In 2010, during a community meeting, the women requested support to set up a shop and bakery to be run by the women of the community. They named the shop Molta, which translates to Lioness.
women's co-operative - project summary 2010-2014
It is now a common discourse that supporting gender equality is a precondition for advancing development and reducing poverty, and empowering women contributes to the health and productivity of whole families and communities.
After holding a meeting in 2010 with the community leaders and the women of Yooren, it was agreed that Barefoot Initiative would support a women’s run shop, tailoring business and bakery to assist the women to generate income to support their families and themselves.
Barefoot Initiative’s role in this project included the following activities:
- Financial contribution and physical labor to build the shop, wood oven and the purchasing of 1 pedal sewing machine
- Capacity training of cooperative members in accounting and book keeping skills
- Capacity training provided on bread baking
- Capacity training provided on sewing skills
- Connecting the Cooperative members to the wholesale market in Awash town
- Linking the women with the regional government to formalize and register the cooperative
The objectives of this project were to:
- Increase general well being of target groups families through increased income
- Empower women within the community
- Effect gendered perceptions on women within the workforce
- Increase positive gendered behavior change
- Improve nutritional intake with access to more food choices
After supporting the cooperative for over 5 five years, Barefoot Initiative has stepped back with the 9 female cooperative members taking full responsibility. The women work on a two month rotation system and on average each woman makes a profit of 500 Ethiopian Birr (ETB) for each month that she works. When compared with community nurse’s monthly salary of 900 ETB, the women are doing relatively well.
