Family Empowerment

Empower Women, Empower the Family

 

If you empower the women, you empower the family, and then you empower the community.

 

Here at Mercy Child Care Ministry, we are all about empowering women, empowering families and empowering our community, so that the Kingdom of God can be impacted and that Uganda can be changed for the better. 

 

We started a ministry here to do just that, a ministry that helps people get on their feet, so that they could more for their kids while bettering their situations. Our Family Empowerment Program was birthed out of this passion for women; we saw that a women’s heart is for her family, so when you empower them, you’re also empowering her children. To us, it’s not just about the women alone, but about the children that are being raised. 

 

Our Family Empowerment Program consists of several different moving parts; these parts are Microloans, Financial Training and our Vocational Program, and each program focuses on teaching the women different things that will help them in their businesses, and in their homes. 

 

Our Micro-Loans Program consists of ten groups, with 150 ladies. Our goal for this program is to reach out to these women through financial literacy. We train these ladies for two months, then we do an assessment on their businesses and home, and then we finally we provide them with a small loan to boost their business to help it grow. We have the groups, so that these ladies can be held accountable to each other to ensure that they pay the money back.

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Our second program, is our Financial Training. Before this was started, many women did not know how to budget, how to save and how to plan financially, and because of that, they were stuck in the slums and in bad financial situations. In this training, we teach them about savings, and we give them knowledge about budgeting and planning, how to manage their businesses and managing their customers. We have seen great success through this training. Women are saving their money to buy land with the hope of getting out of the slums. It is encouraging to see these women experience financial freedom and to see them breakthrough. 

 

Our final program, is our Vocational Program. Through this program, we empower the women through hands-on training by teaching the women different skills such as life skills and how to make paper beads and paper bags. By teaching them these crafts, they are able to make extra money. Right now, we are currently teaching them how to make necklaces, but our goal is to further that and teach them how to make bags, books and anything that will help provide more money. 

 

Each week we meet with the different groups for about two hours. During this time, we have people come and talk to them, to encourage them, or teach them about different life skills. We also receive their money from the microloans and we continue to educate them on the beads. 

 

We have seen great success through our Family Empowerment Program, and the ministry has grown tremendously. Women are moving out of the slums, they’re able to put their kids back in school and they’re buying land. It has been super encouraging to see these women go from absolutely nothing to something, but we have bigger goals for these women and for this ministry.