Sustainable joys through micro businesses.
“If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime!” – The „Drops of Joy” social project offers to disadvantaged families the opportunity to enjoy themselves financially in the long term by setting up micro-businesses that will bring them a sustainable source of income.
Why?
The problem of the flood-type solutions
There are many actions of NGOs in Romania aimed at helping disadvantaged families and generally these actions are concentrated in a certain period of time.
All these are beneficial and come as a “flood of joy“, but most of the time, they bring abundance for a limited period and do not solve, in the long term, the financial problem of families.
Small, but constant drops
The mission is to help disadvantaged families to start their own micro business, with the help of which they can support themselves through small but constant actions (the drops), aimed at helping to form self-sustaining mechanisms (the joy).
Who?
“Drops of Joy” is based on a team of passionate volunteers, composed of people with experience in project and business management, eager to bring added value to society through their finances, time and personal expertise.
How?
Identification
We work with NGOs, municipalities and churches to identify families with very low incomes who meet the eligibility criteria.
Analysis - Eligibility criteria
- Family with min. 2 children
- Insufficient income to support the family
- The family situation is in the care of a non-profit entity to help with implementation and monitoring
- Working people
- The funding received is used exclusively for the micro business
Planning
Creating a business plan that matches the skills and passion of each individual family.
Funding
The micro business is financed in several stages in the form of micro grants until it becomes self-sustaining.
Consulting and implementation support
We support the family from the establishment of the micro business until it becomes profitable.
Susteinable projects
Vegetables greenhouse
Adi (41 years old, civil construction engineer) and his wife, Katy (33 years old, musician – currently unemployed, although she occasionally offers music lessons) are the parents of four little children: Luca (8 years old), Levi (6 years old), Amiel (5 years) and Alice (2 years old). They live alone in the former Gostat, in the house of some family friends who are away and whose things they take care of in their absence.
Although Adi doesn’t work in the field in which he completed his university and master’s degree, he has done several reconversions, to meet the needs of the family. Thus, he worked in several places where he had to take certain courses (in pedagogy, to have the right to teach in schools and in universities); later, he and his wife attended management courses in tourism, a field in which they also worked for a period of time.
Currently, Adi is studying professional agricultural techniques, and his job is in sales of agricultural inputs. On the other hand, Katy gave up her education to take care of the children and assist them in the home education system (homeschooling). Both use a lot of their free time to invest in their children and the practical side of life, working in the garden.
Since Adi is the only one working, his income does not cover all his monthly needs. Utilities give them headaches month after month, even though they are extremely thoughtful, cutting losses and avoiding any useless waste of resources. In the future, they would like to enlarge the solariums and the garden so that they can have a sustainable income from what they grow.
- Business Plan 100%
- Funding 100%
- Implementation 80%
- Self-financing 0%
1.800 euro
support the project
Exterior design
Florin (46 years old) and Ema (41 years old), together with their four children (Cristina – 18 years old, Bogdan – 11 years old, Gabi – 10 years old and Timotei (4 and a half years old), are a family of honest, hardworking people, endowed with all kinds of gifts.
Florin has been working in construction for over 20 years. Although his specialty is interior and exterior design, he works almost anything to support his family honestly (from house building to photography, hostelry, IT or whatever else is needed). Ema, his wife, graduated nursing school but is a housewife, taking care of the children. She is a fantastic cook, knows how to sew by machine, and makes cakes, handmade hair accessories and all sorts of decorations.
Despite the fact that they do everything they can, they struggle financially and are very tight. They live in a rented house and the income does not exceed the expenses (which amount, on average, to 1000 euros per month). In the future, as a possible solution, Florin would like to open a workshop for casting decorative objects (stone, wands, ornaments, decorative panels, etc.), while Ema would love to open a mini cooking laboratory – activities in which the other family members will be involved as well.
Project UPDATE:
August.2023: After establishing the business plan, with the help of donations, the necessary molds were bought and the shelves were built for drying the products. Even if there is not yet a workshop dedicated to Florin, production has started and the results are good. So far everything went well. We hope to be able to raise more funds to start building the workshop that will allow it to function even in less favorable weather conditions.
- Business Plan 100%
- Funding 100%
- Implementation 80%
- Self-financing 0%
2.000 euro
support the project
Donate sustainably
Your donations will be distributed 90% for project funding and 10% for administrative activities of “Drops of Joy”.