HER INITIATIVE

Youth Empowerment /Entrepreneurship/AGYW

Her Initiative started in 2012 and was previously known as Teen Girls’ Supportive Initiative. A group of 3 high school students decided to take a lead in addressing issues that affected them and most girls. Their efforts are what gave birth to Her Initiative, an organization that reframes the value of girls and shapes new norms that break the cycle of poverty and create financial resilience among adolescent girls and young women and girls in Tanzania to achieve gender equality and inclusive economic growth. The aim is to create a 'new normal' for girls; a world in which girls are not held back from reaching their full potential, either by themselves, their families, their communities or by their financial status.

Their initiative stands for a girl who has empowered herself enough to address her social economic problems, and they do that through different programs and activities such as Panda Program.

Panda program aims at imparting financial independence behavior to young women aged 18 to 35 by providing them with knowledge, skills, and actual experiences. Panda trainings, mentorship and linkages empower young women and girls to become financially resilient. Young women and girls in colleges are enrolled to a Six-weeks training where they practically engage in production of products, services and practically learn about saving, budgeting, record keeping and digital marketing. The training is embodied with mentorship from young businessmen and women to guide the mentees through the process of establishing and running new businesses.

Moreover, the program successfully addresses the accessibility of capital and loans by creating linkages between young women and girls in business with Government and private stakeholders that provide capital, loans, and funding. Through this program more than 1162 young women and girls were enabled to start small scale businesses where 81 of these young women and girls are currently running stable businesses. Panda has successfully linked more than 55 young women with capital and loans facilitated about 100 young women and girls to open Village Community Banks. The program has reached over 200, 000 adolescent girls and young women and girls with knowledge and awareness on income generation both online and offline.

For this outstanding work, Her Iniative was given Smart Generation membership, through which they access different resources and support that makes their work possible. Through Her Iniative Smart Generation have been able to impact a big number of young girls in a quest of creating this ideal generation that we envision