SUPPORT MICRO SMALL & MEDIUM ENTERPRISES IN UGANDA

Kigezi Healthcare Foundation (KIHEFO) has been supporting families to join community cooperatives that in turn supports their small enterprises through savings and credits, so many families have joined Craft Cooperatives, Mushroom Cooperatives, Vegetables Cooperatives , Rabbit Cooperatives and many others to uplift their livelihoods. This has been emphasized by the active presence of members’ spouses. Due to the ever demanding roles women have to play in a typical household such as looking after the children and farming, their cooperative journey becomes a difficult one without the active support of their husbands since concerns like; where are you getting the money? You are going to be unruly often pop up jeopardizing the peace in their families if the husbands don’t get actively involved. 

Undeniably, most efforts have been put to encourage women to join cooperatives though less have been directed to factors that keep them there. Support from spouses is one pillar that KIHEFO cannot under look. Studies have emphasized that support from husbands is very important with emotional support (belief and empowerment) and financial contribution topping the list. With the ever impact teaching sessions in the communities on the importance of involvement of spouses in the cooperatives, this month has had a whooping turn up of 56 husbands joining the cooperatives. This is going to yield a lot of advantages that include the following:

l Emotional support

l Financial contribution

l Improved family income.

l Better pooling of resources. Etc

 Of the 56 men, 42 have joined the rabbit cooperatives group, 1 vegetable cooperatives, 3 crafts cooperatives, 1 mushrooms cooperatives and 9 multi purpose cooperative group that buys items from the smaller cooperatives.  We have organized trainings for the husbands mainly on record keeping and effective savings culture.  We have also trained them on how to plan before borrowing and how to plan the repayment schedule.The wives were excited about their husbands joining as they now beheld economical transformation that was a dream starting to become a reality. The husbands cited stereotype false beliefs such as “you cannot join together with your wife, she will disobey you” as the ropes that were holding them back. After the training sessions, the husbands testified to lacking enough information on the importance of spouse involvement and vowed to invite their friends because they were missing out a lot. This move has the potential to lift families out of poverty and also mitigate the factors working against the progress of women joining the cooperatives since many cited their husband’s ignorance as a barrier.

In a nutshell, steps on increasing the potential ,production and value addition have been taken hence efforts towards an inclusive middle income country.                                     

The entrepreneurial experience of single mother entrepreneurs remains largely unexplored. Informal discussion with single mothers gave us an insight that they need support in developing small enterprises and eventually grow. We recruited 83 single mothers and a number of them dropped out of the program and we eventually started with 66. The were taken through business clinic model where the basic skills to star and run a successful enterprise was explained to them. They were given opportunities to come up with ideas of their interest that can help them generate income to support their families. We are planning to use this success stories to recruit more women into the program. The women have been registered into village based cooperatives and we shall track the progress they make while there. The intervention addresses the issue by analyzing the challenges single mother entrepreneurs encountered in their entrepreneurial ambitions to ensure the survival of their businesses, improve their quality of life, and contribute to the development of society.  The outcome of the interaction with single mothers revealed that the main challenges faced by the majority of the single-mother entrepreneurs were closely related to the lack of financial support, entrepreneurial skills, and business resources, stigmatization by society, as well as issue in balancing their domestic and business responsibilities. To ensure the survival of their businesses, single mother entrepreneurs are mostly dependent on their informal support system and inner strengths. Although useful, the informal support system cannot support the business survival of their businesses and strengthen their financial position. Besides, their internal motivation and creativity assist them in attracting potential customers and competing in the market.

  Single Usually need intensive counselling because the are viewed as the most vulnerable social groups in society . Often, the characteristics used to describe single mothers are related to negative aspects such as lack of educational attainment, lack of skills, lack of social networks and conflicts in coping with work-family responsibilities. It is argued that these disadvantages limit the ability of single mothers to compete for employment opportunities or to be successful in their entrepreneurship activities. As such, it is not surprising that the issue of poverty among single mothers has received considerable attention in different women empowerment programs in our country, Uganda One way of how single mothers overcome their economic vulnerabilities and support the well-being of their families is through the involvement in small business activities Like vegetable growing, Mushroom growing, Rabbit rearing and crafts to mention but a few.