#empowerment

Jun 5, 2018
2 min

Collective Prosperity: New Warehouse for Crops in Malawi

Last May, as the last bit of twilight faded, I met with the leaders of the Manyamula COMSIP Cooperative in Malawi. The twelve of us sat around a square of tables, in the newly constructed Cooperative offices. It was still warm, and we left the doors open for airflow and for the dim light still in the big open sky. It wasn’t late. Just south of the equator, the sun sets early all year. These men and women are all dedicated to increasing economic opportunity for everyone in the

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Milly Imat and other successful entrepreneurs in Uganda

SIA Team

May 15, 2018
2 min

Milly Imat and other successful entrepreneurs in Uganda

Two years ago Milly Imat, a widow in Akwiridiri village in Kole District in Northern Uganda, received a Small Business Fund grant and expanded her farm beyond its subsistence scale. It was the beginning of a new chapter for her and the community. This village is still rebuilding and healing after twenty years of insurgency, violence, and disruption by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The war displaced people and split families. It left trauma and high levels of HIV/AIDS in t

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SIA Team

May 8, 2018
2 min

A cooperative dream realized in Malawi

It was one year ago, that my book, Smart Risks, was launched into the world! In it, my coauthors and I, featured the power of grassroots organizations to make a deep and lasting impact in poverty reduction around the world. One of those effective organizations is the Manyamula COMSIP Cooperative in Malawi. My chapter in Smart Risks, “Local leader’s in the driver’s seat,” chronicles the creation of this group under the guidance and vision of Canaan Gondwe. I gave Canaan a copy

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Smart Risk: Community participation as a measure of success

SIA Team

Apr 17, 2018
2 min

Smart Risk: Community participation as a measure of success

What if we didn’t measure success just through statistics and numbers, but instead looked to community accountability? If the community is behind a grassroots organization, then there’s a good chance that the group is effective in their work. If there’s no visible support, if people in the community couldn’t be bothered to get involved and contribute, then it’s probably not a solid organization. When I visited CIFORD Kenya last year, it was easy to see that this is a very eff

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A story to revive your faith in the internet…

SIA Team

Mar 6, 2018
3 min

A story to revive your faith in the internet…

…Specifically, a story to remind many of our readers of the privilege of the internet access that is all around us at all times. Sometimes, the internet is so present in all I do, I forget what it was like to live without it. This week, I get to share the exciting day that the internet arrived in Manymula Village! Here is the story, directly from Canaan Gondwe, SIA partner and Manyamula COMSIP Cooperative Coordinator: Report from Canaan on Wi-fi Installation More and more bea

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4 Things Making Me Happy (including Black Panther)

SIA Team

Feb 20, 2018
2 min

4 Things Making Me Happy (including Black Panther)

A round-up of some exciting news from around the Spirit in Action network: 1. SIA partner recognized for anti-FGM work Samuel Siriria Leadismo, co-founder of Pastoralist Child Foundation (PCF) and one of SIA’s grant partners in the fight against female circumcision, has been honored for his work. The Kenyan Anti-FGM Board presented Samuel with the very first “End FGM Male Champion of the Year Award.” Samuel and PCF have trained more than 5,000 school children to respond and s

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SIA Team

Jan 16, 2018
4 min

What We Learned: SIA Team Members Visit Kenya & Malawi

*Today’s post is a reflection from SIA Team Members and Advisory Board Members, Michael Hegeman and Dana Belmonte, who traveled with me to Kenya and Malawi last year. I appreciate their insights on the SIA program and the success of the trip. Africa Trip 2017: Team Member Report By Michael Hegeman and Dana Belmonte It is with an overflowing sense of gratitude that we begin this report. Over the last eight to ten years, we have heard about and supported the mission of Spirit i

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Partner Spotlight: Matungu Community Development Charity in Kenya

SIA Team

Dec 19, 2017
3 min

Partner Spotlight: Matungu Community Development Charity in Kenya

A group photo of the members of the Matungu Community Development Charity in Kakamega County, Kenya. Vincent Atitwa sits on Tanya’s right. (June, 2017) Every six months we check in with our grassroots grant partners to ask how their programs are going and how they are impacting their members. We like to hear about their challenges as well as their successes, and about how they are reinvesting to make their programs sustainable outside of SIA’s funding. Today, I am sharing thi

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Helping their children to have a better life

SIA Team

Dec 5, 2017
2 min

Helping their children to have a better life

All around the world, parents have the common hope that their children will have better lives than their own. This was the hope of Chimwemwe Beza and Timothy Mtambo in Manyamula, Malawi. Chimwemwe left high school after her second year and never was able to return. She didn’t have the support of family to continue her education, especially since they were struggling to meet their basic needs of food, clothing, and a home. Still, Chimwemwe and Timothy held onto the hopethat th

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Lessons from a coworking space in Malawi

SIA Team

Nov 14, 2017
4 min

Lessons from a coworking space in Malawi

This is reposted from the blog Centre for Social Innovation’s blog. I wrote it for my coworking community in Toronto. Halfway around the world, stepping into the Blantyre Entrepreneurs Hub was reassuringly familiar. Even though the dusty streets and tin-roofed houses of Malawi, a tiny country in southern Africa, are very different from the condo towers and streetcars of Toronto, spaces of social innovation around the world seem to share more similarities than differences. Mot

