Best Ayiorworth is an advocate for education and the empowerment of women in her home district in northern Uganda.
She has started an organization with a twist on common education programs called the Girls Power Micro-credit Organization, which focuses on women in the community with a trickle down mentality. The thinking behind GIPOMO is if more women are brought into business society with micro-finance loans, then they will, in turn, focus on young girls’ educations and revolutionize girls’ education in Uganda. It is her belief that many girls are left unattended to in the traditional Ugandan education system and GIPOMO tries to reverse this trend. The micro-finance prong of her organization is well thought out to minimize her own risk and maximize the potential of each woman that she invests in.
Since Ayiorworth Best’s selection as an Anzisha Fellow as the Anzisha Prize winner, GIPOMO has been expanding the programs it offers to promote young women’s education and self sufficiency. To promote young women’s education, it has expanded to providing micro-finance loans to help support young women who are susceptible to dropping out of school. The loans are zero interest and are provided to mothers to pay back in installments. To promote women’s activities in agriculture, GIPOMO invests in young women’s ability to get started, collects the gains made after harvest then connects the harvesters to a larger market by providing those gains to suppliers. After selling on the women’s behalf, GIPOMO gives the profit to the entrepreneur.
Recently, Ayiorworth Best was selected by the International Development Bank as a guest speaker in Indonesia for youth entrepreneurship.
Best may be contacted directly at: tabeest@gmail.com
