2021 Marked the 10th Anniversary for OneLove | Here is our story
... and we have only just begun ...
Come join our team and be part of making the difference!
2010 - 2011
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OneLove founder (Suzanne Dane) accompanied a group of university students to Tanzania for four months. While there, she was asked by a health organization to delivery business start-up training to 48 women in remote villages.
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Suzanne returned the following year to evaluate the original 48 businesses. All were still in existence and thriving. Recognizing the positive impact, OneLove was officially born and became a registered NGO/charity in Canada.
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Suzanne travelled to Mombasa and shadowed loans officers from a large microfinance institution (MFI) to learn more about microfinance, the associated processes and impact to rural African communities.
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Suzanne (in collaboration with one of her daughters) established 10 women in soap-making businesses. The option for establishing micro-franchises was considered.
2012-2015
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The Biashara Village Ventures program (including train-the-trainer) was developed with materials in both English and Swahili.
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Suzanne continued to visit Tanzania once or twice a year and deliver the training to groups of 30 women.
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Developed partnerships with five other NGOs who use the Biashara Village Ventures program to further support their work.
2016 - 2018
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Requests for training support continued to grow significantly. A team of trainers (local Tanzanian) was added to the OneLove family.
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Expanded the core business program to include training on peer-lending and further, facilitate the start-up of VICOBA groups (Village Community Banking). This entailed follow-up mentoring, purchasing supplies (passbooks, master accounting journals and lock box) and injecting start-up seed funding
2020
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Established OneLove as a registered NGO in Tanzania. Opened an office in Moshi in partnership with another NGO (KELASO).
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Formed a partnership with Bicycles for Humanity (Edmonton, Calgary and Victoria branches) to identify and distribute donated bicyles to those most in need. Continued through to 2023.
2023
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Held 5 "Mama Empowerment Days" - 1-day events designed for 60 mamas per event. Included a half-day peer mentoring session followed by 3 workshops on critical topics identified by the mamas (#1 Womens Rights; #2 Dealing with Sexual Abuse/Violence; #3 Womens Health).
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Launched a pilot train-the-trainer project to see if we could empower 10 Tanzanian women to deliver our program. Each woman represents a VICOBA (peer lending) group of 30 mamas who they, in turn, would train. Pilot is ongoing.
2024
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We launched emPOWERmore - a one-year mentoring and support initiative following the mama's completion of the entrepreneurship program and the start-up of the peer lending groups.
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The program provides additional phase 2 business training that is necessary as the businesses grow and/or their are economic challenges due to changing economies. THE DIFFERENCE? We expanded to offer vocational training options (jewellery making, batique, soap making, raising livestock) and life skill training for personal development (Women's Rights, Parenting, Dealing with Sexual Violence, Having Confidence, Women's Health).
