Gender Equality Uganda Project #48417

skilling 240 women from mulago katanga slum

by Thread of life women empowerment ministries

Project Report | Aug 3, 2026
Sharing and tracking our progress!!

By Florence Nakayi | Project Leader.

As we continue to press on and servive in Uganda, it's been tough for most of the businesses and organizations that operate in central Uganda Kampala. As our vision is,we continue to serve our communities through different programs. However due to limited finances we have been able to hold another class for two years now but we have been able to keep up with those who gained the skills in the past years. We have been able to truck progress and see how the women are putting the skills to use to be able to sustain their families.

Our goal still remains the same which states to empower vulnerable women with skills knowledge and opportunities to better support themselves and keep their families together. As we continue to reach our goal, we were able to do follow ups on two women who are running successful fashion business from the skills gained from Thread of Life women Empowerment ministries.

Meet Sarah one of the women who took classes with Thread of Life and later employed as production managerin 2020. She was head of production department and also a tailoring teacher but three years back life became tough when her leg got broken, It's was a dark moment for her and she didn't know how to move forward without working. When she recovered she decided to start her own fashion business called Bampa Creations fashion house and since she started she has been progressing where she was able to buy a car from her tailoring business. Since then she has taken fashion into her full time job where she markets her clothes online and makes them from the comfort of her home. Sarah says, God planned it for her to join Thread of life tailoring school and she is very happy and grateful.

Brenda was also a student during 2021 to 2023 and after her classes she started Maaz fashions where she sews Gomesi ( traditional wear for most cultures in Uganda mostly used on introduction and Kingdom events). She rents out these clothes to people and ever since she started this she has been able to acquire a car from the money she make.

Such stories bring joy to us and it's always a pleasure to share them with you our generous supporters. There is no way we would have done this with out you.

Moving forward we will be having another class in February 2027 for we have a long list of women waiting to be skilled.

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Apr 5, 2026
Refocusing on Job creation.

By Florence Nakayi | Project Leader

As we continue to change lives and fight abject Poverty in our communities (slums), we focused more on finding jobs for the women who have gone through the Tailoring classes. The current situation in Uganda is quiet alarming whereby the gap between the poor and rich is rapidly increasing. Its quiet scary since our elections on 15/01/2026 many businesses went down and people are only surviving and holding on to hope that things will change one day. The economy of Uganda has increasingly made it difficult for the illiterate women to get jobs and this has led to the high rates of unemployment in the country. The government of Uganda is proposing bills that will impose new taxes on everything starting with the income the people get on a monthly basis. As an organization knowing fully well how our women struggle to survive 20% to be deducted from their income or salary is really unfair.

As Thread of Life we began 2026, by training all our women on how to start their small scale tailoring businesses with the skills they acquired from taking the classes. We held financial literacy classes along side starting small scale businesses workshops and training to restore hope which was Lost. After these meetings 4 woman managed to start their own business. Janet who went back to the village during the general elections decided to stay in the village and since she had a sewing machine, she opted to start a roadside tailoring business in her community. Janet says, she was able to enroll her boy child into school from the little she makes. Shamim too started her workshop in Kampala near Katanga slums where she sews school uniform for two different schools. Her gaol is to make a big fashion house to employee as many women as she can in her community.

As always, we will always be grateful for our GlobalGiving family for continuously supporting us. Thread of Life is because of your generosity.

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Dec 8, 2025
Impact of politics on our women

By Florence Nakayi | Project Leader

We always excited to share with you our impact and progress of the women. As we embark on the journey of electing a new president of Uganda in Jan 2026, the women believe that for them to thrieve there must be favorable social, economical and political systems for them. As we are still working so hard to secure more funding for the class both locally and internationally, we asked the women who started their sewing or fashion business how they have managed to sustain the business in such difficult economic and political stituations in Uganda. As an organization being centered in the Capital city of Uganda we have experienced some setbacks due some political reasons.

Josephine a mother of two, who after the classes started her own business of fashion at Buganda Road market, says that she has managed support her two childrenthrough school and also pay her home bills like feeding, electricity, water among others. However she continues hight a few challenges due political situationsin Uganda, she say, " when there is demonstrations in Kampala, all businesses are closed hence losing money my daily sales and sometimes abrupt demonstrations or protests lead to destruction of our clothes since they Operating in an open space. As a result of demonstrations in the past presidential elections in 2021 many street vendor business lost their stuff and the woman are scared it might be the case when the presidential candidate for opposition starts his campaign in the city center.

As an organization, despite the challenges we had this year, we are committed to skilling more women and lobe for them more job opportunities in the fashion industry or sewing business in Uganda. And this year due to financial hiccups we focused more on teaching women Finacial literacy and business development skills. To keep them active and motivated we challenged the ladies to save some of the money they get from their small businesses and the response was really great. We used a strategy of Pay yourself first where each woman had to save a 1% of each money she gets by selling a product. Through these we were able to give out loans to afew who wanted to start other small businesses. Like Sylvia when she has no orders from school or her clients, we sells small snacks in the slums to increase on her income inorder to offer a better life to her three girls.

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