Josephine is one of the many dedicated local partners SowHope supports. She is an exemplary leader and has facilitated many microfinance and transformational development opportunities in Kenya, a country where SowHope projects, funded with your donations, have benefited over 16,800 women. Her work and commitment to empowering marginalized women through education and economic opportunities has improved thousands of women’s lives economically, socially, and intellectually.
Josephine’s projects are held in severely impoverished areas, where she reports many women are malnourished because their daily meal is a diluted broth of green grams (lentils) served with ugali (cornmeal mush). Many women are idle because the culture does not recommend women to work, except to give birth, and often girls as young as twelve are married. “They live desperate lives that only worsen when they are widowed,” she explains. “These cultural beliefs bind them to poverty.”
Because Josephine, a gifted and wise Kenyan, knows her culture and the societal norms very well, she is able to empower women with transformational development principles that greatly advance the role of women. Amazingly, because of her humble yet authoritative teaching style, the enlightened local chiefs and men in leadership who watch her conferences also happily embrace the principles. This causes a significant positive cultural shift in the way women are treated when they return to their villages.
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