EMPOWERMENT PROGRAM
The overall objective of empowerment program is to promote equality, increase household income and reduce poverty among the Maasai women.
The empowerment of Maasai Women through improving the quality of the cultural bead products, creating a business and the market links of their handcrafts products.
Handcrafts have been a tradition among the pastoralist communities particularly the Maasai for many years now. It’s through these handcrafts that the neighbouring communities have identified them by. At Voice of Empowered Women Foundation as an organisation we use the same handcrafts as a way to empower the women in these communities by linking them with markets especially through the tourism industry which among other industries is doing well in the Kilimanjaro region.
The program aims at upscaling the operations of these handcrafts by providing better skills and knowledge to make better products, because currently the skills used to make products are self-taught and very informal hence the products are not competitive in the markets. The program also aims to increase the number of products in the market, but allow these women to physically visit the markets make contact with clients and grow.
Handcraft products made by the women include all cultural bead products such as, bracelets, earrings, necklaces and also Maasai decorated fabrics.
