The BOMA Project was featured in the Huffington Post today in a piece honoring Mother’s Day titled “A Day for all Mothers” by Anita Casalina.
In honor of the 100th anniversary of Mother’s Day, here are some amazing groups that focus on giving mothers the support they need to make a better and safer life for themselves and their families.
The BOMA project is a highly successful program
that combines cash grants, education, and mentoring to help women become entrepreneurs. It targets the women at the bottom of the local social ladder, as identified by local leaders. Every business the women build increases not only the well-being of the new business owner and her family, but also the cash base of their local economy. This helps the community as a whole in making the transition from a nomadic life to something more settled by increasing their ability to support infrastructure like schools and medical clinics. BOMA’s statistics are impressive. After only three years, there is a 78 percent increase in children attending schools and a 95 percent improvement in homes and literacy programs. Founder Kathleen Colson makes the most important point:
“It doesn’t take a lot of money to change someone’s lives. If you seek out programs that are giving people long-term skills and a long-term focus on behavior change … I think you’re going to see incredible success. To feed somebody with food aid for a year is about $100 per person. For us, if you include women and children in all our programming in Kenya, it’s basically a $30 per person investment. A one-time investment where we can change people’s lives so they can survive droughts, educate their children, feed them and provide them with medical care. That’s success for us.”
