Rosebud Gumbo joined the DREAMS-RISE program as a young mother, who was impregnated at the age of 18. “I had lost hope in life, I had no vision and was just a housewife with nothing proud of.” After she was introduced to the program, she received the primary package which consisted of HIV prevention, gender norms, and financial literacy. Rosebud also had an opportunity to receive the secondary services s consisting of ISAL and SIYB training.
“I learnt the importance of being a financially independent young woman, I started having visions and goals, which prompted me to open a small business which helped me to take care of my basic needs.” In October 2022, she got an opportunity to be an Out of School Club facilitator and started delivering sessions with other club members giving her real-life example. She was then promoted to be an out of school club facilitator supervisor. In March 2022 there was an opportunity for AGYWs to offer cleaning services at ZHI offices in the districts. With her business partner Pamela Ngozo, they grabbed the opportunity and won the bid. With mentoring from work readiness training where they were coached on how to conduct themselves at the workplace, how to market their business, detergent making amongst other things.
Their business is now up and running and they also got a chance to attend the empowered girl’s rock summit in Harare where they had job shadowing with the marketing director of Double Action cleaning services and learnt a lot from her, especially on the importance of budgeting and saving. “The DREAMS-RISE program has really played a significant role in my life I now know where I’m going and where I’m coming from.”
Rosebud is now the Finance Managing Director of Atmosfresh cleaning services company. Under the DREAMS program she also decided to go back to school and is currently a second-year student at Zimbabwe Open University studying towards a degree in Psychology and she can pay for her fees. “As a company we are looking forward to engaging more adolescent girls and young women and encouraging them to be financially independent and contribute to reducing new HIV infections amongst adolescent girls and young women because when we are independent, we can hardly look for other bad means to look for money. I am grateful for the DREAMS program. It’s positively impacting our lives.”