Educating Esther: training women for freedom from poverty

‘We spent at least two weeks with a host family to escape the violence, but we were frustrated. The children were only used to their home. So, we had to come back. It was difficult for the children. Because of the militia, we couldn’t go out but spent days inside the house without freedom.’

Now, though many have returned to the places they fled, these experiences have left the community’s young people, particularly, as Esther describes them, ‘aggressive, violent and fearful’.

Amidst these difficulties, Esther was invited to take part in Tearfund’s Transforming Communities training.

Resources: time and talents

‘We started to understand that we have to use the local resources and talents God has already given us. Often, we don’t even notice them as resources – such as time and skills! For example, I always baked birthday cakes and made the children’s clothes. But I didn’t think that it could bring me money! Now, I’ve used cake to transform my family’s situation!’

What Esther learned from Tearfund inspired her. And, as she’s been implementing her training, her whole community is reaping the benefits.

Among the many things she’s been doing is helping equip young women to lift their families out of poverty through education.

‘It all started when we began to recruit young women and girls to teach them to sew,’ she explains. ‘We realised that the majority of them had never gone to school, or they’d dropped out in primary school. For sewing, they needed to take measurements, and if a person can’t read or write, how will she do that? Also, how can they read the Bible?

‘Since literacy is my passion, I really wanted these young women to learn to read and write.’

So, with some support from Tearfund’s local partner, Esther has started teaching young women in her community to do exactly that.

Writing a new future

‘Once the women understand how to read, write and calculate, we introduce them to other income-generating skills, such as soap making, and to savings groups, where they meet each week to save money together.

‘If a woman has some education, she will start to instil it in the family, and this will also help the country move forward. And women can take care of themselves rather than expecting everything from their husbands.

‘That’s what Tearfund taught us to help these women,’ explains Esther.

Leading the Strong Women

Another initiative that has come out of Esther’s training and which is changing lives in the community, is a group of women she set up with her friend, Melanie, with the idea of sharing the knowledge she had gained from the Tearfund training.

It began with women in the church and then expanded to include others in the community too as they asked to join when they started to see the excellent results.

The group call themselves the Strong Women, and they have Bible studies together, save money together, and encourage one another and learn practical skills to help them improve their earning opportunities.

Alongside this, they support widows in the community by providing necessities for them, cleaning, cooking for them, and visiting those who are too frail to go out themselves. And each woman in the group also helps care for orphans, providing school supplies and Christmas gifts each year.

The training Esther received from Tearfund has even impacted her husband’s preaching as, she says, he now speaks from the pulpit about whole life transformation that has very practical outworkings in the community and doesn’t stop at personal acceptance of salvation.

A message of thanks

‘Our message to Tearfund is to thank the team in general. It’s not only for our family, but it’s to the advantage of all the churches we work with, as we now teach them the concept of holistic development.

‘We thank all our trainers from afar and from near, may God bless them.’

Find out more here about the impact this kind of work has.

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