Jun 10, 20214 min read

Please, can you give us a hand to help them ?

Updated: Jun 23, 2021

Madam Onditi, a Goat or a Sheep?

Let’s all take a moment and reflect on what it takes for a group of widows from Africa in order to survive?

Money, food, clothes, housing, education, protection?

All these are necessary, no doubt, for them women in Africa, and for anyone around the world. They are the essential and expected resources any human being deserves as an individual in terms of decent rightful living.

However, if we are honest, the way to achieve this human acquired rights is not the same for us all. For a group of widows from a little village called Pap Onditi the answer is simpler, their starting point is a goat or a sheep, it seems easy right? Well, inconceivably, it isn’t.

Coachability’s approach is improving economic development for widows in Pap Onditi, Kisumu County (Kenya) through a long-term, holistic approach which includes education sponsorship, life skills, business start-ups and support, training.

How?

They just need a goat and a sheep to move on and try to survive. By using a revolving economic empowerment scheme, we intend to give each family a mature goat/sheep to rear, following a vulnerability selection criterion.

Women, selected following a vulnerability criterion, are given the livestock.

They breed and farm them.

Once they have new cows / sheep, they give the first-born animal back to the project.

And the circle starts again with another beneficiary who will receive some livestock.

Pap Onditi is a rural village situated near the shore of Lake Victoria in the western part of Kenya – about 235 km North-West of Nairobi, the country’s capital. ‘Pap’ means a flat, dry place in the Luo language; ‘Onditi’ is a name of a local family- translated: Onditi’s flat, dry place.

The economic activities of the community living around Pap Onditi are subsistence farming, small scale businesses. The area receives very little rainfall throughout the year and drought is a constant phenomenon in the lives of the people. People here survive on less than $1 per day.

We don’t want you to feel pity for them and for their living conditions, it’s what it is. This is their reality. Being a woman in Africa is hard, being a widow in Africa is harder.

So, let’s talk about facts and solutions.

Facts:

Most of these widows lost their husbands through HIV/Aids and are HIV positive as well.

They have no skills, knowledge or resources to continue their lives without their husbands.

They have children and people under their care whom they need to provide.

They get by doing manual work which requires spending intensive levels of energy and hence has a negative effect on their health, and it means a decrease on the effectiveness of the anti-retroviral drugs they take. And to make matters worse, neither them nor their children can’t live on a proper diet, or a diet at all.

It’s not only widows who are vulnerable, but also other women with disabled, sick, drug addicted or alcoholic husbands.

Solutions:

Coachability Foundation is working hard to make this Project work ( visit the link)

The total cost of the Project Goat or Sheep is 2.266€ (264,252.09 KES)

However, due to the emergency situation they have, we must buy 15 animals at a price of 35€ per animal.

Adding to this cost, we must pay 60€ for vaccination and transport, and the bank transaction which is about 40€. Donate at this link

All in all, we count on a total amount of emergency investment and cost of 600€ (40€ per animal)

It’s not much considering the great impact the Project is having on widows from Pap Onditi.

Who better to explain why helping these women is worth the effort than the person responsible of the Project, I quote:

“I would want to say that this one goat one family project is a success project so far based on the animals we gave to 15 widows. Out of the 15 widows we gave the animals 12 have animals ranging from 2-4 in number. This is because some widows had unavoidable circumstances that needed finances and the only assets, they had been the animals we gave. So, they sold one or two after sharing with me their problem situation. For the other 3 widows, one sold her animal without informing the project and the other two, their animals died from sickness.

Therefore, the success rate of the project is above 86 percent which is really impressive as the first time of implementation of the project. This an indicator that it's a project that should be enhanced and improvement made in areas to do with animal health and housing and working closely with widows to try to help them find more sources of income to support their financial needs.

Impact so far made are:

1). Widows have assets that they never had before the project come into being.

2). They have some fallback especially when they are in serious financial need

3). They can pay school fees, afford school uniform or scholastic materials, pay medical bill or a meal once in a while when they sell an animal.

In short, their economic situation or livelihoods improved to some fairly good level and to some extent improved the livelihoods and economy of the community in general.”

Can you help?

On behalf of these women and Coachability Foundation, we ask for help. We need your help. They need your help. And 40€ is not much, but it’s a life changing amount for them. And we just need to collect 600€

I have already contributed. Not only because I believe in Coachability, but because helping is why I am part of Coachability Foundation. I believe in giving as a way of receiving. WIN, WIN.

PLEASE, can you help us help them?

Any amount will be enough and much, much appreciated.

COACHABILITY FOUNDATION