This familial connection can be viewed on a daily basis in the smallest of gestures. It’s the way staff greet every single person in the room before starting their days’ work. The shared celebrations that exist around births, marriages, and work successes. The unbounding support that exists during hard times. The never-ending laughter and dancing. The way our Ugandan Team shows appreciation by performing a unified, distinct clapping pattern that fills the room with positive energy.

Perhaps this culture persists because we are all connected by a larger intrinsic drive to positively contribute to our world. During a self-reflection activity at our recent Innovation Summit, each person took the time to reflect on their North Star, or the guiding principles that keep them centered in life. As we shared our thoughts, many discovered just how deep our shared values run. Love for our families, friends, and communities. A hunger for learning. An appreciation for humanity and our earth. A desire to create a better tomorrow.

What’s truly amazing is how effortlessly this culture transpires. How it withstands time. And how when staff leave, they can’t seem to stay away. Finance and Administration Associate Dennis Kwaligira accurately portrayed the depth of the Village Enterprise staff’s connection with his words, “people come and go from the Village Enterprise family physically, but spiritually we are together, forever.”

Village Enterprise teammates, Donah Chilo and Peter Dema

Twinsies! Heidi Graves and Cissy Nakayimba share a laugh in Kitale, Kenya

Staff Holiday Party in Uganda

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Village Enterprise teamed up with Marie Stopes to institute a Long Term Family Planning project, under the funding of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Since our business owners struggle to access adequate health facilities, our Uganda Country Director, Winnie Auma, felt that a partnership with Marie Stopes was a great opportunity to help our clients get the health services they need without draining their bank accounts.

The goal of this partnership is to achieve measurable improvements in access to family planning at health facilities and community levels.

The project targets women and men of reproductive age as well as community leaders to champion advocacy.

For one week, Marie Stopes International Uganda traveled long distances on dusty, pot-hole ridden roads to reach the rural villages in which we operate, such as Oringoi, Uganda. While Village Enterprise Business Mentors mobilized the community, Marie Stopes service providers set up a mobile health unit, complete with two sanitized private patient rooms. Over the course of the day, attendees received group training on family planning and contraception methods as well as individual consultations tailored to personal health needs. In addition, participants could opt to receive integrated medical services such as the insertion of an intra-uterine device (IUD) or contraceptive arm implants, as well as cervical cancer screenings.

But why did Village Enterprise opt to partner with Marie Stopes in the first place? Marie Stopes Interpersonal Communications Coordinator, Ronnie Aisu, explains, “partnering with Village Enterprise is important because it demonstrates the linkages between savings and health. Family planning enables women to be healthier and to have more equal opportunities to pursue an education, a career, and financial security. With fewer children to support, families can accumulate greater assets and invest more in their children’s health and well-being. The relationship between smaller families and greater wealth highlights the benefits of sustained investments in family planning and maternal and child health programs as an important poverty reduction strategy.” While Village Enterprise does not itself offer health services, we recognize that physical and financial health are intertwined and that this partnership will not only improve the well-being of our individual business owners, but of their entire communities.

Village Enterprise business owner Grace Akello testified to the importance of this project. Grace, a mother of seven, previously had negative feelings about family spacing. Despite her doubts, she attended the family planning day in her village because she explained, “I already have so many children and taking care of them is difficult.” After participating in the family planning training and receiving individual consultation, Grace began to see the advantages to family planning. She said, “Now that I have joined family planning, I will have more time to care for the children I already have and to plan for my business activities.”

 Grace Akello, mother of seven and attendee

Marie Stopes service providers explain the importance of family planning and contraception

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Hoima is at the heart of the Kingdom of Bunyoro-Kitara, one of the most powerful kingdoms in Central and East Africa from the 13th to the 19th century. To this day, the palace of the Omukama (King) exists right outside of town and is a marker of unity for the over 92 clans that compose the Banyoro. Originally, Hoima emerged as a trading center by the name of Kahoora. Locals cleaned their crops in a nearby river in a process called “Hoimora.” When British colonialists deemed the center as an administrative town, their mispronunciation of “Hoimora” as “Hoima” became common place and was accepted as a district name.

