EU ALLEVIATING POVERTY THROUGH SKILLING

Laurence Kayeswa has turned his life around from a common thief to a productive member of his society.

“When I used to grab people’s phones, I was always under tension. I was truly living by God’s grace,” Kayeswa, a resident of Bwaise, a Kampala suburb said recently. Income was unsteady, life was cheap -- it was not unusual for thieves to be killed by angry mobs for stealing less than a phone and understandably he had a phobia of the police.

“Because of my trade I could not face the police because you never knew whether they were coming for you or not.”

Thanks to an EU funded project run by Action for Fundamental Change and Development (AFFCAD) Kayeswa has been able to turn his life around. AFFCAD is a youth focused nonprofit organization seeking to transform the living conditions in Kampala’s poorest slum by empowering the youth and women using education, health and economic programs.

In search of a more sustainable livelihood Kayeswa enrolled with AFFCAD for a six-month course in tailoring. On completion he bought himself a sewing machine to which AFFCAD added another.

Kayeswa now runs a small team that sews everything from clothes to bags and his work has found a market.

“People are shocked that I can make these things and are eager to buy them. I now not only support myself and my family I now no longer get scared when I see a policeman coming down the road.”

AFFCAD has linked up with the government’s directorate of industrial training and these courses are now certified.

“As it is about 65 percent of graduates start small businesses and become more useful members of their societies,” said co-founder and social enterprise director Jaffar Tarzan Nyombi.

While charity is welcome in marginalized communities for it to have maximum impact it has to be targeted properly.

“Our experience is that it is essential to leverage private sector investment, in that way create more jobs and more growth,” said Caroline Adriaensen, head of the cooperation of Eu delegation in Uganda.

Such progams are part of the 11^th European Development Fund (EDF) to Uganda that run from 2014 to 2021. The fund which saw €578m (sh2.2trillion) disbursed during the period has supported 120 projects around Uganda in the areas of transport, governance, food security and agriculture.

Interventions like the above where people are taught how to fish rather than giving them the fish, have enduring transformations not only on the individuals but on whole communities.

Sometimes lifting people out of poverty is more an issue of showing them improved ways of doing what they already do than introducing them to a new income.

Through the Market Access Upgrade Program (MARKUP) EU support has been instrumental in helping small holder farmers around the country improve their production methods, access markets and improve their incomes in the process.

Julius Mkaboona inherited his cocoa farm from his father. The Bundibugyo area, bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), has been known for producing cocoa but farmers stopped seeing the benefit of the crop leaving their fields to the elements or cutting down the trees altogether.

“But thanks to the training of MARKUP we have improved our production methods, our post-harvest handling, improving the quality of our produce and as a result get better prices for our produce,” said Mkaboona, standing in his lush green garden outside Bundibugyo town.

Across the country in eastern Uganda on the slopes of Mount Elgon MARKUP has helped farmers there increase production, improve the quality of their crop, do some value addition and brand their output.

‘We have moved from simply producing coffee to value addition and producing a high-quality coffee that some are shocked can come from Uganda,” said Noah Welihe, operation manager at Mt Elgon Coffee & Honey Cooperative.

The cooperative has a membership of 700 small holder farmers that not only produce the aromatic Arabica coffee but also honey for export.

These are but a few stories of the EU’s interventions around Uganda in helping families raise incomes and improve their livelihoods.

The formula of going to these communities and assessing what the best interventions are possible using the existing infrastructure is a winning one whose benefits are sustainable and replicable anywhere in the country.