Historically women in communities across Darazo local government area (LGA) suffers discrimination and marginalization which is exacerbated by the level of economic backwardness due to lack of livelihood means. These continued to increase the vulnerability of women across different indices including gender and social exclusion especially in decision making. With almost impossible access to funds for starting up businesses. “Nobody care about us neither do we have any contribution to decision making in our community. We are just not existing; fully dependent on our husbands with little to zero contribution to our family resource needs” according to Maryam Idris.
Women Empowerment Initiative (WEIN) supported women across the LGA through Livelihood and Nutrition Empowerment (LINE) project which is implemented in partnership with Oxfam Nigeria and funding by Global Affairs Canada (GAC); to establish a village savings and loan association (VSLA) and build their capacity to identify business opportunity and startup income generating activities. In Lanzai community, women were supported to establish a VSLA group called Kautel-Hore savings and loan group which constitute of married women most of whom are mothers. Through the capacity building approach of the project, the women were supported to start a VSLA which is geared towards supporting them to build means of livelihood and gender action learning system which increase their awareness of social inclusion. The project supported 25 married women in Lanzai who were unsure of what business to explore, to startup business and consolidate on their petty trades to expand their means of livelihood through the Kautel-Hore VSLA group. Majority of them are caught up in serious hardship as lamented by Hajiya Wakili, a mother of 8 children “Before we are living in ardent poverty without knowing how to get the money to start a business and so all our business ideas faded away because of lack of fund, we and our children depend entirely on our husbands for all our needs. Nobody was willing to borrow you a penny because they don’t have confidence in you that you can be able to pay back the money, so life was really difficult and challenging for us in this community”. The VSLA system provided an ease access to funding for them to start up income generating activities and further expand their businesses.
Women in Lanzai community are determination to change their fate in the community, hence they committed to implement each skill they acquired from the support provided by the project. This is evident in the swift growth experience in Kautel-Hore VSLA group. The group’s total loan fund cash grow from less than a million naira to over four million naira across three difference saving and loan cycles (first cycle #462,130, second cycle #1,700,465 and third cycle #4,417,900) as report during the last end of cycle share out on 20th of June, 2022. The groups have so far birthed additional women centered VSLA groups in Lanzai community among other communities in Darazo LGA. For Kautel-Hore women in Lanzai community, life is much better from what it was before. “The project has really affected my life and that of my family in a positive way because a woman that cannot boast of having money to finance her business is now the owner of hundreds of thousand-naira business in the community. Family need is no more the responsibility of the husband alone but a collective responsibility in the house. The project built our capacity on leadership and give us voices in our houses now” according to Malama Rashida a mother of 6 children who went home with over three hundred thousand naira after the june 20th share out (end of cycle). The VSLA scheme has help in bringing out the potential out of women that couldn’t be recognized by the society in giving them voices to be part of decisions makers in their household and community.
