Empowering households

Have just had a fruitful meeting with the parents and care givers of our children. Our discussions centred on economic strengthening of our households; supporting them to raise their household incomes. This will be an area of emphasis this year. As we work with these rural families, we are getting to appreciate how much of the problems we are trying to solve, even among the children, are actually rooted in household poverty.
It affects the childrens' self esteem, their ability to concentrate in class, and their general socio-emotional development.
We have therefore agreed to set up a fund among ourselves where we can keep some funds which will be loaned out to families on a rotational basis...interest free! They will be given according to their capacity to manage and business needs. Some will use it to buy seeds for planting and other agricultural inputs. They will then repay little by little in manageable monthly instalments back into the fund so that others may also get a chance to borrow. The parents are so excited because they have been depending on high interest loans which put them at risk of losing their land to money lenders.
We shall use the funds that we have been saving for that purpose and any other that well wishers may contribute into this fund.

We concluded by giving each family a bar of washing soap and some body jelly for the children.. Many times children dont put on uniform because of lack of soap for washing. So this will go a long way to solve that problem.