Women Empowerment

Our empowerment programmes have been designed to equip women and youth to be financially more self-sufficient and change-makers in their communities. We believe that poverty reduction strategies will not be effective unless women and youth are empowered financially. Our Women Empowerment program therefore offers skill development workshops, entrepreneurship training, and leadership programs. Our hypothesis is that, financially sound women and youth act as financial backups for their families and are able to contribute to family income and motivate their children to stand on their own two feet. This is because their children see good work ethic at home and want to follow it. Currently, most women and youth in the communities in which we work rely on their husbands as their only source of survival.

For some also, their ambition is to get married to a man who may already have 2 to 3 wives, thereby perpetuating a cycle of poverty. Under the BDF Women Empowerment program, women are assisted to learn at least one trade in practical vocational programmes such as sewing, dressmaking, hairdressing, catering, batik/ tie and dye making, baking, preparation of local fruit drinks, shea butter processing, soap making and related vocations. After completing their apprenticeship, the women are given a seed capital to enable them setup. Their progress is monitored and from time to time, given business assistance as they grow. They are also encouraged to participate in SME training programmes and assisted to sell their products both locally and internationally.

Added to the above, Brooks Dreams Foundation will also engage women in small groups, under its community night school programme. The night schools are specially designed to give an opportunity to those women who never attended school, to acquire the basics of reading and writing. They will also be taught basic arithmetic, to help them in their trade and book keeping. Consistent with our philosophy of “quality and not quantity”, even if it means “doing a little at a time” , we consider it a success if we are able to assist only five women and youth under this project annually.