 Young Women Entrepreneurship program

The proportion of female-headed households is rising dramatically in sub-Saharan Africa, making women’s income very crucial. As women transition into the role of head-of-household, their traditional activities are augmented with the responsibility of being the breadwinner, and their successes  are linked to the wellbeing of the entire household.

In South Sudan, continued armed conflicts impacted negatively on the society especially, women and children. Their lives continue to deteriorate due to escalating economic hardships. Young women and girls are forced to engage in transactional sex in order to fend for themselves and their children. This exposes them to high risks of contracting HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.

 The program is to  equip women with entrepreneurial skills, and support their income generating activities through groups.

This is expected to transform the lives of  women and their households as they will be able to engage in meaningful businesses to generate income.

The main problem is ravaging poverty among young women in South Sudan due to escalating economic hardships resulting from persistent conflicts and, now the Covid-19 pandemic.

Women are becoming the main bread winner of most families in the rural as many young men have fled to towns in search of jobs, while some women are widows because their husbands were killed in conflicts (both political and intercommunal conflicts). Thus, fending for children and elderly family members in such families relies heavily on women. This is a heavy burden and a big challenge to women in South Sudan

It is estimated that over 3,000 households in the target county of Kapoeta south are, either headed by women or women are the main bread winners and over 80% 0f these women survive from informal small scale businesses. This include sale of tea and green vegetables at small market centres.

Thus, there is need to equip these women with appropriate business skills and value chain& marketing to enbale them scale up their businesses.

The program's main gaol is to unlock the potential of young business women in South Sudan through skills development. The program will conduct awareness and sensitization workshops for small scale business women in the informal sector targeting mainly widows, single mothers and those who are bread winners of their households. Skills trainings will cover mainly entrepreneurship, basic business skills and financial literacy. The trained women will be organised in common interest groups and further trained on group dynamics and simple village saving and loaning schemes. The trainings will also include value addition techniques in order to increase their market value.

After skills development, the common interest groups will be supported with initial start- up capital for Village saving and loaning schme. They will be encouraged to form business networks wthin the county, and linked to micro-financial institutions for support in terms of capital and financial management.

The program targets to reach over 1,000 young women in rural settings of South Sudan. Specifically, the program is in Kapoeta South County of South Sudan. This is an Agro-Pastoral community where livestock rearing is the main source of livelihood with little subsistence farming. Women carry out paltry businesses at trading centers to generate income for their livelihood.  Women engage in are selling of greens, tea, charcoal, milk and other food stuffs- which are mainly informal and at very small scale.

AMRES conducted a rapid assessment in October, 2019 on the impact of conflicts and escalating economic hardships on women in the county. It was noted that majority of young women were facing serious economic challenges which subjected them to exploitation including sexual abuse. Most of those interviewed were trying to bail themselves out of the predicament through small scale business. But the main impediment is lack of skills and capital to run the business.

From these findings, AMRES can up with this program focusing mainly on business/ entrepreneurial skills development for young women, and supporting their initiatives to engage in income generating activities as a way of strengthening their livelihood support systems. 

Women are becoming the main bread winner of most families in the rural as many young men have fled to towns in search of jobs, while some women are widows because their husbands were killed in conflicts (both political and intercommunal conflicts). Thus, fending for children and elderly members in such families relies heavily on women.  

Thus, by equiping them with appropriate business skills and supporting them to expand and/ or initiate business activities will help them improve their lives and those of their families.