Empowering
Women.
Transforming
Communities.

Before joining LDWDA, Mary managed her business the way most smallholder farmers do instinctively, without records, without a plan. Training in business management, leadership, and record-keeping changed everything. She stopped guessing and started planning: tracking profits, identifying her best markets, and reinvesting with intention.

She used her profits to build a house for her family and purchase an ox-cart - two assets that changed not just her household's quality of life, but the efficiency of her business. Transporting produce to market became faster, cheaper, and easier.

Mary is an active member of a Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA), where she saves regularly and accesses small loans to keep her businesses growing. A land certificate received through the project gives her secure, legal ownership of her land and the confidence to invest further in horticulture.

Today she holds a leadership role in her club. Women across her community look to Mary not just as a successful trader, but as proof that a different future is possible with the right skills and the right support behind you.

Ruth's journey began with sunflower seeds, received through the LDWDA Pass-on-the-Gift model. She pressed those seeds into cooking oil, sold it, and turned the proceeds into her first business capital. It was a small beginning — but it was hers.

She joined a VSLA savings group and used access to credit to expand into pig trading and pork sales buying animals for rearing and slaughter, building multiple overlapping income streams. Her business now sustains her family with a reliability she never had before.

The changes go beyond income. Ruth has built a house for her children. She purchased a motorbike that gives her family mobility and better market access. She holds a land certificate in her own name. She has established a piggery - which she plans to operate at full capacity by mid-2026- and is saving toward a hammer mill that will cut feed costs and open yet another income stream.

Training through LDWDA gave Ruth more than skills. Entrepreneurship, decision-making, business management, and confidence building gave her a new relationship with her own potential. She now leads her community club and other women look to her and see what becomes possible when you refuse to accept that circumstances are permanent.

Her growing herd pays school fees and feeds her grandchildren year-round. In a community where a single missed harvest can derail a family, Lydia has built something more reliable than any single crop: a living asset that multiplies.

Through LDWDA, Lydia gained access to training, savings support, and a network of women building livelihoods together. What began as a modest start with three animals has become a foundation her grandchildren can depend on through school terms, dry seasons, and whatever comes next.

Lydia's herd is not just livestock. It is school costs paid on time. It is meals on the table when crops are thin. It is a grandmother who did not wait to be helped but took what she was given and made it grow.