Making the vision plain

I thought before getting to my vision I should share a poem I wrote.

It hounds me down, an easy prey I am,
Trapped as a heartless enemy pursues,
It eats everything in sight,
It thrives in the zeal of having all of me,
I am being pursued by an enemy I know well, fear.

Every time I walk past them in the streets, the voice gladly whispers in my ears, do you really think you can help these women, you have the wrong vision and often times I look and am forced to concur, it is too big of a vision for a young woman who is still struggling to fend for herself. I walk away and all I can hear is laughter.

Then the thought enters step by step, you are giving a hundred shillings to help orphaned children in church that has to count for something, right, it is a step and slowly I can see light in the darkness.

At fifteen my vision was to escape poverty, get a career, good house, car and the perfect family to complete the picture but as I have grown older my vision keeps expanding, it’s no longer my little world. As I peer through I can see the woman struggling to make it, I can hear the cry of the malnourished child strapped to her back and I realize it is not about me it’s about them.

My personal vision is to break through the limitations and realize that I can make a difference in the life of an individual; it is to give the woman and the child a chance to realize that their hidden dreams can be fulfilled, one at a time.
I want to rehabilitate street women and their children. Through offering the women life skills, that will get them off the streets and give their children an opportunity to get an education.

I intend to help them start small business enterprises through networking and partnerships; they can start a cleaning agency, where other women like them can offer cleaning services to offices or homes.

I would also want to partner them with a micro-finance institution that believes in investing in women, where they can acquire a loan, to start businesses and also be financially literate.

Through partnership these women can get an education, some of them may have finished high school but never had the opportunity to advance and they may want to be professionals, maybe in teaching or other fields.

Since this women need to get off the street, I was thinking through partnerships, they can live in existing homes, that allow for mothers and children to live together, as we offer them support in terms of rehabilitation, trying to change their mindsets so that they don’t go back to the streets. While here they can learn life skills and their children have an opportunity to get an education.

Being a VOF correspondent will help in guiding me to fulfill this vision, I will have the opportunity to network with people with similar visions and work together and learn through them. I will probably have the opportunity to meet people who may be willing to partner with me in making the vision a reality. I will also be able to amplify the voices of these women and children, their stories will illicit change.

Through the resources put up in world pulse, I will have a mentor to guide me in writing the proposals, who knows it can be one that I can pitch to the government and the private sector in my country and they may be willing to come on board.

Having a mentor will also help me articulate the vision more clearly, I will have the opportunity to learn from people who have started projects, and how they went about it and also learn to have a project that is sustainable.

Being a VOF correspondent will also be a step in the right direction, because the one month class has not only pushed me to examine myself but also aim higher and know that it is possible.

I have written the vision and made it plain so that whoever sees it can run with it… (quote from scripture).