A self-empowered life despite illness
Since 2004, Ruedi Lüthy Foundation has been operating Newlands Clinic in Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, treating more than 7,000 destitute HIV patients comprehensively.
About 60% of the clinic’s HIV patients are women and mothers. Newlands Clinic is focusing on them because women are important pillars of the community in Zimbabwe. The responsibility of providing for the family lies largely with them. However, many of the women cared for at Newlands Clinic live in extremely difficult circumstances; they are unemployed, suffer from great poverty and often become victims of dependency and violence in their partnerships. The Women’s Economic Empowerment project supports this particularly vulnerable group, which is yet of crucial importance to society.
Women’s Economic Empowerment Project
The programme initiated in 2020 enables HIV-positive women to stand on their own feet by supporting them in setting up small-scale businesses. The aim is to help women living in particularly difficult circumstances to help themselves. Thanks to the cooperation with the Jansen PrimeSteps Foundation, after a successful pilot phase, more groups of women are now working on becoming self-employed businesswomen to provide for themselves and their families and to live a more self-determined life with prospects.
What does this look like in practice? After 15-25 eligible and committed candidates are recruited, the women attend a five-day business training. They learn the basics of running a small-scale business and draw up a business plan. Once the women have completed the course successfully, they receive start-up capital, the necessary materials and a short introduction to a simple business activity. Choosing a simple craft or trade with direct market entry helps them to quickly generate their own income and build up their business within a year. They are closely accompanied on their way to becoming successful chicken rearers, sewers or peanut butter producers. An interdisciplinary team supports the women in developing and establishing their businesses with individual mentoring, group meetings and practical solutions.
Men’s Economic Empowerment Project
Due to the success of the Women’s Empowerment project, the Ruedi Lüthy Foundation in 2022 started similar projects for male patients with our support. The men undergo the same programme as the women in a separate group and establish a business activity in the informal sector. They build up small scale businesses in chicken farming, the production of peanut butter, clothes or brooms/mops and thus take a big step towards independence for themselves and their families.
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