To empower means to “make (someone) stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights.” We get so excited about empowering others and our micro-financing programmes are a great way of giving people the support that they need to realise their dreams and ambitions.

Our Empowering programme provides men and women with the opportunity to grow in courage, realise their potential and take control of their own lives. By providing them with the training, tools and encouragement they need, it helps people become independent, realise what skills they have, what they can achieve and how they themselves can provide for their families.

We have provided many different courses over the years from tailoring to carpentry and the passion and dedication from those who have attended the courses has been inspiring. We have often found that given the right support, help and encouragement, people thrive, lives are transformed, and hope is restored.

One of the aims of our Empowering programme is to seek to serve those who are desperate to have their own business or to manage and run it more efficiently. We work with a person to encourage them to become self-sufficient and help them grow their business, so that they feel a sense of self-worth and purpose. We simply try and give people a helping hand so they feel empowered to keep going.  

Many of the businesses are very small scale and consist of a little stall selling vegetables, samosas or fish. Some others look after chickens and sell eggs, some are tailors, some are carpenters, and some are hairdressers. They are not necessarily businesses on a large scale, but it’s what helps to keep a family going and helps to provide an income they wouldn’t otherwise have. For some of them, it takes confidence to sit and sell their homegrown vegetables and bread, and the stall very often consists of a plank of wood balanced on bricks or plastic with the goods laid out along it. They don’t have their own shop or even a shop front, or somewhere to lock up their goods at the end of the day. But to this person, it’s something to focus on, work at and value. It’s something our team have worked closely with them on and helped them to put an idea into practice and work at getting it off the ground.

Our microfinancing programmes really need your support to help them feel empowered, to stand on their feet and be able to continue with the establishing and running of their businesses. The people we support have worked so hard to build their businesses from nothing, many working really hard to gain a new skill, that they really need to continue to receive our support.

We now want to ask for your help. A donation of £25 will help break the cycle of poverty that so many are facing by helping them and their business have a space at a local market, enabling them to take that step at becoming self-sustainable by generating their own income. It’s all about giving people an opportunity which will make the world of difference and £25 is all it takes to help make this a reality.

We think to empower means someone can smile with hope.

If you would like to give someone the opportunity to escape the cycle of poverty, then please consider donating to our Empowering Programme and change lives for the better. Thank you.