Life for Maasai women has never been easy. Water is Life Kenya was founded to relieve the daily burden of carrying water far distances that women and their daughters endure, which takes an immense amount of time and energy. But the challenges don’t stop there.
According to Maasai tradition, women do not own property and have little to no possibility of generating cash flow. Even now, many women remain uneducated, marry young, have full responsibility for their household and children, and are fixed in a cycle of poverty. These issues become even worse when a woman’s husband dies.
Our Hope for Widows (HFW) Program developed out of the question: How can we help Maasai widows support themselves? Now in its fourth year, the HFW Program has uplifted more than 150 women out of poverty by teaching business skills and giving widows the confidence to run their own businesses.
A Brief History of Hope
The Hope for Widows program began as a subset of our Livestock as a Business (LAB) Program. Instead of focusing on livestock businesses, Hope for Widows teaches small business skills to the most marginalized people in Maasai communities—the widows—in a program that provides both short-term and long-term financial gains. The women who participate in the Hope for Widows Program are the poorest of the poor in Kenya. They are stuck in a cycle of poverty with no support, face potential abuse in a patriarchal system, and lack the skills to earn a living. We as an organization pride ourselves on helping these women turn their lives around.
Since 2022, we’ve selected a new group of women each year to participate in Hope for Widows. These women are heads of household who are solely responsible for supporting their families.
The pilot of our Hope for Widows program directly impacted 150 women and their families. After receiving seed capital, widows started businesses such as selling clothing and beads for tourists and selling food to people community members. These businesses helped pay for regular household expenses that they otherwise could not afford. This provided widows with greater autonomy so that they weren’t begging for food and money. It also prevented their businesses from collapsing after paying large, one-off expenses like school fees.
Success Stories of 4 Widows
Hope for Widows is about individual transformation. After eight training sessions, women are confident, believe in themselves and their abilities (know how to keep records, save money, maintain their businesses, etc.), and can provide for themselves and their families. It’s no small feat that a widow’s sense of helplessness can be upended in such a short period.
Over the past three years, more than 150 women’s lives have been transformed. We’d like to give a snapshot of four of these stories:
- Damaris is 39 years old, has 8 kids, and has been a widow for 14 years. She is the matron at Lenkisem Secondary School. After receiving business skills training in HFW, she started a business where she sells clothing and bed sheets to students at the school. She has become the highest saver in her group.
- Tayiana is another successful widow who was particularly inspired by starting a savings box (like a piggy bank). She loved the idea so much that she brought it to another women’s group she’s a part of and instituted it there. Though she is the only widow in that group, she has become a leader since participating in HFW.
- Nasinkoi is an incredibly nice and strong woman. Her confidence and generosity encouraged her to open her home up for the first HFW group meeting. Also, her brother-in-law is a local area chief. At one HFW training session, he attended and stayed for the whole training—the first man to do that. He was happy about WILK helping widows because his mother was a widow, but he told us that because she was so strong nobody could tell she was a widow. He can see the change in Nasinkoi and wants other women to access this program, too.
- Meteyian is an organizer. She has organized the Lenkisem group to begin group savings. Now, every woman adds 200 shillings a week. Meteyian also took to livestock-keeping and has helped nine baby goats be born. Every other month, Meteyian’s group identifies a needy woman and gives her money from their group savings.
Although we’ve highlighted four women supported by HFW, there are actually more people who have benefited. Not only are the women and their families in better health, but children can attend school without interruption because the women have a constant flow of income. The surrounding community also views the women differently, as they are no longer begging for food and money. In fact, their income is in circulation within the community, so everyone benefits from this business success. It’s amazing what can happen when they have something to give!
The Future of Hope
So far, the Hope for Widows Program has supported the business goals of more than 100 women. In the past three years of the program, we realized all of the groups have to be taught to run businesses that are specific to where they live.
For example, the first groups live near Amboseli National Park, so they cater their businesses to tourists. However, women who live in rural areas where few tourists go, like those in Lenkisem, have to develop different business strategies. They, instead, sell local goods: food and drinks, clothing and blankets, etc. In this way, they remain successful and are not in danger of their businesses failing.
We’ve applied these methods while training our fourth group of widows this year. Next Friday, we’ll host another Goats & Grants & Graduation Ceremony for these women! The second group of widows, trained in 2023, will be those who are graduating from the program. The third group, trained last year, will continue the tradition of gifting baby goats from their herds to women in need. Then they will receive their second grants. The newest group will be given their first grants along with three goats (one male, two female).
We’re so proud of the hard work these women have invested into improving their lives. We can’t wait to see the fourth group of widows put their lessons into practice when they start their new businesses!
