Clear Vision for Change (CIVISCE) understands the degree of poverty facing women and young women in Tanzania, particularly in Kigoma region and that it requires a strategic approach that addresses both the immediate needs and the long-term capacity building of communities. CIVISCE is committed to playing a crucial role in driving social and economic development by contributing to filling gaps, advocating for marginalized groups, and facilitating grassroots initiatives. The social and economic empowerment work of CIVISCE focuses on:
- Establishment of Community Microfinance Groups (CMGs): CIVISCE mobilizes women and young women to organize themselves into CMGs formerly known as Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLAs) as platforms to save money, access micro loans, and invest in income generating activities. Through CMGs, CIVISCE helps women and young women to promote entrepreneurship. They are advised to expand their individual and group businesses in various areas like agriculture, fishing, crafts, small trade, and other income generating activities. We advise and facilitate CMG members to digitalize groups at maturity level and link them with financial and non-financial institutions.
- Capacity Building: To ensure CMGs remain effective in delivering economic empowerment, CIVISCE conducts capacity building of individual women, young women, and community members in CMGs through trainings on leadership and governance, financial literacy, group business management, technical skills to improve product quality, production increase, value addition and business ideas creation. CIVISCE also provides such trainings to individual entrepreneurs outside CMGs. Our beneficiaries mostly include women, and young women in agricultural value chain like palm oil/sunflower, apiculture, fishing, small vending, and poultry livestock so they can increase their economies and gain control over their finances. CIVISCE also equips young women with knowledge and/or skills and provides them with machines to transform solid wastes into briquettes (See our Climate Justice thematic area).
- Coaching and Mentorship: To improve specific skills and achieve economic empowerment goals, CIVISCE uses coaching and mentorship strategy. We aim to make mentorship cover industry-specific areas, enabling beneficiaries to gain practical, hands-on experience from their mentors. Each beneficiary is paired with a coach and a mentor. Coaches are normally business experts, while mentors are successful entrepreneurs from a relevant value chain, selected from the beneficiary’s locality.
- Advocacy for CMGs: CIVISCE advocates for policies that recognize and support CMGs so they can formalize their role in rural economic development and raises awareness about the benefits of CMGs through media, community forums, and educational programs.
CIVISCE engages with women and young women to understand their specific needs, challenges, and cultural context. We use a participatory approach to ensure economic empowerment programs are tailored to the local realities and that communities have ownership of the process. Interested partners can email us partnership requests to partnership@civisce.org