Food and Nutrition
Our food and nutrition program focuses on sustainable agriculture and nutrition education to enable women and their children have enough and nutritious food. WESDO directs her efforts to improving food production through climate friendly farming practices, harvesting techniques, food preservation, kitchen gardening, crop diversification and nutrition education.
Food and nutrition also involve awareness, provision of food supplements and encouraging mothers to grow home vegetable gardens. We continue to work with Community Health Educators (CHEs) to follow up and measure the dietary needs and behavioral response of mothers towards having balanced diet. We also ascertain children’s health through regular checkups
Agribusiness and Farmer Institutional Development
This initiative focuses on women farmer meaningful engagement in the agricultural chain and income generating activities. Farmers receive intensive training in institutional development and governance. The goal is to establish a core of functioning institutions/groups/cooperatives/ Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) capable of producing and marketing high quality, high value agricultural products. The long-term vision of agribusiness is a women-led agricultural value chain whereby women are participants in every facet of the agricultural production cycle: producers, processors, distributors, managers and owners.
Agribusiness initiative functions not only as an income generation mechanism but as an agent of unification bringing together diverse groups of women and their families irrespective of cultural, religious or ethnic backgrounds. WESDO has adopted a working model that further increases capacity of farming communities to carry out profitable agribusiness. This is done by offering free advisory services to the farmers and small business owners to enable them to invest in their agricultural initiatives.
Access to Gender Equitable Finance
Under this program, we equip women with knowledge and skills in entrepreneurship and finance management, link them to opportunities to access financial services through loans and seed grants, agriculture and business development. Through their farmer institutions such as village savings and loans associations, cooperatives, women groups, collectives, women are also able to pull a few resources to add on to their investments. Women groups are empowered to apply for government women enterprise schemes to access capital, information and technical support to further their development.
Leadership and Women economic rights
Under this program, we promote women’s participation in leadership at community level as well as advocacy initiatives to advance their economic rights. WESDO creates awareness in economic and social rights and responsibilities among women, support creation of dialoguing spaces with decision makers, facilitate exchange visits among beneficiaries to share experiences, develop and disseminate Information, Communication and Education materials on social and economic rights and utilize media to sensitize communities on social and economic rights.
WESDO also empowers women to form social movements advocating for property and land rights as well as women inclusion in decision making and community development. WESDO prides herself in seeing women at the forefront and actively participating in community life.