Rearing of local hens for eggs

I am Jacob Oloo, the Founder and Executive Director of Determined Education & Rural Empowerment and Divine Hope Upendo Education & Empowerment Centre in Magu- Tanzania. I also founded DHUEEC International Company Limited and Divine Hope Upendo Education & Empowerment Centre in Kajiado County- Kenya.

I worked in different Organizations as the Managing Director in Sawil Pax Children’s Centre and Eden Joyce Health Dispensary in Tanzania, St. Kizito Mbuye Children’s Centre in Uganda, and St. Charles Lwanga Boys Town in Kenya.

I have volunteered my services in various Organizations such as Cottolengo Children’s Centre to care for the HIV/AIDS children and I also provided my service in St. Jacobis De Paul as an adult teacher in Sciences and a Social worker.

In all the Organizations I have used my guidance & Counseling skills and other managerial skills to mentor poor married couples and school drop-out girls and abandoned children.

I am committed to addressing the economic and Socio-cultural challenges caused by the education policy of discontinuing all the pregnant girls out of public schools forever which results into many poor single teenage mothers and school drop-out girls in our community.

I propose the start-up of tailoring course to empower them with tailoring skills for their employment and economic sustainability which in return will help them to support their vulnerable children as well.

The research we carried out through neighboring schools, companies,  Sacco groups, hospitals and other places where the workers must have uniforms at work have proved that the women will be able to tenders so the women automatically will get many customers after their training. Later, they will be able to support their children and our project too so that we can continue to recruit more children into the program and skills to more girls and women.

I am addressing the issue of increase of poor single teenage mothers and girls in the community. There are a good number of such people around but in our Community we have identified 150 women and 50 girls who are in need of our support. The major factors contributing to such increase are as follows:

• Economic factor: Most of the people in this area depend on Agriculture which most of the times is hit by a drought challenge resulting to poor harvests. Being along Lake Victoria, some people are also involved in fish business. The business is the cause of high prevalence of HIV/AIDS in the area leaving many children orphans and many women widows.
• Socio- Cultural factors: The habit of promiscuity in the area affects many girls from poor families who are miserable and are in search of their basic needs; as a result they become a target leaving them pregnant at an early age and being forced out of school by the Government.
• The education policy that states that all pregnant girls be forced out of schools has made majority of them leave school resulting to many poor single teenage mothers in the society.

The goal of the project is to empower the poor single teenage mothers and the school dropout girls with empowerment skills in Tailoring. We have already begun with empowering them with entrepreneurship and Agricultural skills.

The project already trains them in how to effectively involve them and manage small scale business in preparation for their future tailoring businesses. Through the success of the project they will be enable to have the tailoring course which will empower the poor teenage single mothers and school dropout girls with effective tailoring skills and they will in return be able to get some money to cater for their families’ basic needs.

The tailoring course will take 9 months after that the beneficiary will work in the Centre to make clothes from tenders given from the neighboring institutions such as schools, hospitals, Sacco groups, companies which may need uniforms. The money received will help to buy graduates their own sewing machines and little capital to start their own tailoring shops to support themselves and their children.

Direct Beneficiaries are the 200 poor single teenage mothers and school drop-out girls due to poor performance in their final exams and early pregnancies. We also intend to enroll the HIV/AIDS positive and physically challenged women into the program.

Indirect Beneficiaries are the 100 vulnerable children that are already in our care and will be supported by their mothers through the earning from their skills and at the same time they will be able to get their basic needs.

The project will be able to support other women and girls with tailoring skills every year and we hope approximately 1,000 women and girls will get the skills by the end of 5 years after the operational of the Program.

To understand their needs we do use their group leaders opinions, carry out home visits, involve them in individual and group meetings, carrying out workshops and seminars to let them speak out freely about their challenges and to suggest the ways which they feel can be the most appropriate measures to be used to amicable address the challenges, just as they did by proposing to have a tailoring course and our work is to support them achieve this their dream.

Our project tries to fulfill the elevating opportunities for all people, especially those who are traditionally left behind for a long time due cultural and social factors.

The poor single teenage mothers and school drop-out girls have been denied their human rights of expression about their predicament for long. Many men only see them as sexual objects making them vulnerable by their acts of impregnating them and leaving all the responsibility to them making them. The Government too justifies their sufferings by using a discriminatory approach to let men walk free from their responsibilities.

