Good Bye Slums. Help 40 Uganda Women Build Homes.

We visited with the Jinja women's group in August 2022 and will be visiting them soon in 2023!  Like this photo from our August 2022 trip, it gives us valuable time to talk directly with the women and find out issues they are facing with their businesses. 

During our time together in August, the women shared how their businesses are doing, and the issues they faced during the prior two years during the pandemic. They told about how their businesses were affected by the lockdowns and business curtailments in Uganda.  We learned that many women had to pivot to other sorts of businesses during the panedemic because their original business became too difficult. We learned that a lot of their customers had to buy less from them or not at all because they had no money.

2022 was a recovery year for many of their businesses and that recovery continues today.  We want the women's businesses to be strong so that ithe business can provide some cash flow that the women can apply this towards being able to afford a better home as part of our home building program.

So in 2023, we continue to help the women strategize how to strengthen their businesses and/or switch to new businesses which will be more profitable. There is still much work to be done in this area! We look forward to being in Uganda again in 2023 and continuing this process.

We remain optimistic that home building can begin later this year. In the meantime, we will continue to use some of the funding from this project in ways that will help the women strengthen their businesses.

Links:

• See our work in photos
• Learn more--visit our web site

In August and September, Carol Davis and one teacher volunteer spent six weeks in Uganda. Part of this time was spent with the women in Jinja where the home building project is located.  The Jinja women were very excited to have Trisha, the teacher volunteer, hold daily classes to help them with their English speaking skills as well as work on important math skills such as counting and adding.

The women who were interested in improving their English were divided into 3 groups of beginning, intermediate and advanced depending on their skill level.  Learning English is very important to help the women be successful in their small busineses. This is because they live in Jinja where very few people speak their native language from northern Uganda. 

So improving their English skills will help them improve their ability to talk to their customers as well as help make sure their suppliers do not cheat them when they make purchases.  The women know that they need to have successful businesses to help them be able to save money for their future homes and to afford the other costs associated with having a home. 

Currently, some of the funding for this project is being used to help provide help to some of the poorer women with health issues so they can stabilize their businesses and help recover from the difficulties they experienced when there were lockdowns in Uganda due to the coronavirus in 2020 and 2021.

We thank you for your support in making this project possible and with helping the women improve their businesses and household cash flow.  We hope to begin home building later in 2023.

Links:

• Visit our web site
• See our work in photos