Mt Kilimanjaro – Lishe Bora employee improves children’s health, home, and education with salary – 2 Jan 2016

Since gaining employment through the Lishe Bora garden shop Anna has been able to support her children, expand income generating activities at home, improve her home, and improve educational opportunities for her children.

Before Anna gained employment with Lishe Bora in 2014 she made money tending her small family farm. She lived with her husband and six children and together they looked after two cows, one goat, ten chickens, and a little less than an acre of land with coffee and bananas trees on it.

During this time life was very difficult for Anna. The family grew most of their own food but often lacked money for school and clothes. Additionally, Anna’s husband was not treating her with respect and would often become so abusive that she could not sleep inside her home.

Anna explains that since she started getting a salary she has been able to demand more respect from her husband, and she no longer fears having to find somewhere else to sleep. Despite working full days with Lishe Bora, she has also continued to expand her family’s farm. The family now has two pigs, six goats, and 26 chickens.

“I need to be at work at 8:30am to open the shop,” she explains, “so I have to wake up at 5am to feed my animals, clean their pens, water the garden, and tend any trees that are ready for harvest. When I get back from work around dusk I do all the same work again.”

The hard work is paying off for Anna and her family. In 2015 Anna was able to pay 800,000 TZS (US $380.95) to send her son to vocational school. The family also replaced worn out iron sheets on their roof so that it no longer leaks and they are building a new block house to replace their stick and mud house. She hopes it will be finished by the end of 2018.

Now Anna hopes to get a milk cow to increase her regular daily income and the overall productivity of her farm.