At Water is Life Kenya (WILK), we do our best to support Kenyan women who traditionally have the hardest work to do: traveling long distances to find water, feeding and caring for their families, and paying school fees. We began our Hope for Widows program because widowed Kenyan women face immense odds due to disenfranchisement and gender inequality. Over the last year and a half, approximately 50 women have been trained through our program. We’d like to highlight one woman’s success within her first year of participation.
Meet Koyiaso
Koyiaso is from Oltome village in Amboseli. She is an active woman of 45 and has four children. She lost her husband four years ago and joined WILK’s Hope for Widows Pilot program in July 2022. Whenever you see Koyiaso, she is carrying on her back a big load of textiles and clothing which she sells from village to village. From the profit she earns through her business, she buys food and pays school fees for her family. Koyiaso has also saved enough money to make improvements to her home. She recently built a fence to protect her family from lions and even piped water from the nearby borehole to her house.
Koyiaso said, “Before I joined WILK’s Hope for Widows program, I was shy. I felt hopeless. Now I have ideas and can talk in front of people. I am able to make a profit and manage my business. I have enough knowledge so that my business won’t collapse when I have big expenses like school fees. I am known as a business lady, where before people would avoid me because I had nothing.”
Koyiaso has blossomed as she built her business with the grant she received from WILK. When she talks about how grateful she is for the chance to change her life, she cries. She had a hard time since losing her husband and didn’t see how her situation could improve. But now, hope is alive!
Empowering Widows through Business Skills
In the Hope for Widows program, we train women in business skills, self-empowerment, women and family health, and their rights as widows. After training, we award a cash grant of $150 to start their small businesses and three goats to start their herds. Based on our 2022-23 pilot program results, we found that a one-time donation of $800 means a woman receives $2,400 in benefits through increases in four key financial indicators: income, assets, savings, and business inventory.
- Increase in Income – Women went from an average of $50 per month to $200 per month. This means $1,800 more per year for these women and their children.
- Increase in Savings – Most women began with $0 in savings. Now they are saving $50 per woman in 6 months. This is growth of $100 per year.
- Increase in Assets – After receiving goats, their livestock assets have grown from an average of 2 goats per woman (worth $120) to 6 goats per woman (worth $360).
- Consistent Inventory – With this new financial discipline, women can maintain inventory, run their small businesses consistently, and keep their customers coming back.
Additional Benefit: Improved Household Nutrition
In addition, we have seen significant improvement in household nutrition. Before the program, women were eating two meals a day, one of which was only a cup of tea. But by July 2023, they were eating two meals a day with real food, like vegetables and ugali, rice and beans, corn and beans, or porridge with milk, along with a cup of tea for breakfast. Now they are strong, healthy, and energetic. And when we asked how their quality of life had changed, the women told us that their confidence, hopefulness, feeling of belonging, and belief in their ability to “handle things” had increased.
They Could Use Your Help
So many more women need the training and grants, especially due to the inflation of staple food
costs, a weak Kenyan currency, and drought causing poor harvests. Widow-led families feel the pressure even more than others. Providing skills and seed money will boost these women and build resilience so they can thrive in an uncertain environment.
Your gift of $150 will provide money for a widow to start her business; $460 will fund one year of training; $800 will support a widow in her first year of the Hope for Widows Program, including the grant, goats, and training.
Together, we can do even more. Any amount you give will be put towards our work of Helping Kenyans Bloom. Thanks to you, widows in Kenya can care for themselves and their families with dignity and hope.
