The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Serere, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Jesca Alwalo, 47, a resident of Amoru Village in Bugondo Sub County is a single mother of six and also takes care of her mother who is living with a disability.
Alwalo’s first daughter got married at the age of 19 while the second daughter is now 22 and has completed the Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE). According to Alwalo, the second daughter nearly got married in 2020 because the family could not afford her school fees.
As a tailor, Alwalo has been earning an average of sh5,000 a day from her work. However, the money was not enough to enable her to meet all the needs of her family including feeding and educating her children. As a result, Alwalo’s family suffered food shortages nearly every year.
But in 2021, Alwalo joined the Kasilo County Tailors Association and was among the first beneficiaries of Emyooga, a presidential Initiative on Wealth and Job creation which targets to transform 68 per cent of homesteads from subsistence to market-oriented production.
Alwalo received sh1.2 million to boost her tailoring business and now manages a boutique in Toror Trading Centre, Bugondo Sub County. She has so far borrowed money thrice from her group and is now employing one of her daughters in the business where she saves a minimum of 20,000 Shillings daily.
Paul Ebwongu, another tailor in Bugondo says that after realizing some progress in his business with the Emyooga boost, he was able to put his son to a boarding school where he pays 420,000 Shillings per term from the school where he used to pay 250,000 Shillings. He says that he decided with the hope that this will help his son to excel in the ongoing Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) examinations.
Ebwongu adds that through Emyooga, he is now able to start construction of his residential house in the village, a dream not visible before he received the presidential initiative on wealth and job creation aid.
Like Alwalo and Ebwongu, several other people who joined the Emyooga program in Serere district have registered some improvement in their livelihoods.
Robert Onguriatum, the Chairperson of Kasilo County Fishermen SACCO says they now have a loan portfolio of 103.8 million Shillings with recovery levels of 85.9 per cent by September 2023. The group saved 12 million Shillings by receiving Emyooga funding of 30 million Shillings in 2021.
They now have a total savings of 48.9 million Shillings and have disbursed money to 171 out of 325 members in the SACCO. Onguriatum adds that 14 groups bought shares at 100,000 Shillings each and the SACCO members have realized positive behavioral change in households that used to register violence.
Serere Acting Commercial Officer James Ebwaku, says that the district has been able to recover at least 65 per cent of the 1.6 billion Shillings Emyooga funding. He notes that some of the projects especially on crop production were affected by drought to enable the district to register 100 percent recoveries on time.
The Minister of State for Microfinance Haruna Kasolo Kyeyune has asked the Microfinance Support Centre which manages Emyooga funds to consider adding twenty million shillings to each Emyooga SACCO in Serere after registering some progress in the management of the program.
According to Kasolo, Serere is the second-best district in Ngora in the management of both Emyooga and the Parish Development Model (PDM) programs in the Teso subregion.
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