The sufferings I went during my childhood got stuck into my mind kept reminding me to find a solution to the plight of single women and their children. Having been privileged to get different Samaritans to take me through my studies I developed the interest further, while in the university I got interested to research about the effectiveness of children’s homes in providing sustainable solution to vulnerable children’s issues.

I realized that the best solution to vulnerable children is not children’s homes but children’s centers for in homes they lacked basic life skills for empower them after leaving the homes, and in centers they have time to go back and continue learning from their parents/ guardians or society, hence, the best way to support for their human development and basic life skills sustainability.

I initiated the first Children Day care in 2017, after two years I realized that the children in need were increasing and I had limited resources to reach them all so I thought that by supporting the women could be more sustainable for once empowered, they will be able support their children.

Having been born from a poor family, I saw my mum struggling to take care of us a total of 8 siblings after our father abandoned us for another wife. We were to fight for our lives; fetch for firewood or make charcoal to sell, weed farms for a little pay, work in building sites, hence, forced to stop going to school.

My parents got united in 2000 but unfortunately their health began to deteriorate only to realize that they were infected from HIV/AIDS disease. My father died in 2003 but my mother is still struggling with the disease until now. The result complicated the matter for us, such scenario made me to think on how I can address the issue; I got the support of well-wishers to take me through my studies, after completing my University education. Having got developmental skills and worked in different Children’s Centers I got the skills and experience to initiate a Centre to support vulnerable children from the poor single teenage mothers.

After two years I realized that the number was increasing and thought that to get a sustainable solution I must support the women who will in return support their children.

My childhood background positions me at the centre of the challenge since I saw my mum struggling to take care of us a total of 8 siblings after our father abandoned us for another wife. We were to fight for our lives; fetch for firewood or make charcoal to sell, weed farms for a little pay, work in building sites, hence, forced to stop going to school.

My educational background has equipped me with many effective skills to successfully deliver such a project. I have a BA in Sustainable Development with various courses suitable for the best outcome: the skills in Human rights & labor laws, monitoring & evaluation, accounting, guidance & counseling, gender & culture, planning & management, micro-finance, advocacy, marketing, applied technologies, human resource, organization development and change management, and organizing trainings etc all has been very helpful in my work and will help me successfully deliver the project.

I have a wide experience from the different Organizations I volunteered my services, from health and Children’s Centres where i worked in managerial positions. Finally, I also have experience from the Centres and Organizations I have started which deals with children and women.

My adversary testimony is to start a Day Care Centre out of empty pockets with dedicated perseverance and dedication to my dream. I realized many children were in the streets and homes not able to attend school despite the fact that the Government provides free education. I realized their extreme poverty could not afford to buy learning materials, uniforms and in some schools one has to buy a table and a chair to use because majority of the people are very poor to the extent that they cannot even provide for their daily meals, water and medical needs.

All the people I involved to help me find a solution chased me away including Government officials who discouraged me very much to an extent that they made every effort futile. I had limited funds to start so opted to begin by offering our services under a tree with the kids sitting on the few selected stones, everyone did not see the service I was giving but took me like I was a crazy person. This lasted for two years before I started receiving some support from the Catholic Church and friends, I believe the act of perseverance reached me this far.

I remember one experience when my Centre almost collapsed due to lack of resources to hire the teachers & supporting staff, buy food for the children, and provide clothing, uniform and learning materials.  I had many children enrolled and I could not continue to take care and teach them myself with limited resources to address all the challenges.

I was able to persevere and to seek solutions, I had to do monitoring and evaluation to find the way forward, my accounting skills reminded me that despite being in need of some workers I had no finance to do that, I used my marketing skills to get nearby volunteers to support. The applied technologies skills helped me to be more creative to find a way on how the first learners’ kids can help the slow learners to understand better.

The challenges reminded me that as a leader I must always be revising through the skills I achieved during my studies as well as being ready to learn new things bought the ongoing challenges in the society. I became more focused, committed, creative and constant in seeking for support from others for us to achieve our dream.

We intend to use the e-book technology

The technology has been used to improve projects, businesses, financial, medical field, schools and other institutions have been very evident. It has also been used in the big companies involved in textile industry to know the current test of customers, new approaches being used and the desirable materials in the market.

