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The Birth of MicroVentures
Borne from the Microloan Foundation, the MicroVentures initiative was launched in 2006. The mission of MicroVentures is to train women in business and other skills which allow them to take the next step and build bigger more sustainable businesses which can employ other people. We are currently training over 1000 women subsistence farmers in irrigation and crop planning techniques, which will allow them to grow maize and vegetables throughout the year and avoid extreme hunger. Non agricultural income is also critically important, so we are also supporting five knitting and sewing schools which we focus on below.
Women across Malawi have become students at the MicroVentures Tiphunzire Knitting and Sewing Training Schools - Tiphunzire meaning “let us learn“. Here, the ladies learn and renew skills that are of practical and potentially commercial use to them.
To meet part of the costs, the schools sell goods locally that have been created by the students, such as baby shawls and school uniforms. When they start on the course, the students will typically be below the absolute poverty line with a typical per capita income of below $20 per month (August 2008 Outcomes survey). Once they have graduated, sales of goods locally can treble their earnings. Typically, the money is used by the women to pay for food and education for their children.
Selling their products abroad will help them to do this. Their shopper bags are already being sold successfully in the UK and the product range is being extended to comprise dresses, skirts and other fashion items.
Each bag has been designed and created by a woman working with Microloan - hence no two bags will ever be exactly the same. On the "outside", the bags are black with one side bearing a hand-printed image (typically an elephant). The bags are fully lined and therefore fully reversible with a starkly contrasting pattern on the inside.
As a special and unique point of difference, each bag has the name of the woman who designed and created it, hand-sewn along the top inside hem.
The bags are currently being sold in the UK for £10 each. Accompanied by a postcard from the ladies of MicroVentures, the bags make an ideal gift or special addition to your own range of accessories.
Are you interested in purchasing a MicroVentures bag? Perhaps you are interested in working with or supporting the MicroVentures project?
Please contact Soleta Oliver at microventures@microloanfoundation.org.uk for further details.
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