By Norah Owaraga | Project Leader and Managing Director
As we come to the end of Women’s History Month, I am reflecting on the lessons learned from the official Uganda International Women’s Day celebrations, held on 8th March 2025 at Bukwiri Village in Kyankwanzi District.
First, I was thrilled to see Esteri Nanvubya recognized and standing on the podium next to President Museveni. She was singled out in a positive way by President Museveni, who severally mentioned her name, Esteri, during his speech.
During my time as part of the leadership of Uganda Change Agent Association (UCAA), Esteri was among beneficiaries and success stories of the Change Agent Training Program. She was among the 2007 recipients of the UCAA Award of Merit for her commitment and service to disadvantaged communities in Kiboga. I still have a copy of the citation I authored, on behalf of the UCAA Board, for Esteri’s Award of Merit. I wrote:
“Esteri is voluntarily working with seven self-help development groups in Kiboga District. These groups have a membership of 132 (87 women and 45 men).
Esteri actively advocates for the rights of children and practices what she advocates for. She opened up her home as an orphanage and is looking after deserted and orphaned children. Currently, Esteri is looking after twenty deserted and orphaned children utilising her own resources without external grant funding.
In order to support herself and to feed the children, Esteri works hard as a subsistence farmer - growing matooke, cassava, pineapples and assorted vegetables and fruits.
Esteri is truly an asset to her community. A case in point is Esteri’s initiative to promote self-reliant food and nutrition programmes in schools in Kiboga. She lobbied for vegetable seeds from the Kiboga District Administration, personally delivered the seeds to the schools, supervised the preparation of vegetable gardens by the schools, and monitored to ensure that the pupils eat the vegetables.
Indeed, one of the schools, Bamusuuta Primary School, wrote a letter of appreciation of Esteri’s work to UCAA. In fact, Bamusuuta Primary School has decided to expand their school garden after they realised the benefits.”
I share Esteri’s story to demonstrate the positive impact of providing practical and conscious-awakening financial literacy training, such as we did with the Change Agent Training Program, to grassroots women. Indeed, our financial literacy training we intend to give as part of our project is adapted from the Change Agent Training Program. And by sharing Esteri’s story I wanted to spotlight the kind of woman that our project targets.
The other major lessons from Uganda's official International Women’s Day celebrations came from a video clip, which trended, of an ‘ordinary woman’ speaking truth to power, to President Museveni. Ironically, in the video clip, the woman critiques her fellow women, the elite, as she narrates her lived experiences striving to access credit from Government programs.
She narrated to President Museveni how funds under the "Parish Development Model (PDM)", ring-fenced and intended for disadvantaged, but hardworking women at the grassroots, are instead benefiting elite women.
She also provided a grassroots report on the World Bank financed “Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women’s Enterprises (GROW)” credit facility. Basically, revealing her insufficient understanding that GROW is targeted towards the more elite business woman as compared to PDM.
Well, according to official Government reports, in its first year, GROW has under-performed. Of the Shs. 75.1 billion made available for women enterprises to borrow, only 25 percent (Shs. 18.5 billion) was spent, leaving Shs. 56.6 billion unspent within the period it was expected to have been spent. Apparently, moreover, some women who went to the banks to access the funds were told the disbursed funds were all gone and already borrowed.
Which begs the question: Why the disconnect?
Anyway, we have since learnt that “Government has engaged the World Bank to onboard microfinance deposit taking institutions that will offer loans that do not require collateral” to administrate credit under the GROW Project. Why was this not already done in the first place, as part of original GROW design, I wonder.
My learning from Women’s Day celebrations is that there is a significant need among industrious and innovative women at the grassroots to have access to loans that do not require collateral; and for financial literacy training, in order for them to more effectively utilize the loans and other finances for the greater good of their respective households and wider communities.
This is what our project intends to contribute towards achieving. And it is the proposition we make to you to support us by making a financial contribution towards supporting grassroots women to access collatteral-free-finance and financial literacy training. Thank you.
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