By Petro Mkandawire
Blantyre, September 24, MANA: Women for Fair Development (WOFAD) through Giving Machine Project have distributed 160 goats worthy K9 Million to 80 families in Traditional Authority Kunthembwe in Blantyre District.
Speaking on Tuesday during the distribution at Kunthembwe village WOFAD Executive Director Apostle Lindiwe Matanya said the donation should symbolize the starting of new life to the women citing that they are not looking at the goat itself instead their expectation is on business knowledge which they have impacted in them.
“Women play a vital law as we go through the book of business in relation to women, there’s a keystone to knowing yourself as a woman, to know your customers, to know who are target groups as such to me investing in women signifies the growth of developmental projects in the economic sector,” said Matanya.
She added that everything comes up on women’s heads, so according to their research gender-based violence is too high because women are not empowered, they depend on men all the time so they thought that empowering women, especially with the knowledge of small-scale business and providing them with a starter pack by giving them two goats each they are making womens life better.
Speaking with one of the beneficiaries Lusungu Mkandawire expressed gratitude over the project saying it will go a long way in addressing challenges that her family faces and through what they have trained from WOFAD she will be able to handle her daily income generation and provides basic needs for the family.
“WOFAD trainings are very significant to us as women in the sense that from what we have learnt, we will become economically independent, which will help us to work on developing our families instead of spending time in other bad behaviour, she said.
In his remarks, senior chief Kunthembwe encouraged women not to sell the animals, citing that they are an important asset that offers humans many different products to make their lives easier. He urged them to provide a regular feeding routine to harvest more goats.
“When women became economically empowered they provided different sets of skills and imaginative perspectives in the community. Most of the women in our community have nothing to do so the donation will give them to have something to look for and in the long run, they will invade small-scale businesses.
The Giving Machine Project aimed at empowering women in small-scale business is being implemented by WOFAD with funds from Mentors International amounting to K21 Million in Traditional Authority Kunthembwe and Lundu in Blantyre running from July 2024 to 2025.
