October 15, 2020 (232News)
FREETOWN – It was a joyous scene at Masantigie/Matainkay Village along the Waterloo axis where 22 women spelt out their business successes within a year during their Share-Out Session in their Savings and Loans Association (VSLA).
The ceremony which took place on Wednesday 14th October, 2020 was made possible through Caritas Freetown in partnership with Justice and Peace Commission (JPC) with fund from TROCARE.
Caritas Livelihood Supervisor, Cecilia Bintu Sesay, explained that the women started as an advocacy group to advocate against domestic violence and rape among others.
She said for the advocacy to be sustainable, they had to find ways to engage them the more. The 25 women chose different businesses and the Caritas team bought the items they requested. Three of them were however dropped. The group elected their executive for the safety of their money and after a year they converged to share the profits.
Bintu disclosed that two weeks ago they trained the women how to share their profit after a successful one year but it was not the end of their work as they will be monitoring them for another year.
The women were excited to share their experiences about the project; display some of their businesses and their future plans.
Caritas-Freetown Human Resource Manager, Madam Grace Jones, after listening to the women expressed joy and said the group truly demonstrated what they were taught a year ago.
She said the women have proved to her that they can do more than this. According to her when you train a woman; you train a whole nation and what they have demonstrated other women can emulate their success stories.
She appealed to them to add to their businesses because she will return to see how their businesses have grown after they received their share-out.
She also encouraged them to open a Bank Account in Waterloo and that it is not too secure to save their monies at home.
The Community Youth Chairman, Hassan Munu, said they were pleased with the project as some communities were yearning for it. He congratulated the women for maintaining standards.
Most of the businesses the women engage in are food and beverages, stationary, cosmetic and sleepers. The women raised Le 31,679,000 as profit.
The Headman representative, Foday Kargbo spoke about the unprofitable use of money by some women. He disclosed that most of the women were engaged in fishing and sand mining but the presence of Caritas has changed the situation which he said they were happy about and prayed for their continuous presence.
Mohamed Koroma one of the community stakeholders, applauded the initiative and said they had used to give money to their wives on a daily basis but from the time the program started that has reduced. He testified that the education he received from the JPC as he used to fight his wife but now things have changed for them.
“Lot of changes have taken place from the time project started.”
He advised the women to continue what they had been taught and learn to save.
Adama Mansaray and Aminata C. Momoh shared their experiences to this medium and expressed determination to increase their businesses in the second phase of the project by opening shops.
