Enterprising women create lasting change

Photo: Members of Tahilota Fana today, including Rahel (end right)

By Samrawit Sintayehu, Farm Africa’s Communications Officer in Ethiopia

Almost ten years on, a women’s cooperative group established by Farm Africa is still changing lives in the SNNP region of Ethiopia.

Rahel Dawit is one the Tahilota Fana cooperative’s founding members. Before she joined the group, she was leading a miserable life.  She said:

“I had seven children. I did not have a shelter. We were homeless. We hardly eat once in a day. Education for my children was unthinkable. I prayed for my children not to get sick, because if they got sick I didn’t have enough money to take them to clinics”.

All this started to change in 2004 when Rahel was selected to take part in Farm Africa’s Women’s Enterprise Development Project. The project selected 50 women (who were living with severe economic problems) and supported them to organise into a women’s saving and credit cooperative.

Each of the group’s members contributed 0.25 ETB per week, and at the end of each month one member of the group was able to borrow the contributed money to engage in small business.Farm Africa also carried out capacity building training which included group dynamics, money saving, and advice on petty trading.

As one of the very poorest women in the community Rahel was also selected to receive two goats from Farm Africa, together with training in how to care for and breed them.  Without any assets she would otherwise be unable to join the saving and credit cooperative.

Rahel said from that time onwards, her life began to change:

“I was given two goats by Farm Africa. I took good care of the goats and actively participated in all the cooperative’s activities”.

“I gave the first two offspring from the goats to another group member. Then, I started to think about other businesses I could set up in order to rid poverty from my house”.

“Some years later, I sold my goats and by borrowing some money from the cooperative, I bought dairy cows and start to sell and generate a lot of money from the dairy products”.

“Finally thanks to Farm Africa, within a short period of time my family life has changed enormously. I am able to build a good house for my family as a shelter, able to eat three times a day, able to send my children to school and to take them to hospital”.

“Even though the Farm Africa project was completed five years ago, the Tahilota Fana women’s cooperative group is still very active. My friends and I are still members of the cooperative group. We are still benefiting from it”.

The Women’s Enterprise Development Project ended in 2008, but its footprint is still fresh. Tahilota Fana is a living example of that. It now has 350 members, and the group’s capital has grown to 400,000 ETB. It owns and runs several other businesses including a kindergarten (for the member’s children), a bakery, a youth recreation center and a water pump rental service. 

Tahilota Fana is one of the model cooperatives in the region, winning numerous awards and providing inspiration for a number of other cooperative groups which have since been set up by the regional Women and Children’s Office.