How Seed of Hope works

Seed of Hope is the vocational training arm of Vision Africa Give a Child a Future. Our students are girls who would otherwise have had no hope of attending Secondary school or indeed any higher education establishment. Girls who had no hope of a brighter future. Girls who only saw a bleak, poverty-stricken future as they looked ahead. Girls who would never reach their real potential. Girls who had been deprived of so much in the past. Girls who struggled each day just to survive.

We rescue girls from a variety of different circumstances, some from child-labour, some from child-marriage, some are simply orphans who have experienced horrific tragedies and have no-one to provide for them.  We also work with girls whose families are simply too poor to pay for their education.

We take these girls completely free of charge and provide them with two years of training in Life-skills, Vocational Skills (Dressmaking and crafts) and Business skills.  Throughout this period of training we provide them with everything they require to learn, including qualified teachers and counsellors.  We also provide them with two meals and a portion of fruit each day – for many this is the only food they can get.

Following the two years of training, we facilitate the girls as they establish their own small business, allowing them to live independently, allowing them to survive by their own means without having to succumb to the abuse and exploitation so often suffered by girls in their circumstances.

Through our supporters we are giving these girls the priceless gifts of dignity, opportunity and hope.

Roots Businesses

In the final two months of their training students are attached to a local dressmaking business to give them the benefit of practical application of their skills.  However, in rural areas it is a challenge to find enough high-quality businesses to take all the girls.  As a solution to this we formed ‘Roots’ Businesses. 

The start-up of these businesses is funded through Seed of Hope and are established by the girls themselves, with the support of Seed of Hope staff.  Each business is visited daily by a staff member and each one is proving to be very successful.  This both exposes the girls to real business and dressmaking opportunities and allows them to raise money to start their own business after graduation.  It also provides a tremendous boost for their confidence, as they can see their own success and potential.

The Roots businesses also help to facilitate the post-graduation success of the girls.  With this program in place, the graduates can be slowly released to do their individual businesses as they become ready.  This also allows the Roots businesses to be maintained until the next group is ready to graduate.

Following graduation, we offer one girl from each Roots business the opportunity to join Johari for a one year internship.