The alley outside Achawach Berhanu’s home is a ribbon of shade between teal walls—clothes strung overhead, plastic basins and a three-legged stool tucked against the plaster.
When Achewach Berhanu, 38, joined the Peaceful Self-Help Group (SHG) in Sekota Woreda, Amhara Region, Ethiopia. Life used to sit on one income and one pair of hands. she said, “Before, I had nothing, there was nothing I did at home.” The family relied on her husband Assefa’s modest government salary, and money never stretched far enough. Social norms pushed all cooking, cleaning, and childcare to her. She stayed inside with the four children; he stayed outside. Both felt the strain.
With one income and few options, families like the Kassahs needed a foothold. To help households strengthen finances, and widen opportunities for women, Oxfam and Women Empowerment Action (WE-Action) supported women in Sekota to form SHGs: women-run savings-and-loan circles where members deposit small amounts each week, pool the money, and issue tiny loans to start or grow small businesses. As a former kebele leader, Assefa heard the first briefings and backed the idea at once. He encouraged Achawach Birhanu to join “Peaceful (ሰላማዊ)”, a 20-member group. They began with tiny weekly deposits— “from 5 to 10 birr”—and a three-day training.
Members elected four leaders, wrote their own bylaws, and agreed that if one woman fell behind, the others would cover her until she could repay. As savings grew, weekly contributions rose to 50 birr (0.34$) giving the group enough capital to issue small loans. “We started saving small… we are 20 and we are still together,” says Achawach. She took on the finance/treasurer role, completed the training, and committed to regular saving, building her contributions, and her confidence, week by week.
With a 20,000-birr (136.22$) loan (400-birr [2.72$] interest), Achewach started a neighborhood injera business. She also expanded the soap enterprise she’d started earlier with a few neighbors, molding aloe-vera bars she sometimes carries to Addis Ababa to sell for 80 birr (0.55$) each. The bars set to a pale, creamy yellow with a smooth, unscented finish—simple, sturdy soap made for daily use.
As the group’s finance/treasurer, she tracks weekly contributions and small loans, and she saves around 200 birr a month. Over time, she has built 10,000 birr (69.13$) in personal savings. “I learned about financing from the experience,” she says. Confidence followed income, and identity. “More than the change in money, the change in ideas, this change is big for me.” She now sees herself as a businesswoman, active in her group and community, changes that also meant adjusting roles at home so she can work and participate fully.
At home, the change in shared roles as much as added income: as earnings no longer rest on one paycheck, household work is shared too. In a community where men doing domestic work still draws frowns, Assefa Kassa, 39, backs Achewach visibly and consistently.
“My husband supports me a lot,” she says. “When I go to group meetings or make injera, he takes care of the children—he even cooks.” If she’s short on her weekly deposit, “he gives me 50 birr,” and when she’s away, “he goes to the self-help group and gives the saving on behalf of me.” “The kids truly love his cooking—we love his firfir1 and scrambled eggs,” she adds. Some neighbors still whisper that Assefa is “at home like a woman,” while Achewach is “acting like the man” by going out to meetings.
Group members also report stories of husbands who try to stop their wives with violence. Assefa recognizes how deep these attitudes run: “Here, there is a bad belief that if a man works around the house, they see you differently,” he says, “but that has no place in my life.” Changing every mindset won’t happen overnight.
1 Firfir (also called fit-fit) is a popular Ethiopian breakfast made by tearing leftover injera (sourdough flatbread) into pieces and sautéing it with berbere spice, onions, and oil or clarified butter; it’s often finished with scrambled eggs or served plain.
The SHG is also a forum for ideas, and those ideas turn into practice. After building steady savings, Achewach says the bigger shift is in how she sees herself and her options. Most weeks, the circle meets in a member’s house compound, rotating from one place to another; they talk through issues and share coffee as they go. Topics move from saving and loans to development and SRHR (sexual and reproductive health and rights) issues, and sometimes husbands join. The training pushed her to act: “Women shouldn’t just stay at home; women should go out, work, bring income, and be independent.” Next up, she plans a vegetable stall, and Assefa is finalizing the business license so she can open.
Their story sits inside a wider wave. Under the Her Future, Her Choice (HFHC) initiative in Sekota and Sekota-Zuria, groups like Peace (ሰላማዊ) have multiplied. Participants report stronger know-how on SRHR services, clearer gender-based violence (GBV) referral pathways, and practical money skills (saving, group lending, record-keeping) through group trainings. In the HFHC end-line, adolescents who knew where to obtain family-planning methods rose from 75.4% to 79.1%, and among young people from 64.3% to 88.2%. Awareness of where to report GBV reached 87.4% overall, though knowledge of health services for survivors remained lower (47.1% for males; 51% for females).
In practice, that looks like what Achawach describes: shared decisions, joint problem-solving, and small loans that unlock home-based businesses. It also looks like husbands showing up, cooking, minding children, and taking a turn at the savings meeting, while families tune out the background noise of stigma.
There are still hard edges. Some men push back when women spend time outside the home, and stories of pressure, even violence, circulate. The group answers with steadiness: keep saving, keep learning, keep showing up. For Achewach, progress is concrete, reliable income, records kept for 20 women, and a plan to grow. For Assefa, the path is clear: “I want my wife to be out there, working in the community. She has great potential.”
What’s next
Achewach will keep the injera business running while she adds a vegetable stall. She’ll continue soap-making with neighbors when orders come in from Addis Ababa and other places. At home, she and Assefa will keep splitting care work and savings duties. And at the Peaceful SHG, she’ll balance the ledger.
And she will keep on showing that when women have access to savings, small loans, and peer support, and when men stand beside them, families move forward.
Since 2019, Oxfam and WE-Action have helped women in Sekota form and run about 300 SHGs, involving more than 5,700 women and girls. Each circle has 20 members who meet weekly, pool small deposits, and offer tiny loans to start or grow livelihoods. Collectively, the SHGs have accumulated savings of about ETB 13,971,323 (~USD 124,900 at Oxfam GB’s Sep 2024 rate: ETB 111.8912 per USD).
Oxfam & WE-Action also provided trainings on Unpaid Care and Domestic Work (UCDW), including financial literacy, women’s rights, health, and SRHR (sexual and reproductive health and rights), plus coaching as groups set bylaws and elect roles such as a treasurer/finance lead. With steady saving and on-time repayments, women build income and confidence, and many take on group responsibilities that keep the circles running smoothly.
“We win life by working together as one,” Assefa says. In this house, partnership feeds the children, builds savings, and opens the door to a small business. The path isn’t free of comments or doubt, but the family moves forward together.
