Self-Help Group Helps Themselves and Their Community
The Jitokeze Center empowers girls and women by providing vocational training and agricultural skills. When vulnerable young women come to the center to learn tailoring or hairdressing, they are also provided with a kitchen garden plot that gives them hands-on training and helps them meet their food needs while staying on campus.
The main goal of the program is to help women become financially independent by starting their own small businesses, while using the farming knowledge they gain as a way to supplement their income and feed their families. The program also utilizes Self-Help Groups to build community resilience and provide peer support and economic opportunities for both students and women in the surrounding communities.
One such group is the Ngoleyo Women’s Group, which consists of 19 women and one man. The group has started a nursery where they grow and sell vegetables, fruit and trees. They are now growing 300 species of trees and they have plans to grow 50 varieties of fruit on each farm.
The group leader, Jennifer, has successfully put her training into practice at her own home as well and has a beautiful kitchen garden, which enables her to provide for her family’s nutritional needs.
One of the main challenges the local community faces is access to water. The Ngoleyo Women’s Group decided to help not only themselves, but their entire community by donating a water tank to the local school, making it possible for the next generation to continue learning.
Kenya West Pokot is implemented by Covenant World Relief and Development and local partner Jitokeze Wamama Wafrika