Working to Care

Meet some women who have taken on the challenge of setting up small businesses so that they can provide for their children....

Afi is a talented seamstress. She has established a small business sewing uniforms for several pre-schools in Tsevié town. Afi seems to be a canny business woman, as whilst she is working on her sewing at home she also sells vegetables from a stall at the house! She is now on a much better footing to support her family of seven.

Others are earning money through rearing pigs, selling chilli peppers and making cassava flour. Many of these women are working to care not for their own children, but orphaned children whom they have welcomed into their households.

Adjo cares for five children who have been orphaned or abandoned. She cultivates maize and cassava. The profits she's started to earn from sales of the produce mean she can now pay for some of the school costs of some of the children in her care. It might seem like a small step, but it's a very definite step in the right direction. Adjo's hope of being able to provide for her household has been given a much-needed boost.

BCT's partner project Vinodi offers women like these small loans and training in starting up a business. It's a way of enabling them to do what they so long to do - look after the children in their care.