Uganda women's economic empowerment loan fund

“Young Lady: Good morning, I need to write something and you came on my mind first. I would like to write a letter to the Speaker of Parliament.

Me: About what?

Young Lady: The key issues are:

1) I would like her to offer financial support to the women’s group I have been working with in my home district.

2) I also need some support towards my business. The business is dying and unable to meet customers’ demands.

Me: Shouldn’t you be writing to your District Woman MP?

Young Lady: Haaa. My Woman MP!”

This conversation happened via Facebook Messenger. It is important to note that I have never met face-to-face the young lady who has reached out to me seeking my help to author a letter to the Speaker of Parliament.From how the young lady markets her business on social media, it exists.There is every indication from her social media marketing that she is often unable to meet the demand of have customers, in the sense that her products are good and sell out quick. She needs financial support in form of capital for investment, in order to produce more, but without getting saddled with expensive debt that may instead collapse her business.

First, that she reached out to me pleases me, for it confirms that the impact of CPAR Uganda’s work mentoring young adults into innovators against poverty is appreciated, is recognised and is needed in the communities that we work. Second and equally important, is the learning that we can draw from this exchange. This is a young lady, a university graduate, is not formally employed as her formal education had prepared her to be, but is doing her very best to earn a living for her and her family; and while at the same time, she seeks to help other women in her community.

This young lady’s case is the norm throughout Uganda. This I have realised from my fieldwork travels countrywide, since 1992 when I joined the civil society development arena. The majority of disadvantaged women, and they are many, are doing their best to make a living under very tough situations. Often the help that they need the most is financial support and financial literacy skills.

Majority of Ugandan women are hardworking and work hard at producing multiple things for sale so that they are able to make money to meet the needs of their households. At anyone time, you will find the same woman is engaged in more than one income generating activity – farming crops for sale, rearing animals for sale, weaving baskets for sale, frying pancakes for sale, and many others, including labouring on other people’s farms for meagre wages – doing weeding, harvesting and post harvesting handling, for example.

Enabling Ugandan women easy access to non-expensive finance is the right thing to do. It facilitates them to engage in their own self-reliant participatory development; an empowering process that ensures that they retain and enhance their dignity. There are many ways in which to access finance to Ugandan women. There are three which I use and which I recommend:

Buy women's products. Whenever I can and have the opportunity to, I buy women’s products and services. Currently, in my neighbourhood, for example, I have five female suppliers of fresh food items. We have a rapport and an enjoyable relationship which has guaranteed I get excellent service and products each time from each ot them. And yes, for each one of them the answer is the same to the question: if someone was to help you, how would you want them to help your business. The answer is inexpensive finance. One of them, my supplier for sweet bananas, explained that if she was able to get a grant and or an interest free loan of one million shillings (US$ 275), payable in one year, she would be able to grow her business to the point of self-sustaining take-off. According to her, on a weekly basis, should be able to buy larger bulk quantities at a lower item unit cost. Meaning that she would be able to make more profit than she makes now, without necessarily increasing the current unit sales price. With more profit, she would be able to comfortably re-invest in the business and have more disposable income to use to meet the needs of her household.

Give women interest free gap-filling loans for income generation. Realistically, this is not sustainable, and the best solution would be a community loan fund from which women can borrow at low interest and strictly only for income generation. The low interest would grow the fund and also cover the cost of administrating the fund.

Advocate for others to access to women finance - as is the intention of this report. Indeed, thank you to all who have already made a donation in support of CPAR Uganda’s initiative to access finance to women of disadvantaged traditionally fishing communities who are no longer able to earn a living from fishing because of fishing restrictions on Lake Kyoga and Lake Victoria. Your donation is already enabling them to transition on to alternative livelihoods.

These disadvantaged women continue to need your help and we ask you please to make a donation. We welcome all donations, every little bit counts. Thank you!

“Sometimes, when I look back, I can only see thousands of tears which I poured during my struggle to get myself where I am today. It only takes determination, sacrifice and real, real commitment for someone to breakout from the silence of a village like Ocelakur.

One thing I have discovered is that, life is just like a menu from a hotel, where there is varieties of options and it's only you to make a choice of what you want. Each option has got a cost attached to it. For someone to keep on enjoying the best option, the person will have to do what it takes to get there.

Poverty is just like a chronic disease in most of our households and most youth are vulnerable to inherit it from their parents and ancestors before them. It's now upon us the youth to be innovative enough to break this linage of poverty. not only by looking at employment opportunities, but to use creativity and innovation as a firearm and munition to fight poverty. Yes, you can!”

Oluka, indeed, is among those extraordinary young people from humble backgrounds who have persevered through tough times in the city, sometimes not knowing where his next meal will come, but he did not give up. To make ends meet in the city, he was a student by day and a security guard by night – sleeping outside to guard the rich and their properties. Through it all he preserved until he got his degree from a prestigious Ugandan university.

