We aim to support the 30 women of the Buganika Young Women Group with transforming their lives, with a saving group that gets sufficient income with a newly created sunflower business. Together it will reduce extreme poverty and stop social exclusion.

33% of teen girls living in Tanzanian poor rural areas get pregnant by the age of 19. Only 18% of them are married. When an unmarried girl becomes pregnant, she is forced to stop school and it is unlikely that she will return to education at a later stage.

What’s more, traditionally they are perceived as valueless. Young mothers also look at themselves in the same way. When they are left out, they lack opportunities to come together, giving and getting support, and to learn social skills. It is what happened to many of the young women in this project.

The young mothers are already organised in a Village Community Bank (VICOBA). However, most of them do not have enough money to make savings. TAI aims to provide them with the much-needed extra income through a small-scale sunflower business, buying sunflower seeds from the local farmers, and selling oil and sunflower cake in their own village and nearby public markets. Profit accessed from the project will be used to increase their capital in VICOBA and access loans from the saved money.

The women themselves came up with the idea and reached out to Thubutu Africa Initiatives (TAI) to jointly work on this project idea. The project furthermore involves supporting the group with a sunflower processing machine, training on business development, marketing of sunflower products and bookkeeping. And in addition, training on life skills, Early Childhood Development to avoid stunting and malnutrition, and positive parenting.

TAI, familiar with the issues in the society, is strongly in favour of women and girls’ empowerment and has supported multiple women groups before. The sunflower business is a good opportunity, since demand for edible oil in Tanzania is high. Yet there are no small-scale refinery sunflower oil processors in Buganika village. Farmers travel about ten kilometres to a nearby processing factory for the service.

In one year from now, 30 young women have a sustainable income and are positively driving their own life, and that of their children, and they will now have access to social services such as health care and education.

In turn, this will increase their self-esteem, and they will now be appreciated in their community.

On average 150 family members will benefit from increased income, among them their children, as these young women practise positive parenting, as well as nutritious feeding, for them to grow well and acquire needed skills. It means that these children gain opportunities that their mothers could not provide them before. Opportunities that are vital for breaking the cycle of poverty.

In addition, the members of the group will mentor girls in the community to prevent teen pregnancies, which again can support the lives of many teen girls in the area.

The budget for the following activities is Tsh 18,410,000 (or €7,364). The donation will be used to:

• Training of trainees
• Buying a sunflower oil-pressing machine (crusher and filter), and an electricity installation in Dar es Salaam, and transporting it to Buganika.
• Start-up working capital for the Sunflower Business.
• 5% to iMPACT direct for facilitating direct donations to local solutions (covering our costs for the website, financial costs of direct donations, and basic costs to support NGOs in promotion and fundraising.)

Own contributions:

• The women farmers group will contribute up to a value of Tsh 2,000,000 as in-kind contribution.
• In-kind contribution of community and parents in the form of: land to set the machine.