Using the digital sewing machines can also empower the physically challenged women who have been discriminated from involving in the tailoring business for long. Even the pieces of clothes that have been got from cutting the clothes will be used by some physically challenged women and girls to make pillow cases and door mats; in fact some pieces can be used to make clothes designed with different matching colors.

Technology has been used to address the competitors by improving the deliverance of products faster to customers than before and that is what we intend to do. It will improve the connectivity for safety and communication between the Centre and customers, women & girls yearning for our services and the Centre and with customers as well. It will make us be able to learn about the new ideas, modeling, new approaches to the business. It will help us to keep smart data for quality assurance.

Sources of Funds for our Organization

i. International Donations: 

We are in contact with some friend abroad to support our operating costs of running the tailoring course at least for a year before we become sustainable.

ii. Grants

We will be seeking for grants to expand our services to many people, the grant will help us to purchase more sewing machines for the bigger target group in future.

iii. Selling of the Products

We will be selling the products at a subsidized price which will be made by the women and girls in their practical lessons. We will also get uniform tenders from the neighboring schools, companies, organizations and other customers and selling to them our product will be a source of income.

iv. Community Support

We will be getting some support from the community, others will buy clothes from us, and others will continue to support our programs by bringing other materials.

vi. Monthly contributions

We expect all the founding members to contribute some amount per month for the running of the Organization.

Sources of Funds for our Organization

i. International Donations: 

We normally receive small donations to help in running the Center and we expect to get some support for the operating expenses for the intended course. So far last year we received US Dollars $  2,000

We received 300 wheelchairs from Through the roof Foundation worth US Dollars $ 75,000 and 10 wheelchairs from Walkabout Foundation worth US Dollars $ 2,500

iv. Community Support

We will be getting some support from the community, others will buy clothes from us, and others will continue to support our programs by bringing other materials. We have received US Dollars $ 1,000 from the community.

vi. Monthly contributions

We received a total of US Dollars $ 60 from the members.

We need a total of US Dollars $ 55,200 to achieve the program set to begin in October 2020.

We request for US Dollars $ 44,200 from your Organization to be available before September 2020

We expect to receive a total of US Dollars $ 7,000 from friends abroad before the September 2020

We expect to receive US Dollars $ 4,000 from the local community before September 2020.

1. $ 10,000 Mechanical Sewing Machines

2. $ 10,000 Electronic Sewing Machines

3. $ 8,000 Embroidery Sewing Machines

4. $ 8,000 Over lock Sewing Machines

5. $ 400 Cutting Scissors

6. $ 2000 Rolls of clothes for training

7. $ 200 Sewing threads

8. $ 2000 Wooden sewing chairs

9. $ 2000 Sewing Machine Tables

10.$ 1000 Electrical connection and wiring

11 $ 400 Switch sockets

12.$ 200 Connection of Security Lights  

13.$ 11,000 Operating Expenses 

The Elevate Prize can help me to address the Financial barrier!

I am certain that the funds i will get from the Prize will help me be financial sustainable and i will be able to purchase the sewing machines and other materials suitable for the program.

With the funds we can address other challenges brought by financial matters as hiring experienced experts for effective learning, we will be able to pay for the registration fee, have funds to help carry out investigation to get male culprits that impregnate girls.

We can also use the funds to provide learning materials to the girls from poor families so that they are not influenced due to their poor backgrounds as they look for their basic material needs.

We are in great needs of funds to start and will be in great need to be able to reach a bigger group by expanding to other areas. We also need the funds to address other similar challenges.

We will need many volunteers to come into our Organisation to offer their services to the beneficiaries and will need the support to reach out to many volunteers with different talents.

We will need advice from many Organizations that have succeeded so that we can learn from them in order to be successful in our mission. At the same time we need to continue doing marketing of our Organization and programs suggested.

1. We need partners interested in children.

2.  Partners interested in supporting with poor women.

3. Partners interested in building of schools.

4. Partners interested in building empowerment centers.

5. Partners interested in physically challenged persons.

6. Partners supporting sports in poor rural areas.

7. Partners interested in sex education adolescent stage persons.

8. Partners interested in education sponsorship of poor girls for higher education.

9. Partners interested in sponsoring food programs in Rura Centres and schools.