:

• Pathfinder IGA Report Sept 2013 (PDF)