Background Info
Stephanie Ayan is the third born of Victorine Akinyi. She was born in the year 2013. Stephanie has six siblings. They are Vincent, Christian, Innocent, Happiness, Israel and Ashley. Vincent is 12 years, and the youngest Ashley is Nine months. Their mother Victorine is 32 years. She is not well educated and does not have a job. Victorine struggles as a mother raising children in an impoverished home. She was not able to go beyond her primary school education. She, therefore, finds it hard to get any job. She became a market vendor to feed the seven children. Victorine previously tried selling charcoal and groceries. She is highly experienced in the business. Currently, she is selling roasted maize, a snack that people in her locality like. She is a hard-working woman but faces many challenges in her business.
The first problem is that she fully depends on her business to survive with the children. All the profit she makes is used for home expenditure. Stephanie and her siblings look up to Victorine to bring home what she had managed to source for the day. If she fails, they sleep hungry. When there are no sales for some time, the family consumes the stock. She gets nothing to save or improve her business. This is why some of her previous businesses collapsed. The second problem is that she does not have enough money for stock. She has to buy a small amount of stock that gives her very little profit. Sometimes she has to take the day's stock on loan. This dramatically reduces her profits. Currently, she is selling roast maize, a highly consumed snack in her locality. This business has the potential to expand. But she cannot reinvest because she has to feed the seven children. With her small income, Victorine can only afford a single room of approximately 3 by 4 m2. The small dilapidated room is used for all functions, including sleeping, cooking and as a living room. After an assessment of their poor living condition, we picked Stephanie under our program. She was admitted to Prince of Peace School in 2020.
In aid of EDGeL Mission. (EQUIPPING DEPENDENT GENERATION for LIFE)