ENGISHON MICROFINANCE LIMITED (Engishon) is a microfinance entity established in 2017 by the Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC) and registered under the Tanzanian Laws. It aims to reduce poverty and improve resilience among pastoralist women by strengthening their capacity for entrepreneurship. The project started in 2017 with funding from PWC, which provides grants to support women entrepreneurs who are using technology to grow their businesses. It is necessary to develop and maintain a systematized framework to discover opportunities and enhance work performance, while ultimately contributing to the betterment and value of the entity
Climate Change is Making it Harder for Maasai Women to Keep Their Livestock
Despite the traditional role of pastoralist women as livestock keepers, they are increasingly being forced to sell their animals in order to survive. The Engishon Microfinance Limited project is working with the local communities to find new ways for pastoralist women to generate income and maintain their cultural identity. Cooperative handicrafts have proven an effective way for these women to achieve both goals.
The program works with pastoralist communities in Tanzania, providing training in business management, entrepreneurship skills development and gender equality issues; facilitating access to markets; establishing cooperatives; providing financial literacy classes; developing community savings groups; promoting nutrition programs among children under five years old; offering vocational training opportunities.
Stability
The Engishon project is trying to help these women make their livelihoods more stable through handicraft cooperatives. These cooperatives provide access to funding, as well as training in things like bookkeeping and livestock management. In addition, the traditional leather crafts of the Maasai are threatened by a lack of raw materials. Through this project, we’re hoping to help women make their livelihoods more stable through handicraft cooperatives. Some participants were able to move their families out of poverty with profits from the cooperative business they started together with Engishon support; others have grown their businesses beyond what they could have imagined before joining this program!
“We are very happy with the work we have started doing with these women are doing. They are able to improve their income from their work, and this is helping to improve their livelihoods. The training that they are receiving is also helping them to be more successful in their work. We are excited to see how their businesses can continue to grow.”
Supervisor Engishon
Leather is a major source of income and employment for the Maasai, but the traditional leather crafts of this pastoralist community are also threatened by a lack of raw materials as competition for them has increased. As one participant in our research noted: “The prices of raw hides have increased because there are others who collect hides from [other] villages.” Added to this problem is that other groups have begun selling similar products using cheaper alternative materials or counterfeiting the traditional designs made by the Maasai. The replacement of leather with synthetic fibers, which is likely to become more widespread as climate change continues, will further affect these communities’ ability to generate income from their craftsmanship.
A Female Solution to Climate Change? Keeping Livestock Ownership in Women’s Hands?
Pastoralists are particularly vulnerable to climate change because of their reliance on livestock for livelihoods and food. With the loss of land and water resources, pastoralists have lost a significant percentage of their herds over the past 40 years. The role played by women in keeping livestock alive during droughts has been well documented in many places around the world, but much less is known about why they do so. Researchers at The University of California, Berkeley; The International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Nairobi; and Wageningen University & Research analyzed data from a study conducted between 2011-2014 in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province (RVP). They found that although both men and women suffer losses during droughts, women tend to be better able than men to keep their livestock alive through selling other assets such as land or labor if necessary. This makes sense given that among nomadic communities like those studied here, women tend to own most assets anyway—including animals—and therefore are more likely than men to sustain them through difficult times such as drought.”
A Secure Livelihood in Tough Times
This project has helped many people who would otherwise be struggling during droughts or other harsh times maintain a secure livelihood without leaving home. As climate change continues to impact communities, access to water and food is increasingly an issue for pastoralist women, who are at greater risk of hunger and malnutrition than their male counterparts. Going outside the Maasai settlements is dangerous, which makes it difficult for women to rely on traditional methods of income generation such as selling livestock or gathering firewood in order to meet basic needs. The initial skepticism from men but women were able to overcome that and achieve success. Especially in communities where only men traditionally had access to money or cash crops such as coffee beans, this project has helped some women become financially independent while gaining skills they can use over time as they start their own businesses. The training sessions have also been very helpful for social development: after completing the first phase of education last year, many participants said they were able to help other community members by teaching them about entrepreneurship too!
This project has helped many people who would otherwise be struggling during droughts or other harsh times maintain a secure livelihood without leaving home. The women’s cooperatives have also given them new skills and opportunities to expand their businesses, which could help them weather future climate events. This project was a great first step in the right direction, but there is still much work to be done. The next steps will be to continue providing training sessions and support for participants to help them grow their businesses, as well as developing additional projects that can benefit even more people in need.
