With Women Kisoboka

With Women Kisoboka (WWK) sees the moxie of marginalized women as the energy and spirit behind transformative change. The initial, intermediate and long-term outcomes that guide us, which are also the basis of WWK’s logic model, are as follows:

INITIAL OUTCOMES:
• Participants will increase their knowledge of literacy, numeracy and business management to develop income management sophistication
• Participants will develop the confidence of an entrepreneurial mindset to further their sense of self-sufficiency, resiliency and well-being
•Participants will be empowered with the ability to make meaningful choices
•Participants will increase their understanding of important leadership skills (communication, motivation responsibility, decision making, creativity, trustworthiness, positivity, feedback value)
•Participants grow in their independence, business acumen, leadership potential, and community awareness.

INTERMEDIATE OUTCOMES:
•Participants lead businesses that support their family’s basic needs.
•Participants will shift from informal to formal financial inclusion to transact, access credit and insurance, all of which serves as a gateway to other financial services.
•Participants serve as mentors and leaders in their respective communities

LONG TERM OUTCOME:
Participants will be engaged in sustained businesses that support the beyond-basic-needs of their family and better their community.

What WWK members engage in the following activities to achieve these outcomes:

•Participants register as members of the WWK/local CBO partnership agreeing to the program rules, values and structure.
•Participants engage in access to interest-free small capital in the amount of 20USD, with the obligation to pay back all or part on a monthly basis as trusted members of their local CBO/WWK partner. Upon payment in full, participants can continue to access the financial assistance.
•Participants attend trainings in FAL (functional adult literacy) provided by local partners meeting 4 hours, once a week for 6 months, financial inclusion for 2-3 workshops/annually provided by local community experts, business management for 8 modules provided by the trained NGO management team, and skill development, which varies depending on the skill and is provided by technical network partners.
•To build or grow a business, participants attend coaching sessions offered by the local program team at monthly meetings or during monthly individual check-ins, as well as during triannual community visits of the NGO team. Barriers the women face that are addressed in coaching sessions include recognizing the competition, understanding the market, and accessing the assets needed.
•Participants engage with and contribute to building a community of trust, collaboration, learning, mentorship and community awareness.
•Participants engage in community outreach and programming through their Community Development Officer (CDO), with the CBO, and/or with the NGO’s technical partner to build awareness of the benefits of new business sectors.
•Women graduate when they have attained all 4 intermediate outcomes. At that point they are life-long members of the organization, benefitting from the sense of community, serving as mentors to new members, and engaging in on-going trainings and professional development, as desired.

With Women Kisoboka (WWK) is an indigenous NGO in Uganda and an affiliate non-profit in the US. Both organizations have strong, collaborative board support, each committed to stable finances and human-centered, systems change approach. WWK grew from what was the first program in Africa of an out-of-country NGO, which implements a program of interest-free small loans for the poorest of poor to spark individual and community transformation. This Uganda initiative was founded and operated by women, working with women to promote their human rights and freedoms, and in doing so to better their families and community. Through women’s economic empowerment, WWK members today grow to see themselves as wage-earners and contributors. These small, interest free loans serve as catalysts for the most marginalized to realize a change of mindset that nourishes feelings of person agency, which brings meaning and connection in their lives.

Since 2016, we have seen these small capital loans -- buttressed by literacy, numeracy and business education as well as skill-based training -- reduce on average poverty likelihood by 5-10% annually for our local partner communities (per the Poverty Probability Index). We have also seen the loans act as a bridge to financial inclusion for the most marginalized, resulting in social and economic benefits. During the past three plus years, WWK has succeeded in establishing an organizational structure based on a human-centered, collaborative community systems change approach to address the challenges of extreme poverty in the urban slums and rural villages of Uganda. We provide best practice training in businesses run by WWK beneficiaries that in many cases align with their community’s strategic interests.

We also encourage a learning partnership model among our local partners by using a shared Google Drive, What’s App groups and systems and processes that capture and share success and challenges, best practices gained, lessons learned and knowledge shared. The Management Team of WWK not only meets several times a year with each local partner, but are in frequent communication to share and disseminate lessons learned or various ways different communities can support each other or benefit from shared resources. Using photography, video, interviews and M&E surveys, each program team captures project indicator-aligned data gleaned during weekly visits, bimonthly financial assistance distributions and collections, and quarterly reporting. Each local partner engages with Local Leadership to continually improve the program. WWK’s NGO and non-profit will perform analysis on all data gathered. Additionally, since October 2019, all local partners meet annually; however, given the COVID pandemic, we have scheduled monthly all hands video conference calls to further expand knowledge management within the organization.

WHAT'S NEXT:
With Women Kisoboka (WWK) will continue to work closely with our existing group of urban and rural communities. We have made incredible strides in providing the opportunities for the women we engage with to empower themselves, their families and their community (see specifics below). Moving forward, we want to increase our focus on cross-community sharing. Specifically, we plan to have our local partners train each other and new communities in the profitable and systems change projects each community has developed. By employing this cross-community training

WHAT WE ACCOMPLISHED SO FAR
WWK is a women-led and operated, indigenous NGO in Uganda and an affiliate US-based nonprofit focused on women’s economic empowerment and community systems change as solutions to the relentless poverty in Uganda. When WWK empowers poor, marginalized women with functional adult literacy and numeracy education (FAL), the entrepreneurship training of Street Business School and the learning of specific skills, along with interest free financial assistance, we are making it possible (the translation of 'Kisoboka') for these remarkable women to access upward economic mobility, resiliency and self-sufficiency. Several specific accomplishments include: 1) reduction in the average poverty likelihood of the women's groups we work with by 5-10% annually, 3) growth of more than 20 times the number of participating women in our program in 4 years and 4) expansion of digital inclusion within and among the NGO and local partners to support data-driven improvements to WWK’s entrepreneurial model.

A mind-set shift is nurtured by providing small interest-free loans to the poorest of the poor women, which builds their confidence to see themselves at earners and contributors. Economically empowered, they demonstrate repeatedly to have the strength to tackle the many and constant barriers in front of them. Building a sense of community and promise, the women grow in their independence, business acumen and leadership potential. Individually or in collaboration, they grow their capital, save increasingly more, and have the opportunity to consider developing their business into micro, small and medium enterprises.

WWK's local management team conducts three visits annually to partner communities. Within each community, there are 2 Program Leads/Coordinators. The registered NGO is located in Kampala District, Lubaga Division and was founded by marginalized women to empower those like themselves to take purposeful action and realize their goals, free from the injustice that is part of their daily life. WWK works exclusively in partnership with local CBOs and NGOs based in Uganda's urban settlements and remote, rural villages. We work together—women helping women in trust—to nurture agency as expressed in collaborative action, decision-making, and leadership to bring about social change.