Providing a safe working environment with childcare and food. Empowering women to earn a fair price utilising locally grown materials and skill-based training.

As a largely arable area dominated by sugar cane, women in Muhoroni and the surrounding villages find themselves working in the fields as casual labour. Women also take in washing for pay –  an unreliable source of income and insufficient to generate a steady amount of money to raise their families.

More than 20% of women in Muhoroni and surrounding villages survive on less than £1 per day.

Supporting women-headed households to get on their feet to start earning an income is a way out of poverty.

Our approach is to tackle child malnutrition by striking at the very roots of poverty; the gender inequality and disempowerment of women that inhibits their ability to lift themselves and their families out of poverty.

The cascade effect of women earning a fair wage and breaking the cycle of poverty is huge. If a mother can work in a safe environment they are able to send their children to school.

If a girl is in school, this helps to prevent child marriage. Early marriage thwarts a girls chances at education, endangers her health and cuts short her personal growth and development.

Health risks are greatly increased – complications in pregnancy and childbirth, more likely to contract HIV, more likely to experience violence in their marriages and children of a child bride are more likely to die in infancy, more likely to be malnourished and less likely to get an education.

Child marriage perpetuates family and community cycles of poverty and poor health. Only a small percentage of girls in Muhoroni continue to secondary school. Some girls never attend school at all.

Muhoroni People’s Foundation Women’s Cooperative Enterprise.

We have provided training for a group of local women to become skilled in basket-weaving, working for a fair wage. In turn, they train other women who join our cooperative in the same skills.

Using the church hall of Muhoroni as our workshop, the women attend as often as they can – some do 2 days, others 5. Every day we provide breakfast and lunch for mums and their pre-school children, who they bring with them. 

Our baskets take from 3  to 36 days to make by hand and are made with local sisal and lots of love. The women are paid a fair price and all monies raised through the sale of the baskets they weave goes directly back into funding Muhoroni People’s Foundation projects.

Our baskets are sold through our online shop/community, UK craft markets, as well as various outlets in the UK.

Check out our online shop here.

The women with preschool children bring their children with them and they work on a rota of childcare between them – some work while others look after the children – this rotates daily.

In the future, we hope to arrange guest speakers to address any concerns and provide information on a variety of topics – sexual wellbeing, family planning, healthy eating, importance of schooling, domestic violence etc.