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 11th 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.
