From stress to ease

How you are helping ease the burden of life’s expenses.

“It used to be when school fees came up, I’d start sweating. I had high blood pressure. Now I just ask, ‘how much?’”

This confident quote is from Annie Muleba. She is a business owner from a small village in Zambia.

Your care and generosity is reducing the stress around life’s expenses for thousands of women like Annie, through the Her Time to Grow project.

Before connecting with iDE, Annie helped to organize local women’s savings groups and earned a small income selling soya and cooking oil. But it wasn’t enough to pay for her family’s expenses, including school fees for her children.

Leaders in her community felt Annie had potential and connected her with iDE. She received training that gave her the skills to run a successful business, as well as agriculture training. This enabled her to thrive as a female entrepreneur.

“Initially, you see problems rather than opportunities. You don’t see yourself as a solution provider, you don’t feel adequate.” Annie said. “The training opened my eyes to other opportunities.”

With encouragement and training, she started a shop selling farm supplies. After earning a good income there, she decided to expand and invested in a mill for corn.

Before her shop opened, people had to travel for several hours (often leaving at 5 am) to a larger town for these supplies and services. Not only is Annie earning more income for her family, but she’s saving people in her community time and money too.

Thanks to your support, Her Time to Grow is creating income opportunities like this for 25,000 women working in agriculture across Ethiopia, Ghana and Zambia. This project aims to generate $30M in new income for women. These women can go on to positively impact an estimated 165,000 more people, including 91,000 youth.