My personal vision

My personal vision for my life, my community and the world:
I am a seasoned individual who has a passion for community empowerment, advocacy and development. A goal-oriented, reflective development practioner who enjoys working with the marginalised communities, especially girls and women from rural communities. Motivation comes from successful accomplishment of task, contribution to general development of human kind and seeing the lives of the underprivileged and marginalised members of the society becoming empowered for the better. My strengths are networking, consistency, sheer determination, diligence, integrity and empathy. Together with these marginalised communities we are achieving economic independence and community development using locally available resources. Through this, best practices are established and are copied by the rest of the world, creating a great impact in transforming the lives of the world’s marginalised. I am a person who lives by faith, serving and worshiping God and living a blessed kind of life. My life and the lives of those around me is a testimony of greatness, good health, love, wealth, success and victory.

The reason why I want to be a Voices of Our Future Correspondent and how this will help me achieve my vision:
As I have alluded to in previous essays, being a Voices of Our Future (VOF) Correspondent gives me a platform to share my stories to a wider community that otherwise I would not have been able to reach out to. My stories will attract the attention of people with the same interests as mine from varied backgrounds. We can share best practises. I will also get wider audience and support for advocacy issues on matters concerning the girl child and the woman, for example issues to do with access to education and maternal health. The voices of women especially those in rural areas where there is lack of up to date technology are rarely heard outside their communities. At times even in their own communities, which are patriarchal societies, they are not listened to as they are considered inferior. By becoming a VOF correspondent I will be able to give a voice to these marginalised women both in their community and abroad.
I am a woman who believes in the economic empowerment of girls and women from chronic poor communities. To achieve this vision, I manage women economic empowerment programs and girls mentoring programs. The project that we are currently implementing as an organisation is the Self Help Group Approach. We have assisted women to establish incomes savings and lending groups. These groups meet for various activities including accessing loans (from their own money they would have saved), business training and advocacy. Already some of the groups are challenging the municipality bye-laws that are hindering them from operating their small to medium enterprises because of exorbitant fees needed to get an operating licence. Other activities for the groups include teaching each other parenting skills and discussions on HIV and AIDS and other issues currently affecting women. There are plans to upscale these activities by also establishing child led groups who will be doing similar activities that are child centred.
By being a VOF correspondent, I believe these women empowerment projects in my community can benefit in terms of publicity, funding, growth and diversity. VOF will create a platform where I can share these projects across the globe. As the women carry out their income generating projects, market linkages can be formed on VOF. Some of the women are doing art and crafts which are usually sold to tourist. However the market currently is depressed as tourists shun the political and economic situation currently prevailing in our country. Through VOF, the women can market their products and their income generation projects will flourish resulting in economic empowerment. We will also connect with women from across the globe and get to hear on how they are running their projects which are similar to ours. Partnerships and alliances will be created maybe even resulting in exchange visits. Advocacy campaigns and messages started by the women’s groups will also be shared across the globe on VOF, gaining more support and resulting in the improvement of life for the better for the marginalised women and girls.