Fieldwork Day Two: Family Saving and Kazi ni Kazi

Helping my Fellow Women

by Irene Ndusi

Irene is a mother of five, a widow since her husband died in Congo, from where she fled in 2020 The impact of Covid made survival even more difficult for her and her family, with small donations of maize, oil and beans from the World Food Programme, but it was not enough to sustain them Irene is a tailor, but with no money, how was she to buy a sewing machine to start sewing for a living She worked for a while from other people's tailoring shops, then her neighbour told her about Family Saving Group With savings she managed to buy a sewing machine and started sewing and training other women

Many women want to learn to sew, such as widows and teen mothers who had no help She also helped orphans, training them in how to sew She returned to the group and started to save more money After training from OBUL in saving and managing loans she bought another new sewing machine and continued to train people and to sew She has also bought three ducks and hens and will use the sale of chicks to pay school fees for the children. She wants to expand to open a tailoring centre as there is much demand for training.

How our Lives Moved on

by Petronia Mukamana

Petronia arrived in Nakivale in 2015 with her four children The journey was long and arduous and she arrived at the settlement with nothing to eat, hungry and sick A 'good samaritan' took her to the host communities to work for food She got too bunches of matoke but even carrying them home was hard because she was weak from hunger

She met some people who were learning how to save After working again and gaining two bunches of matoke, she sold one and ate the other, enabling her to save 1,000 UGX in the saving group She put aside the remaining 5,000 UGX to cover other items and hospital and school fees

After training in how to access and manage loans from OBUL, she secured a loan for 250,000 UGX with which she bought a plot of land and grew crops

Despite being affected by drought, she will go back to OBUL to access additional funds to invest in her business so that she can build a house She could not have done any of this without the training provided by OBUL.