Income-Generation Skills for Battered Mothers
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Updates from the Field:
Updates from the Field (or Progress Reports) on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.com by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
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Index of Updates from the Field
Progress Report & Future Plans
By Emma - Dreams Can Be Intern, April 18, 2007 10:49 AM
Juriti Project Update – Income Generating Skills for Battered Women
Increasing our Capacity
At present our original group of 25 women are working in income-generating activity in the space given by the Casa Brazil in the center of the city.
We are currently forming two more groups of 25 women each: one on Horto hill and another in a small house next to our property (donated by the local government). Some of the women are already launching their own businesses, using space in their own homes.
These two new groups have different characteristics: one works with female heads-of-households and the other with young female workers from Horto hill, where we are establishing a school of Economic Solidarity, as well as a Solidarity Studio.
Transforming Lives
Along with the 75 women who are directly benefiting from the project, their 375 family members are indirect beneficiaries. For the original 25 women, the project has significantly improved their relationships with their children. The family environment is being structured with a basis in love, solidarity and generosity. Some of these mothers have gained an interest in computers and the internet, and are expressing the desire to improve their products through a course of handcraft design.
Utilizing Previous Funding
The $3400 from Global Giving will be used to install a store in Horto for one of our new groups, to pay the rent of the Shopping Post in front of the Father Cicero Statue, as well as the installation of the Solidarity Studio store. Annually the Father Cicero statue receives nearly 2 million visitors from all over the Northeast of Brazil, which will increase the sales volume of the products created by the three womens’ groups.
New Goals and Challenges
The great challenge of our project is the construction of a large workhouse and the purchase of equipment to improve production and packaging. We have land available to us donated by the municipal government of Juazeiro do Norte.
Cost of the workhouse: US $57,875
Cost of equipment: US $19,276.
Testimonials from Three Project Participants
By Emma - Dreams Can Be Intern, April 23, 2007 03:18 PM
Maria de Jesus: When I joined this group I had stopped believing in anything. Then I started to understand that I needed to work in order not to depend on the change that the people on my street would give me. I don’t deny it, I was living off people’s change to feed my four children. I had no income at all. Now I have learned a profession, I know how to make “bonecas de pano” and other crafts and with my sales I earn R$ 170.00 a month. It’s still very little, but with the construction of our loft we will be able to increase the size of our group and certainly our production and our income will increase.
Francisca Lima: Here at the project we learn that we are the ones who change our lives. In addition to learning the craft, I also learned to work with money and so I started wanting to study. I returned to school and now I am organizing a group of women to study about fair trade, this story of economic solidarity. We are discovering that we can earn money without exploiting people. We take our portion and the rest we use to buy material to make our products. Before I had no income, and today I earn about R$150.00 a month.
Socorro Viana: I am one of the oldest women in the project. I joined in 2004. I began without knowing anything, but I dedicated myself to making dolls. My dolls were very ugly, because I didn’t have the patience to do all the work properly. Then we got the idea to learn finishing techniques. At the beginning I couldn’t sell any of my dolls, but then I started to make them properly and sell a lot of them. Now I’ve opened a little store in my house and I earn R$200.00 a month. With this money I can feed my 6 children.
Update
By Cristina Diogo - Coordinator, March 26, 2007 05:59 PM
The 'INCOME GENERATION SKILLS FOR BATTERED MOTHERS' initiative was the proud recipient in the past year of the prestigious award: “Prêmio Banco Mundial de Cidadania” for the state of Ceara, Brazil (the World Bank Award for Citizenship). This award was for social innovation in a non-profit organization led by women and that promotes equality of the sexes, sustainable development and social participation.
They also received support from Brazil's Social Development Ministry to implement a community kitchen and a food bank for the people from this extremely impoverished community.
In May, 2006 the Juriti project also received a donation of 2.900 square meters of land in order to build a new headquarters, and they are currently looking for new partners to help them build these offices. The circus school has also begun mounting a new circus show for the theirs and other communities for the next semester.
Juriti also received from the Social Development Ministry support to implement a community kitchen and a food bank.
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