What We Do
Our Mission
Empower women and their children in developing countries by working to close the gender gap, teaching valuable new skills, and promoting an environment that will guarantee a better quality of life for themselves and their communities.
Agriculture & Food Security
Education
Energy
Agriculture & Food Security
Subsistence farming is an interim relief to farmers for lack of credit and inputs
OFED works to alleviate poverty among women and their families in rural areas by:
- Helping women move from subsistence farming to market-oriented agriculture.
- Providing women farmers easier access to credit to acquire new technology and other farm inputs, rent agricultural labor forces, and initiate other income-generating activities.
- Fostering the creation of women-only cooperatives and strengthening the existing ones by improving coordination, sustainability, and participation in the decision-making process.
- Training women organized in cooperatives and associations.
OFED’s projects objectives entail:
- Enhancing women’s managerial and financial skills to ensure sustained and superior output.
- Familiarizing women with water management, irrigation systems, and marketing intelligence systems in order to better adjust to market trends, plan and control their production, and set up appropriate marketing strategies.
Education
In rural Sub-Saharan African, agricultural knowledge is
traditionally passed on from one woman to another.
While primary school enrollment rates are moderately lower for girls than boys, data reveal greater disparities between boys and girls at the secondary school level. In order to break the cycle of poverty and gender inequality in these communities, OFED works to provide children and young adults with the tools they need to learn in a positive environment.
OFED’s approach to educating girls and young women in rural areas aims at:
- Increasing and encouraging access to education, improving schools’ infrastructure;
- Setting up new educational venues in collaboration with various stakeholders (distance learning); and
- Encouraging mothers’ participation in its programs to foster girls’ school attendance and young women’s technical training and apprenticeship.
Energy
Solar Electricity
ACTIVITIES
- Help meet the electricity needs in rural communities
- Support the installation of solar energy
- Monitor and evaluate solar technologies
IMPACT
With proper electricity, students can study longer, leading to increased performance. Women are able to attend evening classes as part of a functional literacy program. Well lit public areas not only allow children to do their homework but also stimulate the economy by encouraging women to sell their goods during evening hours.