From 2000 to 2009, oil deposits were discovered in Lake Albert which has spurred investment in infrastructure projects in the region. Hoima has been named as one of the towns for the development of the Uganda-Kenya crude oil pipeline which will pass Uganda oil to the Kenyan Indian Ocean port of Lamu. Currently, Hoima is experiencing both a population influx, as Ugandans travel to the region for employment, as well as the construction of large infrastructure projects – new roads, hotels, and stores to meet the population and export demands.

Hoima is experiencing rapid infrastructure development, such as the construction of roads.

Despite the projected development, Hoima continues to struggle with high poverty rates within the district boundaries. Hoima is a safe haven for a high number of refugees whom are predominantly from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan. Kyangwali Refugee Settlement houses around 25,000 refugees whom lack food, clean water, medical care, education, and housing.

Village Enterprise established our operations in Hoima in 2012 to help address and provide opportunities for the people living in rural extreme poverty in this region. Our office is located on the fringes of Hoima Town, in a neighborhood that houses both existing popular hotels as well as the foundations of future luxury accommodation. Our team has grown to consist of 6 office staff, 3 Field Coordinators, 5 Enumerators, and 15 Business Mentors as well as our beloved office dog and donkey, Alfonso and Nicholas.

As Hoima continues to grow and write a new chapter in its history, our team is dedicated to empowering our business owners and providing them with the training and start-up capital to create opportunities for themselves, their families, and their communities.

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26.15% of Village Enterprise business owners are engaged in crop-based businesses. In the rural villages where our business owners live, the nearest water access point can be several kilometers away. This requires that our business owners innovate to supply the water needed to keep their produce healthy.

Like Annette, Irene, and Metrine, many of our business owners walk on foot to fetch water for their crops. Others have invested in building drip irrigation systems in which a small plastic bottle is filled with water that slowly seeps out to water the crops through tiny holes that have been punched into the cap and sides. “The agricultural sector is already the largest user of water resources, accounting for roughly 70% of all freshwater withdrawals globally, and over 90% in most of the world’s least-developed countries (WWAP, 2014). Practices like efficient irrigation techniques can have a dramatic impact on reducing water demand, especially in rural areas.”

Clean water is also vital to the health of our business owners and their communities. Around the world, 748 million people lack access to clean drinking water. The sheer distance or the complete inexistence of clean drinking water makes it difficult for business owners to maintain proper sanitation and to prevent the spread of disease.

On World Water Day 2016, we want to not only recognize the challenges our business owners’ face on a daily basis but also reassert our support for the Sustainable Development Goals – water is essential for good health and well-being, ending hunger, and eradicating poverty. Join us in observing World Water Day 2016, because at the end of the day, water is essential to life.

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During the pilot phase of the Business Decisions Study, Village Enterprise business owners participated in a series of coin flipping exercises to measure their perception of risk. During data collection led in Bondeni, Kenya, Enumerator Patrick Mukanzi presented business owners with the following two hypothetical options. Option A—Village Enterprise gives you 300 shillings ($3.00 US) upfront. Option B—you flip a coin; if it lands on heads, you receive 600 shillings ($6.00 US) but if it lands on tails, you receive nothing. Business owners were then asked to select one of the options.

Coin flipping is just one of the exercises business owners participated in as a part of the Business Decisions Study, a multi-year study that is designed to help our team better understand how our business owners make decisions. Business owners also participated in individual interviews and participatory ranking exercises which aimed to provide our team with insight on such topics as personal motivation, business selection, financial priorities, conservation, business practices, and risk assessment.

But why do we care about how our business owners make decisions in the first place? It is the job of our Business Mentors to train and advise our business owners on common business questions: What business should I select? What business will be the most profitable? Which business is the least risky? By understanding how our business owners make decisions on a daily basis, our Business Mentors can tailor their trainings to maximize the benefits for our business owners. Results from the study will also allow our team to develop more tools that provide our business owners with useful business selection information that will help them make more informed business choices.