When after graduation he did not get a white collar job, he innovated and set up a retail shop selling motorcycle spare parts. And when Covid-19 induced lockdowns made it impossible for him to continue on with his shop, he took his savings and returned back to his village in Ocelakur. With the little that he had he intervened and helped active poor women with lower interest rate loans that enabled them to do farming for income generation and to do market vending.

It is such educated young adults as Oluka whose affinity and propensity is high to work to better the lot of disadvantaged communities that we, at CPAR Uganda, aspire to mentor into innovators against poverty in their communities. We have every confidence that Oluka is an excellent agent through whom economic empowerment of poor active women in a remote rural setting may be realised.

In January 2023, he was involved in a motorcycle accident, which mercifully he survived with broken bones that could heal. Though he has not fully healed, he is well enough and is actively back to serving his community.

The coordinator has been moving within the village and talking about the support loans they offer to women since women have more problems in the community than men. That there is a loan we offer with little interest and affordable, he said. The coordinator’s name is called Okene, who encouraged us to get loans for personal use and also create groups. This made me have interest to get a loan and it helped me a lot. From this village it is very hard to get money and the only way to get money is farming of which some seasons are not good. Sometimes we get good output and sometimes bad. Like last year there was a lot of sunshine but we persevered since it’s the only way to get money. the money I got has helped me a lot.

My name is Adera from Agule village, Ochalakur Sub-County, Kalaki District. The money I borrowed has been helping me in many ways.

• The first borrowing was for treatment and I got 150,000 shillings. It really changed my life. I was sick and there was no way to get treatment. The money I got helped me to get well and healthy, because I used it to pay for treatment.
• The second time I got 130,000 shillings for buying murram for building and I plan to start construction of a permanent house. I have faith that I will build even if I still don’t have all the money needed.
• The third time I borrowed 130,000 shillings for planting millet. The millet that I harvested, I sold one sack and got 200,000 shillings and that money helped her so much. I also used other money to prepare the land and I plan to plant soya in this first season. I also planted cassava and I sold and added to the money I attained from selling millet and bought two sheep.

I thank the coordinator for supporting me and may they continue to help other people also.  I plan to come gain to borrow more money for development. Thanks.

This tesimony shared by a beneficiary of our Robert's money lending business exemplifies the importance of grassroots loan schemes that target women, such us our project has the intention to benefit. The primary objective of our project is to increase the loan fund from which more women can have access to loans that address their immediate needs, such as Adera has benefitted. Thank you to all that have made a donation. We are hopeful that with your continue support we will meet our target. 

"My name is Margie, from Kacilo Village, Sangai Parish, Ochelakur Sub-County. I tried to borrow from many people from whom I hoped to get money from but I failed. I also had a group where we save some little monies, but it was like every member from the group needed money, so the group committee decided to put me on a waiting list that would make me receive that money after two weeks.

When I went to Robert, I was told that they will lend me money without disturbing me. That saved me a lot. The interest rate was fair compared to that of the group, since in the group we are charged 20 percent and Robert gave me at 15 percent. It relieved me a lot. I first borrowed UShs.10,000 (US$ 2.60) to top up on my business of tomatoes selling. I paid it back at the end of the month and I kept on borrowing and paying back just like that.

I am happy that my business can make me buy food for the family. At the end of the day, I buy sugar and salt and I am no longer like other women here in the village. I started with only tomatoes and now I grind and sell groundnut paste, mukene (dried silver fish), avocado, which I buy from Kalaki and then sell. I hope to progress with this business because it is helping me and my family a lot. Our men from this side are lazy at working, so they wait for food on the table. I think of borrowing more money to increase on the level of my business and also see myself develop even more."

I feel blessed that in a humble way I am contributing to helping very enterprising and hardworking women, such as Margie, in my home village. This is something that I would never have thought about before I benefited from the CPAR Uganda Mentoring Young Adults in Uganda into Innovators Against Poverty Project. I am grateful that as I contiune my mentoring journey with CPAR Uganda, I am learning and being motivated to raise funds to be able to benefit more disadvantaged women and also to be able to give bigger loans to them. 

Thank you to all who have already made a donation in support of accessing finance to the women of Ochelakur. Every little bit counts for it will surely generate huge impact in the quality of life of the benefiting households. Margie's high self-esteem and pride as a self-reliant business woman is pulpable. And so, I make a plea, please make a donation to our project and help us to extend the much need helping hand to women of a traditionally fishing community, but who now have to diversify away from fishing, since their livelihoods from fishing on Lake Kyoga are no longer tenable.

Links:

• Blog - reasons why to eat silver. Example why to support vendors