By Norah Owaraga | Project Leader and Managing Director
A couple of days ago, I received via email this inquiry:
“I came across the Monitor magazine and a farmer in Dokolo, Mrs. E, was in the post. I am in the United States and would highly appreciate if you could give me her contact information (with her permission). She and her husband touched my life over 30 years ago and I would like to give back.”
When I called Mrs. E to seek her permission to share her contact information with the inquirer, nearly 10 years later since she benefited from our work, she is still singing praises of how the knowledge in self-reliance and financial literacy that she gained from CPAR Uganda continues to positively influence her decisions and developments. And yes, she did give me permission to share her contact information.
I have since shared Mrs. E’s contact information with the inquirer. It got me thinking. An effective way to share what our CPAR Uganda intentions are with our “Uganda women’s economic empowerment loan fund” project is to share Mrs. E’s beneficiary testimony. And so here goes. Mrs. E, who benefited from our Farmers First Project, which we implemented (2009-2014) in partnership with the Canadian Physicians for Aid and Relief and with funding from the Canadian Government independently testified to a journalist as follows:
“Through CPAR Uganda, a local NGO, we were taught good farming methods. They showed us to grow in rows, with one seed per hole. With good rains, we weed after one month. Then three weeks after that. Sunflower will be ready for harvest within three months. Simsim is good too as a cash crop and for health reasons. We plant it twice in a year.
In a season, I planted 15 kilogrammes on three acres. This cost me Shs. 48,000 (about US$ 12). The last season was a successful one. I earned Shs.1.2 million (about US$ 316). The highest I have attained from simsim is Shs. 2 million (about US$ 527) in a season, which encouraged me a lot. From groundnuts I have earned Shs. 500,000 (about US$ 132). I never used to earn as much from my efforts.
I have also learnt that I should always be doing something and should not sit back. I was taught to do anything small like selling onions or plant vegetables in a small place but never sit back. Initially my husband was providing everything but now, I cannot depend entirely on him. That is how I have started thinking out of the box, to try crops I have not been growing, like matooke.
I would just advise women never to depend on men financially. If your husband can provide for you well and good, but always be innovative to help your husband so that everything you do is a concerted effort as a couple.”
A visit to Mrs. E’s home is a treat in itself and it will leave you positively changed and inspired. When I visited her, at her home in Dokolo, I was in awe of this amazing hardworking woman who has re-defined living a good life in rural Uganda. Her home is within a food forest. She grows a variety of trees for food, for firewood, for building and other uses. She grows plenty of other food crops - bananas, assorted vegetables, and even has beehives producing her own honey. She grows for the consumption of her household and surplus for sale.
She is innovative and enterprising. For example, Mrs. E learnt how to construct simple energy saving ‘cooking stoves’ that are culturally acceptable within her community. On my visit to her home I saw the one that she built herself and which she used to cook for our visiting team a sumptous meal. One of her her income-generating activities is to to construct energy saving cooking stoves she is commissioned to do by others.
Mrs. E is a model economic change agent, the kind of empowered woman more of whom CPAR Uganda is working towards turning young women into, through training and mentoring. We need your help and ask you to make a donation that will enable us equip young women in rural Uganda with access to affordable finance and life skills in financial literacy and financial management. For our donors who have already made a donation, Thank you.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
