Work and income for mothers in poorest families in Sana'a, Yemen, 4300 Euro

YERO is a non-governmental charity, which was set up in Sana'a, Yemen in 2003. YERO's aim is to fight against poverty by improving the access of children of the poorest families in Sana'a (including street children) to existing education. The cycle of poverty continues if these children cannot receive any education. Many families, however, are unable to pay the personal contribution and the school uniform required by the supposedly free state schools. Through its 'Sponsor-a-child' programme, the YERO has currently more than 70 children in its programme. 

There is a downside to getting the children into school: while in school they cannot work or beg for money, which is what they did before they went to school. This means that their schooling leads to an even lower family income. In order to enable these families to make a structural improvement to their lives, it is important that the parents themselves are able to earn a living. Unemployment in Yemen is very high and the salaries are very low, so it is not easy for parents to support their families financially. Often, the mother is the centre of the family, whether she is divorced or a widow or has a sick husband. That is why the Dutch project finder of Moments of Joy in Yemen now wants to support a project to enable these mothers to earn an income.

Under the project, a number of mothers would be trained in making textile products. As soon as they are able to make products of sufficient quality, they can sell these to a party who can take care of the marketing and sale of the goods. This means that for the time being the mothers would not bear the risk that the products cannot be sold. In principle, the women will make products on order.
The initiators of the project - a number of educated women in Sana'a - have studied potential products and how these would sell. The first goods to be produced will be a line of table linen. This will be embroidered in a unique way. The initial market will be affluent Yemenites and expatriates. Later, a market will be created in Europe, where the first contacts have already been made. The organisers anticipate that implementing this will take two years.
The project application relates to the first phase of the project. This is the development and training phase. The entire product development is carried out by the initiators. They come up with the products and the designs and test the products. The initiators all work as volunteers on this project. In the training phase, about six local women who have basic sewing skills will be trained in the unique embroidery technique by the initiators themselves. A local woman will be appointed for the coordination of the activities. She will be trained to train other women. This is necessary because at some point the local women will have to be able to organise this business by themselves. The initiators will train the coordinator to ensure this.
The project will be set up and organised as a business. The quality of the products will have to be high, and the women will be taught to invest in raw materials and to ensure that the sale price covers both the direct and indirect costs (future investments). As the women cannot be expected at the moment to independently run a business, they will initially be the production department. For the time being, the initiators will do the sales and marketing

For fabrics, embroidery materials, tools (needles etc.) and a fee for the coordinator and for the women who do the embroidery an amount of 4300 Euro is needed. 

Total € 4300,-- 

adopted by the general fund of Moments of Joy

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