Enzi Imports is partnering with the non-profit organization Assist International to develop micro-enterprise opportunities for women in Kenya and Uganda.

We are working directly with the women to determine what types of businesses are most effective, and can be sustained. We are also determining and training women in need to run those businesses. This will allow the women to be in control of their future. They can rely upon their own determination and hard work to take care of their basic needs and the needs of their children.

 

Currently, Enzi Imports has created a micro-enterprise program in Webuye, Kenya, and already over 60 women living in extreme poverty have started their own businesses.  They are transforming their lives, finding hope, security, and a respect they have never had before.  They feel powerful and it is a beautiful thing. 

 

The women receive monthly business training on proper record keeping, saving, good business practices, honesty and integrity in business, planning ahead.  A second round of applications is currently being processed as funds are being paid back to start even more women in business.

 

 

 

 

Meet Helen, one of the women from Kenya that Enzi Imports has given a micro-enterprise loan to in order for her to start a business that is helping her support her family.  Helen has six children, and is one of the millions of women in the world that was living on less than $2 a day.  She said that in the evenings, when it was time for dinner, she would just look at her children and not know what to do, because she had no food to give them.  Since she started her sweet potato and maize business, she says that "not one night" have her children gone to bed hungry.  Right now, that is Helen's goal:  To provide food for her children, and pay for their school fees. 

 

Helen was living in a house that was so run-down, on rainy nights, she would cover her children with plastic bags and stay up at night lifting the bags to pour the water off as it puddled on her children. 

 

So in addition to an interest-free loan, Enzi has been able to pay for Helen to build a new home, that is bigger than the one she was previously living in, and has a window for ventilation, as well as a sheet metal roof so she will not have to worry about her children getting wet in the rain anymore.  As she stood next to her new home, she said the one question she had was "Why does God love me so much?"