As Program Manager Kate Reott shared, “With information from this study we can improve the way we train and advise our business owners on elements of business decision making and business management, but also contribute to ongoing conversations about how to serve this demographic within the development sector at large. Village Enterprise is an industry leader in targeting the ultra-poor for our graduation program, so we are in a unique position to innovatively change the way our sector serves the very bottom of the pyramid.”

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A group of Community Based Forest Monitors huddle over a large sheet of white paper, discussing and debating essential elements to include in a Business Savings Group constitution. The conversation picks up momentum as the participants heatedly discuss which environmental clauses to include in their constitution. This activity was part of Village Enterprise’s five-day business and savings training for 30 Community Based Forest Monitors from the Northern Albertine Rift Conservation Group (NARCG), a consortium of Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Chimpanzee Trust, Jane Goodall Institute and Flora and Fauna International held in Hoima, Uganda.

With a long history in alternative livelihood development in forested areas, Village Enterprise recently expanded its work through a partnership with WCS as part of the Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) program in western Uganda. WCS is one of the oldest and most respected international conservation organizations in the world and works to conserve more than two million square miles of wild places across the globe. In this case WCS and partners are working with private forest owners (PFO) in the Murchison–Semliki landscape to manage and conserve their native forests by providing a package of incentives, including rural financial services. This work builds off previous WCS-Village Enterprise collaboration: last year Village Enterprise set up six Business Saving Groups in two Private Forest Owners Associations in the district of Hoima. In just two months, some of these groups saved more than a million Ugandan shillings ($290 USD)!

In January 2016, Village Enterprise led a Training of Trainers (ToT) program for Forest Monitors. Forest Monitors, whose community peers identified them to implement conservation practices, play an integral role in carrying out REDD+ activities. At the completion of the January training, the Forest Monitors will, in turn, reach out to other Private Forest Owner Associations, set up Business Saving Groups, and stress the importance of savings and its ability to strengthen the conservation work of the Associations.

The Village Enterprise ToT program focused on adult education, basic savings, record keeping, business savings group formation, and business savings group loaning and lending. Before the ToT, WCS identified private-sector partnerships with four environmentally friendly businesses: maize production, briquette making (a sustainable alternative to charcoal), bee-keeping, and tree and bamboo planting, and Village Enterprise tailored it’s training to these business types.

Village Enterprise trainings for Forest Monitors were interactive and hands-on. Forest Monitors designed their own savings plans and constitutions, and identified which times of the year are most difficult to save in rural areas—vital to preparing annual savings. They also traveled to Village Enterprise villages to witness business training sessions, as well as Business Savings Group meetings. After the classroom training, Village Enterprise will mentor Forest Monitors to provide follow-up, on-the-ground training support. We’re happy to report that the Community Based Forest Monitors now have the skills to conduct these trainings and mentor Private Forest Owners in saving in their own communities.

Dr. Miguel E. Leal, Albertine Rift REDD+ Program Manager, the WCS lead for this partnership affirmed, “Working with Village Enterprise has been great and we are looking forward to expanding our collaboration across the Albertine Rift.”

For Ellen Metzger, Village Enterprise’s Director of Strategic Partnerships and Innovation, “micro-enterprise development is an excellent way to demonstrate to people living below the poverty line that environmental programming in their communities works in tandem with their interests. We’re promoting the message that in order to meet conservation goals, we also need to help families improve their standard of living so that they can invest in their children’s education and future. When those two interests intersect, it creates strong community support for conservation programs.”

Village Enterprise is excited about the opportunity to expand their work in the areas of alternative livelihoods through partnership with conservation programs and groups like Poverty Conservation Learning Group (PCLG) and NARCG.
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For more information about Village Enterprise’s alternative livelihood work, please visit our website: www.villageenterprise.org. And if you’re interested in partnering with us in our effort to expand our alternative livelihoods approach, please contact Ellen Metzger at ellenm@villageenterprise.org.

For more information about WCS’s work with REDD+ in Uganda visit: www.wcsuganda.org

This work was funded by Wildlife Conservation Society with grants from Tullow Oil Uganda, the Darwin Initiative and the Waterloo Foundation.

