Expanding access of Cooperative health Insurance

Organising women to challenge the existing norms and culture in efforts to promote their well being has not been an easy task and in this present era of globalisation and rapid developments, the problem of poverty still remains as an important area of  concern  in  many  parts  of  the  world.  In  2000,  the United Nations  declared  the  Millennium  Development  Goals  (MDGs)  and  one  of  the  goals  is to halve the proportion of people  below the poverty line by 2015.  

Poverty is a human deprivation  and  blocks  the  access  of  the  poor  to  mainstream  institutions  delivering  services  like education, health, nutrition, training, credit, market linkages and technology.  

Most of the developing countries like Uganda have a dual financial system  with  an  informal  and  a  formal  financial  sector. The poor and lower-income people are usually left out from the formal financial system. The lack of access to the formal financial sector is a result of the lack of the collateral required due to risks involved in lending but also due to high costs involved  in small-scale  financial  services  and  weak  legal  enforcement. The banks  have  always been  reluctant  to  serve  the  poor, especially  the  asset-less, who cannot offer any collateral. Moreover, rural poor find the formal institutions alien and inaccessible.

To bridge this gap, karin is empowering women groups around the Karin health centers through micro loan projects that enable households to become self-reliant. Other projects include modern dairy farming, artisan training, Bio-sand filter safe water, value chain management, energy saving stoves, etc..Empowered households will be able to take care of their health, send their children to school and increase local incomes.

Since 90% of Northern Uganda's population are agriculturalists, most of these farmers are being skilled to put away their rudimentary tools and practices to embrace modern methods of farming which yield higher returns, market access and are friendly to the environment.

Karin as an organisation, is very pleased with this tremendous progress, when the community is organised, it is easier to channel support to them. Some members have been trained in making energy-saving stoves. These stoves are made from local materials including clay. We hope that members can make these stoves and sell them and in addition incorporate these in their homes. We are very grateful for partners like you for changing the lives of our community members. We encourage you to keep supporting our projects as we strive to make this world a better place.

Links:

• https://karincommunity.org/
• https://www.facebook.com/KCIUganda/
• https://twitter.com/KCIU_Uganda