THAT THEY MAY HAVE LIFE—AND LIFE IN ABUNDANCE! (Jo. 10:10-11)

Entrepreneurship with a woman’s face

Life is the most precious good that each of us receives freely and without any merit that we can present to justify this great gift. However, the multiple activities in which we are occupied, in our daily routines, prevent us from valuing and estimating it at its fair value. Only when, for some reason, we feel threatened by illness, suffering, difficulties of various kinds, do we miss it, and it is usually to lament or become victims of it. However, there is always someone who breaks this trend and gets out of this scheme that paralyzes us and can make a difference with a new way of facing it and not giving up, as Mario Benedetti poetically says:

“Don’t give up, you’re still in time / to reach out and start over,

Accept your shadows, bury your fears, / release the ballast, take flight again.

Don’t give up that life is that / continue the journey,

To chase your dreams, / To unlock time,

to remove the rubble and uncover the sky.”

A group of women who have become aware of the strength that lives in them not to give up in the face of the great difficulties that life presents to them, tell us, loud and clear, to all the people who want to listen. That, they are capable, because they believe in themselves when they are supported, to transform and make a difference in their lives and in the lives of their families. This is what is happening in the implementation of a program aimed at women entrepreneurs, at the Flori Social Center in Mahotas.

The program is aimed at women of different profiles, almost all marked by social exclusion, unemployment, forgotten by the fathers of their children, with heavy tasks from extended families difficult to bear, but all of them with the same firmness in their decision and with the same courage to “start again, and pursue their dreams”.

First it was necessary to start by training the skills to which each one felt truly called for different arts: sewing, hairdressing, cooking, agriculture and computer science. The course provided the knowledge that helped to consolidate and value the natural inclination and awaken creativity. The training also included notions of entrepreneurship, how to run a small business, how to make the most of existing resources and how to successfully project an economic activity.

Inspired by M. Ascension we could never stay here, what we loved most was to share with all of them, how God clothed us as women of values and graces, fruit of his superabundant and merciful love, which are within us and that we can discover and cultivate. Because God’s plan is that we have a dignified life and live it with abundance and joy. Self-esteem, the value of being a woman, sharing what we are and have, even if it is little, builds sorority/unity and a society in which the dignity of each person is recognized, more just and supportive. But the most significant moment was the delivery of the “kit”, the materials necessary to start the small business to each of the participants. The expressions of recognition and joy were moving because they came from the hearts of women’s experiences already very shaken by the harshness of life.

Accompanying this process is a challenge that encourages us to recognize that the values of the Kingdom are already present and impel us to commit ourselves to rekindling the hope that one day it will reach its fullness.

Coordinators of Flori’s  Social Center

Mahotas, Maputo

October 2024