Support For Widows

Empowered & Sustainable

While many widows are physically able to work and take care of their families, they often fail to do so adequately due to a lack of technical skills, confidence, money handling and entrepreneurship ability or simply no child care. On top of this they often have no initial capital to invest in starting a small business.

Supporting widows within the Gicumbi District is needing to take a different approach from our more usual pattern.  For some, such as widow Severine and widow Vestine it is by helping in a practical way, with the Life Link Rwanda team.  This involves the provision of a safe home within the community, our hope is that the opportunity to explore a small micro business with each of them will also be possible.  

An area that is being successful is the Gifting of Goats… to widows in the community to raise for meat. We are exploring other opportunities for micro business but finding ideas that are sustainable and provide for the family, outside of the community farm a challenge.

Our goal is to empower these widows and any business to be sustainable. The process usually begins with identification of those with need. After the initial contact each widow is visited and given the opportunity to discuss what they see as a business idea. If this if approved a process of training on budgeting and business planning starts.

Each widow is allocated a small amount of money or the initial pen and animals to help get things started, and through this process. The widows are empowered, and join together in groups in the hope of setting up and hopefully maintain a sustainable business which will provide regular income and free them and their children from the cycle of poverty.

Widows We Support

We currently still support one widow on a regular monthly basis outside of the Gicumbi District

Joyce

Business: Farming

Joyce lives just outside Kigali, we have known and supported Joyce for many years, through the challenges of hardship & illness. A few years ago, we felt that it was right to pay the rental on a clean, dry home for her as the damp and dust was affecting her health.  Joyce continues live in the same home, but the challenges of additional family and her health need to be reviewed again. Our team plan to visit Joyce in her home with Odette from Life Link Rwanda in July to pray with her and see how we can best support her to become self-supporting. If a small income generating project close to home is possible, although this may not be as the home is rented. Please do pray for wisdom and an open door.     

Success Stories

Here are some of the widows that we no longer directly support as they have become self-sufficient in their businesses

Venancie

Business: Agriculture

Venancie has been selling charcoal but is currently studying the market in order to launch a new business. The most profitable business may be agriculture, growing maize, keeping goats or rabbits. She is currently investigating which would be the best.

Venancie’s sister, a single mother with two girls, was unwell with cancer so she moved in to live with her and take care of the two daughters. Following the recent loss of her sister she is now caring for her two nieces. She enjoys working the land and is currently searching for a plot to buy with Lifelink24’s help. The two orphan girls have not been to school and have always worked the land for others. Lifelink24 aims to support Venancie so that she and her nieces will have a sustainable business into the future.

Jeanie

Business: Seamstress.

Jeanne’s sewing business is already enabling her take care of her family. She receives orders from individuals and art & craft shops. She has also been working with the Byumba Single Mothers on the face masks project where her aptitude contributed to its success. This trimester she is going to reinvest in buying more sewing materials. Until recently she didn’t have her own sewing machine and had to rent one. However Lifelink24 has now provided her with a sewing machine in return for ongoing investment in the Byumba Single Mothers programme. With Lifelink24’s support Jeanne has not only succeeded in lifting her own family out of poverty, she has become an asset to her community and role model to the single mothers.

Claudine

Business: Shoe Shop

Claudine’s charcoal business is thriving. From the money she made, she has managed to meet the needs of her family and pay for their health insurance as well as paying for the transport of her older children to school. Claudine is nearing the end of the programme and is planning on adding to her business flip flops, after discovering that there is no one else selling these in her neighbourhood. Through Lifelink24’s support, not only has Claudine developed a successful business, but with entrepreneurial training she has developed an ability to adapt and grow her business to the current environment.

Agatha

Business: Selling Charcoal

Agatha is a lady of great entreupraneurship! In addition to her charcoal business, last year she began selling non-alcoholic sorghum beer. She needed to find a base to work from and has now begun renting a house where she sells non-alcoholic banana beer and roasted potatoes. The house has a big compound that she has managed to keep her charcoal business going too with the help of her daughter who is a single mother. From the revenue she had managed to bring a solar electricity system and a TV to the house which attracts customers.

Agatha is also growing some crops in the garden that she hired and is expecting to harvest in the near future. She has been able to buy some school materials for her three children who are in primary school. Her plan is to expand her business and add more affordable food options such as plantains and cassava as well as to attract more clients. She also has even more plans for the near future. Agatha is a great example of how a whole family’s lives can be changed through Mission24 LIFE’s micro business project.

“Widows are empowered to set up and maintain a sustainable business which will provide a regular income and free them and their children from the cycle of poverty”

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