How the widows support project is going
A short account of what the monthly stipend and skills training have changed, and what we would do differently.
The widows support project pairs a monthly stipend with skills training, so that a household can get through the period after a death without the children being taken out of school.
What it looks like in practice
Households join the list after a home visit, with priority for families where a child had already stopped attending school or started working. Many are referred by teachers at schools where we already fund students, because teachers know which families are struggling.
Alongside the stipend, mothers can train in stitching, embroidery and small-scale food production. Where someone is ready to start earning, we help with the equipment and the first lot of materials.
What we would do differently
Two things. We were slow to move households from the stipend towards an income of their own, because the training usually started months after the payments began, and the two should run together from the start. We also underestimated how many mothers wanted basic literacy classes for themselves, which we had not planned for.