Some charity organizations help pay for school fees and give away medicine. The Spirit in Action Small Business Fund helps people start businesses so that they can pay for these basic needs on their own, on an on-going basis.
Such is the case with, Peres Amati, who sews and sells bags and backpacks with her daughters in Nairobi, Kenya. They used their $150 grant to buy a sewing machine and boost their business.
When I met Peres in Nairobi last June she told me, “I’m grateful for the support, and I can now fill family needs. My husband has been sick and bedridden and I can now get medicine for him.”
Peres has also been able to pay secondary school fees for one daughter and college fees for her first-born daughter. Our local coordinator Dorcas Okati, who has helped in mentoring her, notes that Peres has a confidence about her now that she can provide food for her family, pay rent, and take care of other family needs.
After three years, Peres’s business is continuing and thriving! She is steadily saving 10% of her profits to build a house in the rural areas where her family lives. Someday they want to be able to move out of the crowded, informal settlement of Korogocho. In addition, Peres has been able to employ another woman who does the marketing and takes orders from the neighborhood villages and markets.
Small Business Fund leaders in Korogocho, Kenya. I visited them last June and heard their testimonies of lives changed.
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