Empower 103 Households for their Livelihoods

The chain of poverty;  the community of Yambio County of Gbudwe State, South Sudan depends heavily on agriculture, yet they practice shifting cultivation using rudimentary tools for subsistent purposes. There is acute hunger and children are malnourished.  It is not easy for Yambio people to come out of this bad situation. Very sadly again, community depends entirely on an insufficient seasonal rainfall and cannot grow crops for most part of the year.

Single mothers have the desire to seek remedies to their own poverty challenges and Community Skills Development has organized and teamed them up into groups; a) Women Farmers b) Tailoring group and c) Hair dressing group.

Each group is already engaged in some sort of initiative for orientation towards self-empowerment.

Every single mother has her own special story to tell

Community Skills Development majorly supports impoverished women in Gbudwe State where Yambio is the headquarters of that State. The total number of our target population is 17,000 Households in Gbudwe state for various services. Community Skill Development was established in the year 2008 and since then we have provided farmers with agricultural tools and seeds, fed malnourished children, sponsored orphans and trained two bunches of women in tailoring skills. When needy women hear about community skills development, they come to express their interest to join the groups but for limitation of resources, we admit the neediest and the poorest of the poor.

Now in 2018, only 30 single mothers are admitted to the farming group and will be supported for 3 years then allowed to operate on their own; hoping that the trainings and orientations received will have endowed them for self-resilience. 20 women in the group of tailoring and another 20 in hair dressing will be trained for a year then allowed out to set their own businesses. Community skills development will divide them into threes by the end of the year and provide each 3 member group with a sewing machine for tailors and provide hair dressers with a kit of equipment.

When the women get into their groups, they begin to build and enjoy strong bond of social cohesion and mutual support. Angelina is a member of the women farmers group, showed happiness, enthusiasm and exclaimed that she is hopeful to earn some income as to afford treatment and school fees for her children this coming planting season. On her part, Martha is grateful to Community Skills Development for having enlisted her to the group of women farmers and to enable her to have food for her children.

The steps taken to empower 103 households of single mothers for their livelihoods is only possible because of the support of distinct persons who provided the funds and we have been able to purchase vegetable seeds, ground nuts and maize seeds and also purchased irrigation machines; pressure pump, sprinkler and accessories, fuel to operate the machines and agricultural tools. The cost of empowering women farmers alone is US$ 14,705.  The financial support you offered us has been devoted towards the empowerment of first group –the women farmers.

 While the empowerment project is targeting three different groups constituting the 103 households, our dream is to move on to empower the two other groups of hair dressing and tailoring. We will keep you updated as this project progresses.

We remain grateful and thanks very much.

Links:

• Find a copy of our report here