Market Place Literacy Training for Women
ACC believes in empowering pastoral women so that they can make a difference in their communities. These communities share their landscapes with livestock and wildlife. Erratic climatic conditions have affected the amount and quality of grass and vegetation which the wild animals and domestic animals feed on. The women’s efforts in small scale farming and livestock production are impacted when the rains fail to come, leading to higher poverty levels.
On October 30 and 31, ACC held a training for women in the Amboseli ecosystem on market literacy at the Noonkotiak Resource Centre near Amboseli. They were taught how to identify the products to sell in the market, different types of customers and their needs, packaging and pricing their products and services, how to keep enhancing their market knowledge and accessing credit for business capital.
ACC’s Programs Manager, Johnson Sipitiek, trains entrepreneurs on marketplace literacy.
Entrepreneurs gaining market place literacy at Noonkotiak Resource Center.
ACC signed an agreement with Noonkotiak Resource Centre to provide accommodation and hospitality services and marketing development. Donations were made including solar lighting for the inkadji, soft furnishings, furniture, and kitchen utensils and complete repair works of the borehole and plumbing works to provide water sustainably to the Centre.
The goal was to ensure the women know their business environment well so that they can plan well. They identified enterprises such as production and sale of Maasai beaded jewelry, Maasai traditional performances for tourists, and selling farm products. The women learned that they can successfully do their business in their environment and be self-reliant. ACC’s Programs Manager, Johnson Sipitiek, affirmed the aim is to “empower women to acquire knowledge, change attitude and become action oriented in business setups.” ACC trained 30 women and they will later become peer educators and train more than 1,000 women from their communities on what they learned from the training.
The training was part of the CONNEKT cross border partnership project between ACC and OIKOS-EA and funded by the EU.
In addition, ACC donated solar lights, bedding, and household items to the Noonkotiak Resource and Cultural Centre. The facility hosts a small resource centre, Amboseli Ecosystem Trust offices and a Maasai cultural village with traditional houses where researchers and tourists are welcome to visit.
