Empowerment

  Bothothari Foundation is a critical vehicle for social and financial empowerment:

Long-Term Goal-

Bothothari  Foundation intends to uplift people start or expand over 150,000 businesses after some time as a way out of poverty, affecting the lives of over half a million people.

WHAT WE DO: 

Bothothari Foundation helps very poor people make their way out of poverty. We intend to provide business training, seed capital grants and support to help people launch a microenterprise. 

Bothothari Foundation offers grants, not loans, to our entrepreneurs. We provide grants because we are committed to working with the very poor - people who are unable or unwilling to obtain a microloan. 

We focus our support on women, mainly street vendors, the majority of whom report that, once they have launched their businesses, they are able to provide better nutrition, health care and education for their families.  We also focus on providing support to people with disabilities, if and only if, they are willing or involved in microenterprise.

We intend to start or expand more than 10,000 microenterprises every year. That's because when it comes to fighting extreme poverty, launching these businesses - the products of microenterprise development - works. Botswana has thousands of street vendors motivated to get ahead even though they are poor. 

HOW WE DO IT:

We identify potential entrepreneurs with help from local organizations that are active in the regions in which we work. We currently have more than 10 such partners registered with BOCONGO and others with Botswana National Youth Council. We have field management to implement our programs.

Once we have identified the entrepreneur, we extend seed capital to start or expand a business. At that time we also provide business training and access to savings and loan groups. This three-part approach ensures that our seed capital grants are judiciously implemented. It also helps entrepreneurs to best realize their potential as independent and capable small-business owners, which leads to self-empowerment and independent life.