Business Mentor Evelyne Kusiima poses a savings related question to Forest Monitors.
Forest Monitors engage in an interactive activity charting income fluctuations by season.
Village Enterprise Business Mentor Evelyne Kusiima leads a business savings group training for Community Based Forest Monitors in Bulimya Village, Uganda.

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Starting in 2003, the lives of people living in Adekwok, Uganda, were violently disrupted by the penetration of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group that was led by Joseph Kony and has been accused of widespread human rights violations. “Many people in our village were robbed, displaced, or killed,” said Joel Angoda, a member of the Obanga Enteko Business Savings Group.

Forced to flee their homes, many members of this community moved to internally displaced persons (IDP) camps. Yet, these camps hardly provided the safety sought by these families. In fact, IDP camps are widely cited as having some of the highest mortality rates in the world due to the congested population and harsh conditions. “Disease outbreaks, death, lack of clean water, no electricity. No one was paying attention to us. We were the voiceless,” said Ayok.

After a peace agreement was signed in 2008, it took another three years before the people of Adekwok could return to their village. And even after arriving home, the insecurity continued. This time, tensions revolved around inter-clan rivalries that were exacerbated by the LRA activities. Land disputes and competition over resources turned neighbors against one another. Cattle raids conducted by the Karamojong, a neighboring group, added to the instability of the region.
Faced with limited options to generate income, northern Uganda’s population suffered from staggering poverty rates. In 2013, Village Enterprise initiated the “Overcoming Poverty and Violence Through Micro-Entrepreneurship” project to address these challenges. The project has grown from helping 240 business owners launch businesses in 2013 to 480 in 2015, and has delivered financial literacy training and organized a total of 38 business savings groups.

It is this same program that was introduced in Adekwok by Village Enterprise in 2015, but with an additional element of training: peace and business. During this session, business owners share past experiences of violence, resettlement, and hardship with their business savings group. The goal of the session is to have stakeholders relate, forgive, reconcile, and ultimately unite to work together as a team.

Field Coordinator Gerald Kyalisiima oversees the implementation of the Village Enterprise program in these areas and has witnessed some of the unique challenges firsthand. During the targeting process, “some women were forbidden from participating in the program by their husbands,” Kyalisiima shared. He explained that even when women are allowed to participate in the program, they are expected to adhere to their traditional gender roles of caring for children, cooking, and cleaning the compound with minimal support from their husbands. The changing weather patterns have also posed issues for agriculture businesses. As Kyalisiima explains, “Severe droughts destroyed the few crop businesses that were started in the third cycle of our program in 2015.”

In order to address these setbacks, Village Enterprise staff has experimented with a number of tactics. Business Mentor Anthony Enabu individually met with the husbands of female participants, sharing how their wives’ participation will benefit their households. Village Enterprise staff has also adopted gender dialogues used in the USAID-funded Community Connector project to create open discussions about gender roles and how spouses can support one another. Finally, Enabu invited entire families to participate in the recently launched Family Support Module to learn more about the Village Enterprise program and to answer any lingering questions. All of these tactics have been largely successful and today, 434 of the business owners (out of 480) are women — meaning that 110 of the businesses started this year are solely led by women.

The transformation is evident in the words of our business owners. “The peace and business training created reconciliation among the community members. It has harmonized and ended inter-clan rivalries because all are united together and share the same goal,” said Betty Olum. Mary Akello contributed, “We now have respect for one another and all have one pot that we can contribute to, and that is the savings.”

Joel Angoda and his two business partners, Lydia Opio and Judith Atwoma, used the first portion of their Village Enterprise grant to plant onions and soy beans. After only one season, they saved 400,000 shillings ($115 U.S. dollars). They now have their eyes set on opening a piggery. Anthony Enabu, the Business Mentor in Adekwok, shared about Angoda, “He is not someone you have to push to listen. I believe in him and know his business will be successful.”

