Widows' Actions of Change
The widows have engaged in various activities for their spiritual, social and material development. These activities have been initiated, resourced and implemented by the widows. At Nyanam, we encourage the widows to self-organize, then work with their lessons to design projects and programs to support their preparation as leaders of positive social change in their communities.
Table Banking
Table banking is a group savings and lending scheme in which members put their savings, loan repayments and other contributions on a table and borrow immediately during their meetings. We meet weekly, and among other things implement table banking. I am relieved to have a financial source I can borrow from both for my weaving business and personal emergencies. Our pool of fund is very little and so not many of us are able to start businesses or scale up our business by borrowing from the group. We would love to access more capital to increase the productivity of our businesses, hence our livelihood and ability to educate our children.
“My desire is for all of us widows to rise together, especially economically. In two-years time, I would love to see every widow leading their business, so that no one is left poor. A group business project would be great. We must all rise and shine together.” - Dora
Widows preparing to table their money during table-banking.
Photo credit: Jackie Odhiambo
Leadership Circles
Mary, a widow who has found personal comfort in the widow-to-widow support groups.
Photo credit: Evelyn Odhiambo
“We have centralized the word of God in our meetings. It is what makes the widows’ group, I’d rather call it widows’ fellowship, unique from other women groups that I have been a part of, where the focus is only material development. We care about the holistic wellbeing of each widow in our fellowship. When we meet, we read the word of God, and one of us teaches on the word. We have witnessed behaviour changes among us. Some widows have stopped brewing or getting drunk on alcohol when we confronted the impact of our businesses and lifestyles on our lives and our children. We also share our personal problems for advice and material support where needed.
I have sisters to lean on in times of trouble. I have a son who suffers from drug addiction and he and I have had a rocky and painful relationship. The widows have encouraged me when my heart was burdened. The bible fellowship has changed my attitude toward my son. Instead of anger, I speak gently with him. My son has not changed, but I experience more peace in my relationship with him.”
- Mary
Farming
“Our dream is to own a tractor as a group of widows. We will use this to cultivate more farms and generate more income.
This will change our opportunities and those for our children. Some of us can learn how to operate the tractor. Everybody has a farm and the local market needs this.”
- Salome
Some widows have land, but lack resources to cultivate it. They end up having little harvest but not maximizing the productivity of their lands. Last year, we formed a farming merry-go-round. We developed a schedule and moved from one widow’s home to another to support each other in our subsistence farming. We supported each other throughout the whole season of digging, planting, weeding until harvesting.
A good number of widows still have food from last year’s harvest. When we finished with our farms, we also offered group labour in other non-widow farms for income. We saw this as an opportunity for income generation but faced competition from owners of tractors, none of whom come from our villages.
Financial Empowerment
“We know how education is important and we don’t want any of the widows’ children to miss out on school because of financial reasons.
The goats help, but we need to strengthen our business so that we can also contribute educational funds.”
- Rose
We have bought 22 goats, a goat for a widow. We bought the goats, each for $20-$30, primarily as financial security for the widows. Sometimes a child is sent home for school fees and you do not have cash in hand. If you have a goat, you can sell the goat and pay the fees. The goats are also giving birth, so this is a smart savings that grows if well taken care of. We are continuing with the goat buying project until each widow has her own goat bought by the widows.
Reconstructing Homes + Providing Resources
Our leaders visited the homes of all the widows at the start of our fellowship. From those visits, we found some of the widows with deplorable and unsafe housing conditions. One widow had a house without a roof; the sun shone in, it rained in, and the moon shone in. Another widow had a huge rock in the middle of the house making it hard to enter it. One widow’s house did not have walls, and we feared for her safety with wild animals roaming the village at night. For all of these widows, we contributed our finances and labour, and repaired their houses. We still have widows with houses that need repair or reconstruction. For example, Mary’s house is in utter disrepair. She has worked hard over several years and bought bricks and sand to build a new house. We would appreciate Konyango’s support in building her a new house.
Most of us widows have used little kerosene lamps for the longest we can remember. The lighting is dim. Many of us and our children suffer from eyesight problems that we do not know if are related to this type of lighting. Mkopa for solar lamps is an installment purchase plan for buying solar lamps. As a group, we raise the capital for down-payment for a lamp for each widow. We buy 2 solar lamps per week and so far have bought 16 solar lamps. Each widow carries the responsibility of paying their daily or weekly dues until she owns the lamp.