Empowerment is key to helping families free themselves from poverty.

Recently I spoke to a woman from America about her visit to Africa. It was her first visit and she spent a few months there, yet one of her most memorable moments was when she travelled through the local farming areas. She saw many tractors sitting idle in the field not being used and upon closer inspection she saw that each of them had a USAID logo stamped on them. Tens of thousands of dollars had been spent to source, ship and dispense these tractors to struggling African farmers in order to assist their daily work. The interesting thing was that no one stopped to ask whether the farmers knew how to use the tractors, whether they were able to afford the ongoing costs associated with the tractors or even if their farming terrain was suitable for tractors. Unfortunately, this meant that not only were the tractors going to waste, but so were the funds that were donated to help.

After hearing the woman’s story, I was saddened to find out that so many funds go to waste often due to a lack of knowledge about how to #empower people to free themselves from poverty.

Mansi is a woman who lives in the slums of Delhi. Together with her husband, she has faced insurmountable obstacles and has struggled to support her young family. She received a small loan from Opportunity International Australia and was able to use this to buy a sewing machine and started to make leather steering wheel covers. Using this small loan to utilise her skills, Mansi has been able to provide a steady income for her family and has been empowered to build a future free of poverty.

Understanding a person’s needs and capabilities are necessary in any type of support – whether this be for women like Mansi or in our everyday lives. If we don’t understand where a person is coming from, where they would like to head and how you can support to get them there, it is difficult to create change.

Support to empower women like Mansi -
https://au.opportunity.org/groups/women4women