Village Enterprise is now gearing up to expand our program to Gulu, launching between 240 to 320 businesses in the first year pilot, as part of a partnership with Geneva Global’s Education Program. Gulu, a city in northern Uganda, is one of the areas hit hardest by the LRA violence, resulting in mass relocations to IDP camps. As a result, Peace and Reconciliation is a key component that will be incorporated into the training program prior to the launch of these businesses in the coming months.

The Obanga Enteko Business Savings Group huddles around the blue safety box which holds the savings contributed by each member. Business owner Gorety Elum leans over to me and says, “If there was no peace, there would be no savings. We have definitely saved so that shows we have found peace.”

Bosco Olik and Tom Tuli overcame their past differences and have become close friends.

The Obanga Enteko (God is Great) Business Savings Group in Adekwok, Uganda.

Joel Angoda (center) with his business partners, Lydia Opio and Judith Atwoma.

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Hanging from a thin metal wire from the ceiling of Truffosa Kivaya’s red clay compound is a small light bulb. She points to the bulb and proudly shares, “I bought this solar light with my savings.”

Truffosa’s hands are folded gracefully in her lap as her husband, Samuel Andande, peaks his head around the corner and gives a friendly wave.

She looks down at her hands and says, “I had no access to money and no skills to help me get an income.” As a mother of six children, Truffosa did everything in her power to pay the fees to keep her children in school. But sometimes it wasn’t enough. “They did go to school at times but they also had to return home weeks at a time when money was short.”

Business Mentor Felix Tiony identified Truffosa, along with 30 other individuals in Chukura, Kenya, to participate in the Village Enterprise program. She used the knowledge she acquired through the 3 month training program and the funds from the start-up grant to launch a sheep rearing and tomato selling business with her two business partners.

Truffosa quickly identified additional opportunities to expand her own individual business. She used the profits from her first venture to purchase both chickens and clothes to sell at the local market.

Her hard work and entrepreneurial spirit has certainly paid off. Today, not only can she purchase school supplies and uniforms for her children, but she is also able to afford the tuition for her daughter to attend training college to become a tailor. Truffosa explained how she has also been able to purchase better quality clothing for her retail business, which she can sell at a higher price.

Her husband, Samuel, is also quick to sing her praises. “We can now support each other better. She is the biggest contributor to the household day to day,” Samuel said.

Truffosa exits the sitting room, returning seconds later with a crisp box that previously held the solar light dangling above our heads. From her testimony, it is clear that this light has profoundly altered her daily life. “We have never had electricity. Through Village Enterprise I learned how to save and could buy this light. The light gives me more hours to work and to spend with my family,” she said.

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Beatrice Nabwera and Halima Wanyonyi sit on a small grey tarp, picking the individual kernels off of a large pile of maize. They hardly seem to notice my approach, so focused on the task at hand, but when their eyes finally look up, Beatrice lets out a surprised “mzungu” and leaps off the ground to enthusiastically shake my hand.

In November of 2014, Business Mentor Rasheed Wanjala identified Beatrice and Halima as individuals whom qualify to participate in the Village Enterprise program. It has been 11 months since the two business partners started the training program, and the growth of their business has been remarkable.

Ripe, green capsicum (green peppers) hang from the vine. While the duo has primarily used the funds from the Village Enterprise start-up grant towards the growth of capsicum, they have also strategically used the profits from their business to begin planting other vegetables. As Rasheed pointed out, “This is a business that is profitable and sustainable. When the capsicum is already growing, they begin planting tomato and kale on the side.”

Rows of tree seedlings at different stages of growth emerge from black plastic bags. Beatrice and Halima are also the owners of a successful tree nursery. The women purchase seeds at the local market and raise the tree seedlings until they are healthy enough to be sold and planted elsewhere. These indigenous trees are not only helpful to provide refuge from the bright sun, but also to soak up excess water in the soil of swampy areas.

Beatrice and Halima both spoke of the changes that their households have witnessed since launching their business. Prior to participating in Village Enterprise, both women struggled to provide basic needs for their families. Halima shared “Today, we can purchase sugar and clothing for our families. This is very, very good.”