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“Mindset preparation” on the path to success

SIA Team

Oct 24, 2017
3 min

“Mindset preparation” on the path to success

Guest post by Michael Hegeman, SIA Advisory Board Member. He traveled with me to Kenya and Malawi this year. “I’ll always be poor.” “I’ll never make enough money to feed my children.” “I don’t deserve to have a good life.” “I have only known poverty.” “I don’t know how to build a successful business.” These are self-defeating thoughts. We can find them in any culture around the globe. And not only are these thoughts self-defeating; they are self-fulfilling as well. If you thi

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SIA Team

Aug 29, 2017
2 min

Seeing Capacity Where it Already Exists

What works to help families move out of poverty? Spirit in Action is addressing this on the international level, with our Small Business Fund, and our support of grassroots organizations. It turns out our answer is similar to the one presented in a fascinating article and interview in the New York Times this month! When social worker Mauricio Lim Miller was asked for advice about how to address poverty in California in 2000, he turned away from the programs and institutions t

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Beyond Grants: Rebuilding After Conflict

SIA Team

Aug 22, 2017
3 min

Beyond Grants: Rebuilding After Conflict

Rebuilding a life and a community after years of conflict, violence, and trauma is no easy task. The pain doesn’t go away immediately. The healing doesn’t happen automatically. Those who remain must figure out the way forward. The Spirit in Action Small Business Fund (SBF) is helping with this rebuilding, with more than just cash grants. Naomi Ayot is the coordinator for SBF in the Kole District in Uganda. This is where the Lord’s Resistance Army abducted girls in 1996 and ye

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SIA Team

Aug 15, 2017
3 min

Love is Warm Coca-Cola

Today’s story of Small Business Fund success in Kenya is about more than monetary success. Sister Magrina, who received a Small Business Fund grant in 2014, is using her success to encourage and empower women in a very rural, isolated part of Kenya. Mike Hegeman, SIA Advisory Board member who traveled to Kenya with me, wrote about the inspiring life of Sister Magrina. The following is excerpted from his sermon, “Our Uncommon Life.” I recently returned from spending six weeks

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SIA Team

Aug 1, 2017
3 min

Why does it matter?

Droughts. Climate change. Tough farming conditions. Human rights violations. Self-expression denied. This week, two news stories highlighted how important the work of Spirit in Action is to combat these devastating realities. New York Times: Loss of Fertile Land in Kenya “More than in any other region of the world, people in Africa live off the land. There are relatively few industrial or service jobs here. Seventy percent of Africa’s population makes a living through agricul

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SIA Team

Jul 4, 2017
3 min

“Within you is the Power”

Let us not be tempted to think of SIA’s partners and Small Business Fund members as weak or helpless. In the West, we hear many stories of how desperate situations are in some African countries. Del Anderson, SIA Founder, never believed that hopelessness was the whole story. Meeting people face-to-face, shaking their hands, and hearing theirs amazing stories of struggle and success, I felt and connected with that power – that Divine spark – in each one of them. One of the ins

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SIA Team

Jun 27, 2017
3 min

“This is not a house of a poor person.”

Paulos discusses his business with us during our visit to Malawi in 2011. One of the very cool things about my recent trip to Malawi is that I got to check in again on people I had visited on my previous two trips. Seeing the amazing changes since my first visit in 2011 blew me away! In 2011, I visited Paulos Lungu at this shoe repair stand in the marketplace. The Saturday market mostly consisted of temporary stands, with a few roughly constructed shops. Paulos and his wife,

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The many ways a mill can benefit a community

SIA Team

Jun 20, 2017
2 min

The many ways a mill can benefit a community

Electricity coming to town changes everything. It provides new business opportunities: cellphone charging stations, welding shops, cafes where you can watch soccer matches. It also forces other businesses to adapt and change. When the Manyamula COMSIP Cooperative (read more about them here) bought their gas-powered maize/corn mill in 2013, it was the best technology available. The mill grinds corn – the staple food – into a fine flour, adding value to the crops and processing

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Is it risky to invest in community leadership?

SIA Team

Apr 18, 2017
2 min

Is it risky to invest in community leadership?

This past weekend, on April 15th, the book I’ve been co-editing with Jennifer Lentfer for the past 5 years, was printed! It is now officially available for pre-order! The book is a collaborative effort with 22 authors from 20 different organizations from seven countries, representing a variety of viewpoints on the international development and philanthropy sectors. Is it worth the risk? On her blog this week, Jennifer explained how this group of authors, all who saw the impor

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SIA Team

Apr 11, 2017
2 min

A grant that gives hope

Last week, I had the great pleasure of sending out the congratulations letters to the groups that received SIA grants at our last board meeting. I work with each of the grant applicants to more fully understand their projects and to refine their proposals. After weeks and months in communication the happy moment arrives when I get to let them know that SIA approved their application! “Overwhelmed by joy” Below is the reply I received from Vincent Atitwa, leader of the Matungu

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