Want to be inspired!!!

Last term we asked Sean to come and do his Ndeipi training with all the parents of the students we sponsor.  What a great morning we had with him.  His vision is to empower people with passion and drive to come up with an income generating idea with just $1, using their individual talents and gifts.  Too often in Africa people are paralyzed by poverty and feel that they need a huge amount of capital to make money.  Sean’s heart is to help show people that you can use the small bit that God has given you and be faithful with the little.  So he inspired them, then gave each person a $1 Loan, an envelope, notebook and pen and sent them on their way. 

 

Well, just over two months later we had feedback time!  Wow – some of the stories are truly amazing!!  During the feedback session he taught families how to budget, work with what they have and avoid getting into debt.  So many of our students families are unemployed, living in a tiny room in a house with 4 other families, life is a daily struggle for survival.  Sadly for two of our students families, we found out this week that they were only eating one meal every second day the last week or so.  I thank God that we can step in and help in crisis practically but also try and give them tools to climb out of this wicked cycle of poverty!

 

Thank you Sean for inspiring us!!  Here are a few of the stories!

Rufaro’s mum

She is a single mum, trying to raise 3 children on her own and is unemployed.  A few years ago she bought 2 commercial sewing machines when she had some money and they have just been sitting in her home, as she has never had the money to buy fabric.  After leaving the meeting with Sean, she asked her mother in the rural areas to dry different types of leafy vegetables for her.  She ended up with sacks of dried veggies and used the $1 to buy bags to package the dry leaves and then sold them to the local township supermarkets.  The money she raised she used to buy material to start her sewing business.  She then started approaching shops in town and her township, getting orders for baby nighties, and started sewing.  She hasn’t looked back and she has employed a tailor to help her because of the high demand for her sewn goods.  This testimony blew us away as she is now supporting her family fairly well, she is still drying and selling the vegetables too.  She has joy and life back in face and it was so special to see!

 

Mai Banga (our house mother), Johannes (our caretaker) and Patricia

These three decided to put their $3 together and grow trees!  They collected seeds off the ground from two popular indigenous trees and bought black plant bags with their $3. They have successfully grown and bagged 700 trees and will be selling them to a local nursery once they are the right size.  They are nursing a further 4000 seedlings, which will also need to be bagged.  It has been lovely to see their passion and drive for this and they will make a huge return on this once they sell the trees.

 

 

Ntombi’s mum

Ntombi’s mum bought nik-nacks (cheesey crisps) with the $1, but unfortunately the municipal police confiscated the crisps and she made a loss.  She is now investigating selling peanut butter.  Sean encouraged her to consider selling peanuts as it is less time consuming to produce and she will not need to buy bottles to package the peanut butter in, just small bags.  Sean felt that this would make a bigger profit compared to selling nik-naks and we wish her every success!

 

Ruvimbo’s mum.

Ruvimbo's mum bought Maputi with her $1 and has continued to sell and buy with the profits.  Maputi is popped maize rather than popped corn – they are much bigger pieces than pop corn and are very common as a snack in Zimbabwe.

 

Clive’s mum

With the $1 Clive’s mum bought freezits (which are frozen little packets with squash in that you sell for kids to drink).  This was very lucrative before winter came and sales have dropped during this cold weather.  Sean has encouraged her to identify another product for her to sell during winter.

 

Well done to all our parents who took part!  We look forward to our next feedback meeting!