One of the things that I was tasked with doing when I came to MBF was to develop a training curriculum for MBF clients around basic business skills.
The idea is that since many of the women we work with were forced into business as a survival strategy, instead of choosing it for themselves, very few of them have had any formal education in how to run a business. Hence, giving them training will not only improve their businesses (hopefully) and help them support their families better, it will also help them repay their MBF loans. A win-win. So three months ago, we did a needs assessment where we asked clients about their training needs. ‘What are the problems in your business?’ we asked them. And, ‘what are the things that you want to learn about so that you can do business better?’ From their answers, we put together a curriculum using training material from Five Talents, Freedom from Hunger, and UNICEF that addresses entrepreneurship, business idea generation, business planning, marketing, increasing profit margins, and book keeping.
I am very pleased to say that not only have we successfully developed the curriculum, but we have also just finished testing it in the field! Every other Monday for 10 weeks, we have gone out to our pilot site, Ilula, a village on the main road from
When we go for training, the clients call me Dada Anna (which means Sister Anna in Swahili). They generally tease me about being white and make me read from the flip chart in Swahili while they laugh and clap. 
In the trainings, they mix learning business skills like bookkeeping with praying, singing, and dancing (and trying to get Dada Anna to dance, who frankly refuses!). It’s an interesting mix, but it seems to work. Mostly, I love seeing them asking questions and working in small groups together because you can see that they are learning from one another.
We finished the last training session (bookkeeping!) of the pilot on Monday. And finally I remembered to bring my camera to take some pictures of us all!
