Case Studies in Success
The woman is 53 years old and lives in a small city in the Kilimanjaro region. She was married in 1990, and the couple was blessed with two sons born 1990 and 1994. Due to multiple problems they divorced and the woman was given a house, which she has not been able to stay in due to harassment from the husband and his new wife. She was helped trough KWIECO (our partnership organization) with a court case concerning maintenance and matrimonial properties, which is still ongoing and she is still waiting for the results. When the client came to the Women’s center in January 2008 she had no source of income, because of the problems with her husband and the present problems in Kenya. Before these problems started she was buying cooking oil from the Kenyan border and selling in the region.
Her long term wish was to keep pigs, cows and chickens as a business. We conducted counseling with her to see the possibilities of her wish and provided her with basic business education. She wrote a business plan and we decided to help her with a loan for her to start by keeping chickens in an area next to her house. She was able to start her business in the middle of February 2008 and in May she had 34 chickens and was able to sustain herself and her son. In July she had raised over 60 chicks of which half will be sold and half will be kept as laying hens! She still comes to the women’s center for regular visits and is a role model for other women. She is paying back her $300 loan in ‘eggs’ valued at the equivalent of $6 per week. The eggs are used to feed our women currently living in our shelter facility.
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