Gelete was always looking for ways to help her family climb out of poverty. But she was never viewed as being anything more than a wife and a mother because of traditional views about men and women in her community in Ethiopia.

Husbands and wives were locked into separate roles and as a result, her ambition and skills were going to waste. Her choices taken from her. “It was very difficult for me to earn a living,” Gelete says. “Lack of knowledge was our biggest problem.”

Learning income generation skills

But life for Gelete and her family changed for the better when she joined a savings group created by Ratson, a Children Believe partner which helps people start small businesses, manage finances and increase their net worth.

“At first, only the women were taking training and men spent money going to the bar,” explains Engida, Gelete’s husband. But after learning what his wife was being taught, he decided to join. While he had some serious doubts at first — cultural norms discouraged husbands and wives from working together —Gelete and the program changed his mind.

As a team, Gelete and Engida started a new business refurbishing stoves and have also found ways to improve their farm’s productivity.

“We used to live a poor life and it was difficult to educate our children,” Engida says. “I used to have only one plough for agriculture work, but now I have two and we have chickens and sheep. We are doing much better.”

Life and business partners

Gelete and Engida are examples of the positive change that is possible in their community. Together, their entrepreneurial spirit has increased and diversified their income and empowered Gelete to break societal barriers, attend meetings and assume leadership roles in community associations that were once dominated by men.

Where once their children would have faced the same challenges, hampered by illiteracy and poverty, they too now have hope for the future.

“Self-help savings and loans lessons developed our financial habits and changed our lives,” Engida says.“I have educated my children, seen some of them get married and now we have grandchildren. It has changed our lives.”

The program Gelete and Engida participated in is just one of the community development benefits supported by Children Believe in Ethiopia. Income-generation for parents empowers them to pull themselves out of poverty and removes other barriers to education like malnutrition, child labour and child marriage.