Since its inception, BB4C has worked to improve food security for almost 59,700 marginalized women and communities by providing agricultural inputs and promoting sustainable agriculture throughcapacitybuildingtrainingstoagriculturalhouseholds.
We also empower community-based extension workers through capacity building sessions and provision of complimentary wares to better support the marginalized agricultural households.
When empowering community-based extension workers, more than 60% of the empowered persons have to be women. Since 2024, we have introduced a new aspect in our FSL programming, climate-smart agriculture, to help communities adapt to the effects of climate change while engaging in agricultural practices that minimize climate change.
Our FSL projects are guided by the following objectives:
To improve the food security of marginalized communities, especially women
To enhance agricultural productivity through provision of high-quality seeds that mature fast and have high resistance to pests and diseases
To build the capacity of agricultural communities especially women through training of improved agricultural practices, climate-smart agriculture, and post-harvest management
To educate agricultural communities especially women on how to engage in farming as an income generating activity: we train women on improved vegetable production to meet family needs and to sell the surplus. In Jonglei, we are currently engaging some women groups in horticultural farming as an income generating activity
We also empower women to explore other sources of livelihoods through capacity building in business management and provision of vocational skills. Through our ‘Empowered Woman’ program, we work together with community entrepreneurs and key players in the informal sector to provide vocational training to young women through mentorship.
First, we take young women through training on basic skills such as time management, planning, problem solving, critical thinking, and numeracy to ensure they can effectively work with others. The first phase equips the selected women and girls with soft skills while in the second phase, they are attached to mentors where they acquire hard skills through on-job placement.
For example, a woman with desire to develop tailoring skills is attached to a tailor where they learn through observation, practice, and information exchange with the experienced tailor. To women interested in starting businesses, we take them through phase 1 after which we attached them to entrepreneurs to acquire practical skills.
After the selected beneficiaries have acquired both soft and hard skills, we join them into groups and support them to start their own businesses. We can either provide them seed capital or refer them to micro credit facilities, in most cases VSLAs within the community, which we also strengthen through boosting their pool of funds. To those whose businesses struggle, we continue to provide support through mentorship and market analysis.
