with Soap Making Skills-I'm Empowered!
Women Empowerment
Petifu Manso community, in the Bombali district, covered by the Bombali Local Rights Programme is a community where women before the intervention of Action Aid, were heavily dependent on their husbands for their wellbeing; which gives them the levrage to sometimes abuse their rights. Furthermore, with the majority of these women not engaged in small scale businesses makes issues worse.
With this soap making, the women can now produce more soap which they can sell and then upkeep their families.
“We want to say thanks to ActionAid, for providing this big leap for us..... this support comes in very handy, when we were thinking that all hope is gone then came this great benefit to our lives and that of our children’s” Fatmata informs.
Fatmata is among the 30 women benefited from the support from ActionAid. These women from themselves into a savings group at first, as they start progressing, they ask for a skill transfer which will help them have income which will enable them to pay their contributions to the savings group. “i can now pay my contributions on time thanks to the soap making business” Fatmata informs.
The Petifu Manso group can now produce soap that they sell within their community and even take them to the “Luma” (Weekly community markets for bigger sales. In the Lumas they are making huge profits and are making contacts for bigger supplies and even trainings. “We are happy when other women groups are approaching us to pass on the soap making business to them, this will make them to start a group like ours” Fatmata informs. With this soap making business Fatmata can now assist in her children’s affairs “I was very happy when I provide my two children with Uniforms and helped my husband pay for one of our kid’s school fees all thanks to ActionAid” Fatmata happily informs.
The Petifu Manso group is working hard to start going into other big projects, they are focusing their energy to see how they can purchase rice milling machine so that they can go into Garri production which will give them more income, and they will be able to co-opt more women into the group “ we are dreaming big, we believe we need to move our group to another stage so that we can now produce and have more income all thanks to ActionAid”. Fatmata Informs.
