Projects
Everything revolves around one simple concept: women's cooperatives. When we gather women together to empower and encourage one another in the context of real relationships, healing and lasting change occurs.
The Plan
The Plan
Long Term Sustainability
Currently, BFAU works with 38 women's cooperatives in 32 villages around the Teso region (some villages have multiple cooperatives). Each cooperative is a group of 30-50 single mamas and widows who meet weekly for encouragement, training and a pooling of their resources to make a difference in their villages!
This is where real healing occurs, as the mamas share their stories, joys and struggles and support one another. It is in the context of this community that we can empower our mamas through:
1. Monthly Mentoring.
Rita (our field director) visits each group monthly of training, mentoring and conflict resolution.
2. Literacy+ Training:
Literacy+ classes teach reading, writing, basic math, sanitation, hygiene, nutrition and business principles. These classes are offered 2-3x per week at various literacy centers where mamas can gather with their "sisters" from their cooperative as well as mamas from other BFAU cooperatives to encourage each other as a community and learn together. Many of our mamas were not given the opportunity to go to school as children, so Literacy+ classes are not only informative but redemptive too! They feel like "school girls" again and LOVE learning to write their names, read and do math. This means our mamas can read doctors orders and their children's homework. It means they are not getting cheated at the market because they can count now. It means real, sustainable change.
3. Clean Water
We provide (in partnership with a local drilling company that we contract) deep water boreholes (wells) for villages as funding is available. We have provided 35 wells so far. Each of our villages now has access to at least 1 clean water well. We are now working on adding 2nd or 3rd wells to decrease the amount of time that women spend walking for water each day, which increases the amount of time they can spend with their families and on growing their businesses.
Mentoring, School Fees and Literacy+ Covered by monthly donors who sponsor a mama.
Short Term Aid that Empowers