Loan Scheme for Disadvantaged Young People

We would like to thank our Donors for your generous donations to the cause of JOPA. We are quite aware that there are several things you can do with that money but deciding forego all those important things and donate it for the cause of JOPA, really shows a humatarian heart you have. thank you very much.

I want to assure you that your donations will be used for the right cause of bringing a chaging in lives of the youngmothers and youth. I nform your friends and relative about JOPA's work and encourage them to donate towards ours cause..

I want to inform you tha we completing the training phase for the beneficiaries and the beneficiaries were awarded completion certificates at a colourful event attended by members of the community, Government leaders and relatives of the beneficiaries.

I want also to inform that we have started witnessing a change in lives of some of our beneficiaries, 20 % of them according to our recent survey have set up their own enterprises and they have started earning income, 10% of them have got paid jobs in neighbouring towns and villages and the remaining 70% and still looking aroung for start up capital to set up their own enterprses in order to put their acquired skills into use.

We believe once we get your donation, at least a good number of our beneficiaries will have access to start up loans

Meet some of our beneficiaries

Anthony can’t use his legs and was working hard but earning very little through cobbling. It was not enough to support himself and his mother, particularly when his mother fell sick. He heard about JOPA and chose to learn knitting.

After learning how to operate the knitting machine and make sweaters, Anthony completed the course and graduated. He has now got a fulltime job working in the big town of Jinja. He has five times as much income to support his family. Anthony also manages to save some money every month towards starting his own business of knitting sweaters and making leather for shoes. He is confident in his ability and skills, but just needs the resources to do this. He says “JOPA gave me hope, now I have hope for the future.”

Mary – Before JOPA, Mary tended her garden to earn income. Mary took a knitting course and found that it was work that she enjoyed. After graduating, Mary took out a loan to buy a knitting machine and began to run her own business. She has been operating for over 2 months and has a steady trade in selling school jumpers. Mary looks after two children alone and through the income can now support them. She is hoping to pay off her loan this year and the next step for the business is to get an embroidery machine to make school badges. However, these are even more expensive and she doesn’t know where the financial support for this will come from.

[Rachel] Rachel’s motivation for coming to JOPA – and the change that JOPA made in her life - was simple: “I was not able to care for my family. Now I can feed my family. Before my children were not going to school, but now they are.” Rachel completed JOPA’s hairdressing course this year and still keeps in touch with the other girls on the course, sharing wok and news.

Once she found her new career, Rachel took out a loan to be able to rent a salon and equipment. After a year, her business is doing well – she averages 3 customers a day. She is still working on getting some new equipment, such as a sink and hairdryer, and in the future she would like to learn more about business management, managing finances and customer services. Rachel is proud of her salon, particularly its mirrors and reclining chair

I have attached some photos off the above beneficaries.

Thank you for your support. together we shall shall cuase a postive chane in peoples' lives

Report for the month of May 2016

We would like to extend our thanks to all our friends and donors who have relentless supported our work and have not let us down.

We have not receive any donation as of yet for this project and therefore we have not yet started giving out the revolving capital to the young mothers however, we have continued to register more young mothers who need to acquire skills in Tailoring, Knitting and Weaving.
We have registered 15 of them and they are undergoing training in tailoring, knitting and weaving as we wait to raise the revolving capital to help those have already gone through training to start their own enterprise
Training of beneficiaries in Tailoring, Knitting and Weaving is going on at JOPA site in Buwenge town council, Jinja District

Each trainee is undergoing (5) Training hours each day, and (25) Training hours a week which. Each attends a particular session of her own convenience. We have the morning session which runs from 8a.m up 1pm and the afternoon session that runs from 2pm to 5pm

The trainees are being trained in all the three (03) important aspects of the course such as drafting, cutting and stitching. The course content is very helpful in opening individual and group enterprises at their household level. The level of skills of each trainee is being enhanced to a satisfactory level
We also realize that our beneficiaries need to be equipped with entrepreneurship skill and financial literacy education before they can set up their own enterprises and so we contacted our partners Uganda Business Clinics Initiative to help us do the training in those areas.

Our partner Uganda Business Clinic Initiative has also agreed to train our beneficiaries in financial literacy and entrepreneurship skill. We finished are the formalities and training is slated to begin on 15/06/ 2016
We call upon all friends and donors to continue supporting us and helping us in realizing our dreams of reducing the misery and suffering of our people.
Thank you very much