As an example for our work in Uganda, I’d like to share the recent developments in the life of Rose and her family with you all. Rose is the daughter of my God-child Mary. During our last years’ visit of the family we talked about how to improve the life of the whole family. Personally I like the idea of Help-For-Selfhelp (the overall motto of our projects) in the support of Micro-Businesses the most. By supporting a Micro-Business, (self-)employment is created and therewith the chance for parents to support the whole family and to afford the tuition fees for their children by themselves.
Rose (she is a single mom of six children) had the idea to start a little fish business to sell Mukene, a very nutrious type of fish that many Ugandan families can afford to buy. Together with Jackson we talked about how a business like this could look like and if it could be profitable. In other words, we made a little market analysis and calculated the equity needed to buy some equipment, the first boxes of fish at the Victoria lake and to run stands at local markets in rural areas around the city of Jinja.
After a year of running the little business the life of the family has changed. Their old “house” was in a very bad state and when it rained water came in which was very problematic in the small sleeping room. This year Rose was finally able to rent a new simple house for her family. Moreover she's now able to meet the costs for school fees for some of her other children and most important to have enough food for the family. It wasn’t the case before.
We are happy that the very hard working lady has managed to move on with her small business of fish and that it enabled her to solve some of her family’s challenges. If you’re interested in helping to make more stories like this possible and to enable small steps towards a society where we provide chances and help lift back up those who fall, send us a message.