ABOUT US
We Make Perfect Solution in Business
Our model provides a holistic approach that does not only offer financial liberation but also looks at other factors that might be contributing to vulnerability such as business and vocational skills, finding markets for products made, public health, food security and nutrition, environmental preservation etc
Our model has three important aspects i.e.
- Community sensitization and mobilization
- Training & Mentorship
- Finding markets for products.
Community sensitization and mobilization: We will proactively reach out to vulnerable people by working with the village local council team and other focal persons like religious leaders and elders who will connect us with people at grass-root level. This will help us identify priority persons in need of special support to improve their well-being. Beneficiaries will be carefully chosen based on selected risk factors most particularly household incomes. People whose household incomes as assessed from their household expenditures are below $2 a day will be considered at risk. We shall make further assessment and selection through our outreach activities, under an approach that will be identified by the village local council leadership.
Training and Mentorship : Participants will undergo intensive training for 8 weeks in which they are required to build up stock and make networks for marketing it. During the 8 weeks, they will be trained in all three aspects i.e. a practical skill of their choice, business skills and financial literacy. The practical skills will include art& crafts, Jewelry making, snacks, soap making, basic public health and nutrition aspects. They will then be offered weekly mentorship for 12 months through self-help groups to support them in the individual challenges they face in their new ventures and keep inspiring them to nurture and grow their businesses.
The programme will be conducted in three cohorts every year that take place successively, one after another. Every Cohort is expected to have 85 participants which brings the total annual number of beneficiaries to 255. While we will work towards encouraging everyone to complete the training, people sometimes dropout due to circumstances beyond their control. Through our interactive and adult training methodologies, we will endeavor to keep annual dropout rate below 2%.
Finding markets for their products: We endeavor to find market for our participants so that they are encouraged to carry on with practicing their newly acquired skills when they are still fresh otherwise, many of them can easily get discouraged and abandon the career before they even start because of lack of market. As they grow their marketing abilities, they begin to find even better markets for themselves and fully become independent businesses
We appreciate the fact that vulnerability is multi-faceted. We look at vulnerability from all angles not just in one simplistic way. People need a comprehensive approach to their challenges rather than catering for a single challenge. The solution offered should help people make sense of how they can actually deal with their challenges in one place. This looks unachievable but we believe we can make it through the above model.
Vulnerable people are often times tossed from place to place which creates insecurity and mistrust within them. Our strategy aims at offering comprehensive support to our beneficiaries in order to restore their sense of security and be able to successfully live independently. We believe that equipping our beneficiaries with practical skills prepares them for a life of gainful work. However, vocational skills alone may not be sufficient to empower the selected participants to break the cycle of vulnerability and therefore we’ve incorporated two other strategies to bolster success rates as explained below.
Skills Development
Our strategy is to secure vulnerable people’s livelihoods through providing them with practical marketable skills that create a safety net against events of stress and shocks in their lives; hence providing sustainable livelihoods in the short-term and also for the next generation. Beneficiaries shall be trained in home-based vocational and marketable trades such as jewelry making, art & craft etc that help them establish or get involved in gainful work. Our skills training will not require any formal qualification, which does not only make it inclusive but also attractive to our target group.
Business Mentorship
Many times, people fail to start any income generating activity even when they have acquired a skill because of the myths surrounding failures and successes of businesses. There’s also a belief that someone must have large sums of money to start a successful business. This programme is aimed at demystifying all these myths and equipping participants with business skills to start a micro-enterprise and gradually build it into a bigger business. They are also prepared to overcome the fear of failing which hinders most people from even making the effort to start an income generating venture. Participants learn various aspects of managing a business such as marketing, budgeting, sourcing/ procurement etc.
Financial Literacy and self-help Groups
Financial skills and planning are important for continued and sustained development of any business venture. Our beneficiaries will be encouraged and guided on forming self-help groups that will provide a platform for us to build their capacity with robust financial literacy training particularly on financial options available to them and group management. People within these groups will be self-selected and using the solidarity built within the groups, they will be able to mobilize money from amongst themselves and lend it to each other under the guidance of IPVP. We are confident that this will help in developing beneficiaries’ small enterprises by providing them a mechanism through which they can easily access funding. Additionally, it will also offer networking opportunities that widens their market prospects and enhances knowledge sharing. The objective is to sustainably grow beneficiaries’ business ventures beyond their first year of establishment, in order to improve their standards of living.
Social Value Proposition
People typically do not become vulnerable through just a single independent event but rather through a web of interconnected and complex unjust social systems that stem from families and communities. We understand the interdependency and cycle of vulnerability and are intent on providing holistic and sustainable support to break the cycle and transform the lives of vulnerable people. Our approach is to empower them with practical entrepreneurial skills, financial literacy, knowledge and right attitude to start and manage an income generating enterprise with the objective of improving the quality of their living standards together with all the members of their households.