Project profile — Empowerment of Widows and their Children in Burundi

• Burundi (100.00%)

• Secondary Education: Vocational training (11330) (23.00%)
• Government And Civil Society, General: Human rights (15160) (10.00%)
• Agriculture: Agricultural co-operatives (31194) (67.00%)

• Gender equality (principal objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (principal objective)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (significant objective)
• Youth Issues (significant objective)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)

This project contributes to empowering widows in order to enable them and their children, particularly their daughters, to improve their standard of living. The project takes place in the northern districts of the city of Bujumbura and in the provinces of Kayanza and Citiboke, in Burundi. The project activities include training for women in managing sustainable co-operatives, financing for co-operatives established by youth as well as vocational training for youth, education on women’s and children’s rights, and legal support for fighting human rights violations.

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: enhanced capacities of widowed women to gain autonomy and means to make choices in life; improved social-vocational integration of youth from single-parent households (widowed women), particularly girls; more activities geared towards promoting and protecting women's and children’s rights in the community.

Results achieved at end of project include: (1) 400 women were trained on how to manage a cooperative and received financial and technical support towards starting their cooperatives. For example in 2015, five groups of 20 women were formed to create three cooperatives in Cibitoke and two in Kayanza. In Cibitoke, the three cooperatives grow corn, sorghum and raise goats. In Kayanza, the two cooperatives sell goats and raise pigs. Since the start of the project, 19 cooperatives have been set up by women out of which only one has ceased its activities. The other cooperatives, managed by a total of 308 women, are still viable while 95% of them are profitable and several of them have even managed to diversify their activities; (2) While most of the widows at the beginning of the project indicated that they were not capable of offering their children more than a meal a day and that their household lived with a daily income of less than $1, now 100% of them are saying that they can offer at least two meals a day (even three meals says a majority) and that they earn a daily income of more than 2,40 $; (3) 363 young people, including 186 girls, were enrolled in various vocational training sessions which included agri-food processing, masonry, welding, carpentry and steelwork. Among this group, 311 youth also received training in managing a cooperative; (4) 82% of all these trained young people are now employed. Among them, 37 are in cooperatives, 78 are employed by enterprises and 183 developed an individual income-generating activity (ex: small business food, livestock or repair of motorcycles and bikes), resulting in them having a source of income (which was not the case at the beginning of the project); and finally (5) 13 training sessions on promoting and defending the rights of women and children were given to 1,961 people. Of these people, 168 of them also received individualized services from a legal practitioner and among the cases finalized at the end of the project, about 90% of the final legal decisions were in favour of the beneficiaries.

• Proactive disclosure