The sewing room at Seed of Hope has been a safe place and a sanctuary for women this past year. They have learnt new skills, developed confidence, shared each other’s burdens, and faced personal fears. Every new year, however, another group of our sewing students are ready to leave the nest and test their wings on their own. This will now be the third year where we see a group of our Seed of Hope sewing graduates enter the big wide world of business. It is a difficult jump for many of them. They leave a sanctuary and enter a marketplace.

This marketplace demands low prices, doesn’t value high quality work, and is suspicious of success. In order for each woman to find her way, she has to figure out how to translate her sewing skills into a business. The task is daunting and filled with opposition. Our first group of graduated sewers (pictured above) opened up their own cooperative and in the first week were visited by a Sangoma, traditional healer, who cursed their chances at success. That was an intimidating experience. We have offered prayer and emotional support through challenges like this  and God has answered through his provision. However, even more practical support is needed for these budding entrepreneurs. They need business skills development. It is not enough to be a good sewer to survive in this harsh business environment.

This whole past year, Kerry’s heart has been heavy. “Sometimes, I have hardly known where to start in offering business support.” Kerry has a business degree and realized that an intentional approach to building business skills was desperately needed. We are truly excited this year, because we are launching some practical entrepreneurship training through Oasis Church and Seed of Hope, which will aim to teach skills and provide mentorship for those wanting to improve their businesses. The curriculum has been developed by Paradigm Shift here in South Africa so it offers culturally relevant training.
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Dan is heading up the Paradigm Shift team and we are blessed to have 4 other business leaders from Toti as part of the training team. Kerry is excited because she is inviting all of the graduated sewers from the past 3 years to this training. That is a possible group of 15 women. The course begins with a one day Business Experience Course which introduces entrepreneurs to basic business concepts like marketing, costs and profit, cash flow etc. The one day experience includes a business simulation which gets lots of discussion going.

After the Business Experience course, participants are invited to a 9 week, Monday evening class, which will tackle topics in a more in depth manner. We are hoping that everyone will sign up for the 9 week class. After seeing the discouragement of women when their first attempts at starting their business fail, we are hopeful that this course will be the investment that will catalyze perseverance and determination. The first Business Experience is on January 25. We will keep you posted on the outcome!