Economic empowerment through viable income generating activities

According to Wallerstein[1] (1992), empowerment is a social-action process that promotes participation of people, organizations and communities towards the goals of increased individual and community control, political efficacy, improved quality of community life, and social justice. Simply put, empowerment is the ability to do something about one’s needs, wants, opinions, beliefs and feelings. There are different aspects of empowerment such as personal, social, political, economic, religious and cultural empowerment.

Economic empowerment is thought to allow resource-poor people to think beyond immediate daily survival and to exercise greater control over both their resources and life choices. It is the capacity of individuals to participate in, contribute to and benefit from growth processes in ways that recognize the value of their contributions, respect their dignity and make it possible to negotiate a fairer distribution of the benefits of growth.

Empowerment cannot be granted by a third party, however, those who would become empowered must claim it. Development agencies cannot therefore empower individuals and groups, rather, they facilitate and create favourable conditions to empowerment. Empowerment goes hand in hand with ensuring community participation in the choice of income generating activity to undertake for economic empowerment. At ACLAD, we work with community link workers who guide this process by asking the right questions and enabling community groups to explore their challenges and find lasting solutions. Community participation in empowerment and development activities ensures their ownership of the project, constant participation and sustainability even after the donors have left. Our community Link workers take time to engage with common interest groups in order to assess community needs and together with the groups identify sustainable solutions.

One of the economic empowerment projects that ACLAD is implementing is with the widows from Kachororoni in Ganze ward-Kilifi County. In September 2020, one of the widows apportioned part of her land so that the group can start a banana plantation. In June 2020, ACLAD distributed indigenous vegetable seed varieties to members of the Majaliwa Savings and Internal Lending Communities in Makuche, Kakamega County. The Kakamega group members planted the distributed seeds, started harvesting and selling the vegetables and have kept books for sales record keeping. 

For these aforementioned groups who have become small scale producer groups for instance, working together and marketing their produce as a group enables them to buy better quality inputs such as seeds and seedlings, fertilizers and insecticides in large quantities at lower prices. They are also able to avoid the middleman and get better prices for their produce. As we look forward to enhance economic empowerment in the communities in which we work, we invite interested individuals, families and business people to partner with us in our quest to make a difference one child at a time! Contact our team through info@aclad-hq.org

Catherine Muteithia

ACLAD Media Consultant

[1] Wallerstein, N. (1992) Powerlessness, empowerment and health. Implications for health promotion programs. American Journal of Health Promotion, 6, 197–205.