Social and Economic Empowerment Programme (SEEP)

Our Social and Economic Empowerment Programme is a core programme area of the organization that focuses on raising awareness on poverty, and creating activities and opportunities geared towards reducing poverty both at household and community levels by targeting women and youth.
For us, empowering women can go a long way in reducing poverty both at household and community levels, and is seen as a prerequisite for achieving effective and people-centred development. It is also a way of bridging the gender social gap in the process of achieving inclusion, transformation and development in the community and the larger society. Our organization is passionate about helping women become financially independent, so they too can contribute to household and community development.

Overall Goal:

The programme will contribute to enhanced capacity of women-led businesses at the grassroots by supporting initiatives that engender entrepreneurship, financial inclusion and enabling environment for business to thrive. Beneficiaries will be equipped with knowledge on business development, financial and business development services and funds to support their business.

Objectives of the Programme

To provide financial literacy and capacity development through training, mentoring, business development and financing opportunities for women-led businesses
To equip women and youth with social, leadership and entrepreneurial skills to make them successful entrepreneurs
Provide credit to grow women-led and youth-led micro and small businesses
Strengthen the wealth creation capacity of women and youth through the help of investment partners and other interested stakeholders to see them succeed in business

The programme is implemented under the following approaches:

Financial Literacy
Skills Acquisition and Training

Microcredit Distribution

Financial Literacy (FinLit):

‘Financial Literacy’ is a core component of SEEP and is important to improving financial wellness, financial inclusion and economic stability of beneficiaries.

In the course of our empowerment work in communities, we realize that women have lower financial literacy level compared to men and this is why FinLit is primarily targeted at women, and youth benefitting as well. The objective is to provide beneficiaries with the knowledge, skills, and confidence to effectively plan and manage their financial resources as well as to start or grow their small businesses. The goal is to promote financial literacy advocacy and awareness and teaches beneficiaries how to make, manage, and grow their businesses and money.

FinLit is delivered at community level through cluster meetings, groups and associations. In addition, the programme is delivered through public awareness campaigns. Under our capacity building services, we also work with sponsors and partners to create, adapt, and deliver financial literacy programmes to specific target audiences or groups to best meet their needs.

Skills Acquisition and Training

Part of our objective is to help set up and empower indigent women and youth (female) with vocational training skills by providing the required basic training, coaching and tutoring as well as equipment to enable them have a source of livelihood.

Some of the skills offered include the following: hair making, tailoring, turare wuta, tie and dye, mat making, bead making, carpentry, shoe making, etc.

Microcredit Distribution

SEEP provides small interest-free loans (microloans) to indigent women who typically lack collateral or a steady credit history. It is designed to support entrepreneurship and alleviate poverty. Most of the beneficiaries are illiterate, and therefore unable to complete paperwork required to get conventional loans. Our loan programme is flexible and incorporates community level mentoring to have more women become beneficiaries of the programme.