But for Beatrice, the most significant change differs. She proudly shared “my son is in University studying Business and Commerce.” She continued, “When I see profits from our business, I can now help pay for his school fees and accommodation.” Her hope is to continue expanding the business so she can support the educational aspirations of her other children as well.

Beatrice and Halima both give me warm hugs. As I stroll back to the main road, Beatrice taps on my shoulder from behind and hands me a large bag full of ripe capsicum and says “Karibu tena” (You are welcome, again).

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Soroti is the main commercial and administrative center of Soroti District in the Eastern Region of Uganda. The actual town is relatively small compared to my previous stay in Kitale, Kenya. Many of the buildings only reach as high as two stories and there are no major supermarkets. Yet, what Soroti lacks in size, it makes up for in history.

The aging buildings around town give a glimpse into Soroti’s rich historical past. Soroti previously had a large Indian population, which was dispelled from Uganda during the dictatorship of Idi Amin in the 1970s, and whose presence is reflected in the surrounding architecture. In addition, Soroti is known for the picturesque Hindu temples, Muslim mosques, and Sikh gurdwaras that are built beside local butcheries, clothing shops, and restaurants.

It’s hard to get lost in Soroti. No matter where you stand in town, a large rock formation known as Soroti Rock stretches into the sky, making it a handy navigation tool. I recently learned that this rock is a volcanic plug, formed when magma hardens within a vent on an active volcano. It is technically illegal to climb Soroti Rock both because of its clear view of a military training facility and because it houses water tanks that supply the entire district. But a fun fact: there is a welcoming security official that lives on the top who you can bribe with 10,000 shillings ($3.00) to experience the spectacular view.

Despite its small size, Soroti is bustling during the day. Lines of bikes and motorcycles speed through town, making it difficult to cross at intersections. Stalls line the streets selling sizzling machomo (roasted meat), mouth-watering rolex (fried eggs rolled in chapati), and scratchable phone credit cards. When walking down the main street, it is hard to miss the rows of tailors and seamstresses stepping on foot petals, sewing school uniforms or creating a new dress out of boldly patterned cloth.

Our office is located right outside of town, a short 15-minute walk that sometimes can feel like eternity, thanks to the searing Soroti sun. While Soroti is much warmer and drier than our office in Kenya, the El Niño rains have left the roads thick with mud and have kept the grasses surrounding our office green. I have joked with coworkers that we should start a farm because our office backyard is home to jackfruit, orange, mango, avocado, and apple trees.

The villages we operate in are a significant distance from our office. For example, Field Coordinator Gerald Kyalisiima works with business owners around the city of Lira. It takes over two hours on matatus (public buses) to reach the city of Lira. The journey doesn’t stop there. In order to reach the rural villages we work in, Gerald must take a boda-boda (motorcycle) that takes at least another hour on bumpy dirt roads. These areas are also prone to severe storms and major flooding, meaning that at times the roads leading to these villages are impassable.

There is a reason that we work in the rural areas surrounding Soroti. This part of Uganda was significantly affected by The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), a violent rebel group that was led by Joseph Kony and has been accused of widespread human rights violations. Many of the people in these villages lived in daily fear and were forced to flee to internally displaced camps. In fact the UN’s refugee agency, the UNHCR, claims that more than 1.8 million internally displaced people were moved into 251 camps. Following the peace agreements in 2007, many of these people moved back home or resettled in new areas. Despite the end of the violence, extreme poverty remained prevalent. It is the goal of Village Enterprise to provide our business owners in these regions with the training and start-up capital to create sustainable business, to empower them to create a better life for themselves and their families, and to help restore peace and stability to these communities.

During disbursements in Oseera, one of our business owners performed a moving skit: “My name is Poverty. I do not move alone. I move with my brother, Famine. Where you find one, you will find the other. We can be eliminated in the society. Which society? The society which is ready to change like the society of Oseera which has joined with Village Enterprise. I, Poverty, and my brother, Famine, we are ready to change because the society of Oseera has acquired knowledge from Village Enterprise.” There are no words to describe the power of resilience witnessed in these villages and our business owners’ eagerness to create change within their communities.

A view of Soroti Rock from a main street in town.

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