Date:20^th March, 2020

Country: KENYA

Name of the person interviewed: VALENTINE, LAIKIPIA COUNTY

Above: Valentine and other member of Laikipia disabled women organization making soap and other sanitary essentials

“I HAD TO SPEAK UP”

Introduction

Valentine is a single mother of four children, she has physical disability and she is the founder and member of Laikipia disabled women network. That is umbrella organization for disabled women organizations in Laikipia County

Hailing from Laikipia County and residing in Nanyuki town, the 50 years old valentine has the energy and drive to advocate for women rights and provide for her family

Story

Valentine is both an advocate for disabled women rights and a business woman, Having separated from her husband a while ago, the onus of taking care of her children fell squarely on her shoulders and been a loving and optimistic mother, she took the challenge head on and despite the difficulties faced, valentine positive life outlook is almost infectious. She proudly told me that she is the “Advocacy champion for disabled women rights”

Valentine has been involved in efforts geared towards advocating for disabled women rights. Through one of these advocacy activities and trainings by various organizations including the UDPK is how she got introduced to the inbussiness project. She told me a story of how one of the projects, which she was involved, that dealt with empowerment issues for women and capacity building for self-advocacy was coming to an end. Then together with other group members were wondering what they will do next. Then she raised her Voice towards the end of the meeting and asked if anything could be done to ensure some form of continuity and keep the momentum gained going.Luckly, she received some practical feedback and that is how they were introduced to inbussiness project. To her inbussiness project involves not only business training but also capacity building of individuals involved and their communities at large.

Valentine is personally involved in several types of businesses; she sells second hand clothes (mitumba) at Nanyuki town. Members of other DPOs are involved in various forms of businesses: some make sanitary essentials like soap, bead making, making masks and green grocer .She say the training they have received from the inbussiness project concerning basic business concept such as book keeping, customer relationship and customer relation has not only made running a business bit easy, but it has also seen tangible improvements in revenue streams.

Valentine is quick to point out that since been involved in inbussiness project, other partners have created interest to work with them in various projects and programs including the national and county Governments, Kwao, Water for health and others.

It is valentine contention that this project has “opened doors for us” and families of women with disability and community in general are better off. “Having been visited by senior staff of the Light for the World was one of my highlight this year” Valentine tells me, before happily adding that, “they promised to come again”.

Date:20^th March, 2020

Country: KENYA

Project: INBUSSINESS PROJECT

Name of the person interviewed: VALENTINE, LAIKIPIA COUNTY

Above: Valentine and other member of laikipia disabled women organization making soap and other sanitary essentials

“I HAD TO SPEAK UP”

Introduction

Valentine is a single mother of four children, she has physical disability and she is the founder and member of Laikipia disabled women network. That is umbrella organization for disabled women organizations in Laikipia County

Hailing from Laikipia County and residing in Nanyuki town, the 50 years old valentine  has the energy and drive to advocate for women rights and provide for her family

Story

Valentine is both an advocate for disabled women rights and a business woman, Having separated from her husband a while ago, the onus of taking care of her children fell squarely on her shoulders and been a loving and optimistic mother she took the challenge head on. Despite the difficulties faced, valentine positive life outlook is almost infectious. She proudly told me that she is the “champion for disabled women rights”

Peter nahason is 50 old and a chairperson of the disability umbrella organization, Meru North Association of persons with disability. Under the umbrella there are several Disabled Persons Organization affiliated. Having physical disability and raising a child with intellectual disability has not been a walk in the park for peter.Coupled with mirrored of difficulties for him personally and dealing with societal barriers and perceptions has always aggravated his difficult circumstance. “The reason why I keep going and getting up in the morning is because of my daughter”, peter tells me.No matter how hard things get, at back of his mind he knows he has family looking up to him.

Peter has been involved in Disability advocacy through grassroots mobilization and having attended training organized by Light for the World and UDPK his understanding of the inbussiness project is informed by activities and actions that je has been involved in.”The, inbussiness project for me, as I understand it, is offering help, in terms of training and capacity building to small business owners and groups and also show how people can advocate for themselves”. These training through the project have enabled “me and our members in the organization to be exposed more to disability related advocacy, network building and collaboration as well as with business know-how” 

Been a small scale miraa (Khat) farmer, he sells locally, but during the boom period he sells to other far flung regions in the county. Without basic business skills ,peter says that “it is challenging to run such a business without the necessary support and business knowledge ” .After the training and employing the skills learned  peter says his business saw commendable improvements, in terms  revenue and personnel morale. Human resource management and customer relation are some of the skills that pushed the business margins forward and took care of the bottom line for him. So taking care of the family becomes manageable.

Peter pointed out that the training offered by the concerned organization has assisted him personally and other member of the DPOs in Meru North Consistency on how to add value to their products in their small businesses, customer retention, customer relation and writing business proposal and searching for funds. This skill gained has seen some business owned by beneficiaries in the area improve tremendously and some loses that were been made before, due to lack of knowledge on some basic business concepts  are controlled