Ann Tata
Beads & grocery trade
She sells beads and runs a grocery trade; her daughter is in high school.
“My daughter is in school, and that made me feel loved and accepted. It encouraged me to dream of a better tomorrow.”
Ann grew up in the Kipsongo slum. Her parents could not pay for school, so she joined her mother on the streets to beg for food or change outside supermarkets, and went with her to the dumpster to scrap for food. The family could not afford three meals a day. She believed her life would amount to nothing. As she got older she fell in with the wrong crowd and started drinking. When she became pregnant with her first child she had no way to support another person, so she started selling alcohol. It was a life of hardship, and she sometimes spent days in police cells.
When a friend told her about the Baskets and Beads group she joined immediately. She knew she had to give her children a different life from her own. The group gave her hope and a reason to work harder. All she wanted was to get her children into school, but the cost of fees and requirements meant she could not send her daughter to high school. When she told the group, they were able to help, and her daughter joined the sponsorship program.
Baskets and Beads changed Ann's life. She makes and sells products and earns an income. At the group's business conference she was taught how to run a business, and she now has a side trade selling groceries that covers her family's day-to-day needs. Her dream is to make that income larger and more regular, and to move out of the slum into a safe place for her children.
In Ann’s words
“To have a safe place my children can call home.”
Stand behind Ann
Gifts go into the group’s shared table banking pool and the programs that support every woman in the circle: materials, literacy, medical help, and school fees for their children.
