Container shops give mothers an income inside school compounds
A coffee corner, a hair salon and school-supply kiosks: how small shops run by mothers keep their children in class.
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The surest way to keep a child in school is a mother with an income. That conviction is behind one of Ende Enat's longest-running ideas: small container shops built inside public school compounds and handed to organised groups of mothers of vulnerable pupils.
The shops sell coffee and tea, school supplies, or — as with the salon pictured — hairdressing services to the neighbourhood. Earnings cover uniforms, exercise books and food, and the mothers gain a trade and a savings habit that outlives any single grant.
Saving groups make it last
Alongside the shops we organise community self-help saving groups. In earlier programmes we trained 200 women in saving and loan management, established 12 saving groups and distributed 166,500 birr in matching funds. Groups are linked to microfinance institutions and cooperative offices so they can grow on their own.
The model is central to our phase-out strategy: when a project ends, the assets and the habits stay with the community.
