Uganda, Africa

UGA07b - EM Fund Uganda

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Key Partnership Information:

• Partnership Ref.: UGA07b

• Partner: Justus Matsiko & Reuben Tumuheirwe

• Commenced: 20/10/2017

• Funding Status: Completed - Self-sustaining

• Partnership Type: Micro-enterprise / Micro-loans, Community / Agriculture Development

• Funding Size: $0 - $2,999

• Annual Budget: US$ 0

• Connected To: UGA07 , UGA07a

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Current Partnership Impact:

• 22 families are being assisted

• 22 families are accessing microloans

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Other Partnership Information:

• View partnership reports (latest shows first)

• No partnership video available yet

• No funding currently required for partnership

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Partnership Overview

BHW has been partnering with Emmanuel Mission for a number of years and various programmes have been initiated. These include a dairy farm (UGA07), the installation of a milk cooler and a maize grinding mill, the establishment of Marumba Christian School (UGA07a), and various Foundations for Farming trainings.  

In 2017 a number of new initiatives were presented to BHW for further partnership. These included boosting loan programmes, supporting the development of Foundations for Farming, and a goat programme to enable many families develop small herds of goats. Because it is part of our strategy to support our partners to be as autonomous as they can, it was decided to assist Emmanuel Mission to establish a loan fund in Uganda to develop various projects from there, rather than for each one of them to have to come back to BHW for approval and facilitation.

The loan fund is based in Rukungiri. A team oversees the lending and repayment of funds to the central loan fund. Partners operate in various other areas and also in places like Kihihi, on the Congolese border. Groups within the Emmanuel Mission network register as members of the programme. Once they are members, they apply for loans from the fund. Agreements are made around term, interest, amount etc. and each of these are tailored to the member. 

History of Partnership

Bright Hope World has been partnering with people in Rukungiri, which is in the southwest of Uganda towards the DRC/Rwanda border area, for a number of years. In 2008 we sent three of the key men from that area to GLO Zambia for training. 

From 2016 onwards we began to talk about establishing a loan fund to assist in economic investment and seed funding that would operate within Uganda and be managed by them. 

As a result of ongoing discussions, in October 2017 the EM Fund was established as a new entity operating within Emmanuel Mission.  

Beneficiaries

The beneficiaries are the members of Emmanuel Mission who organise themselves into groups for the purpose of running programmes that empower people economically and deal with poverty. Some of these people are Congolese refugees who have had to leave their homeland and relocate to Uganda. Another significant group of beneficiaries are the farmers who have been trained in Foundations for Farming. There are quite a number of people in the network who have been trained and we have been very impressed with their commitment both to Foundations for Farming and also to training other people.

What We Like About The Partnership

Local leaders are actively developing their capacity.

There are many new projects among the Emmanuel Mission people. Many of them are refugees and in the category "poorest of the poor". EM also has an outreach among the Batwa people (we would call them 'pygmies') in south-western Uganda who are a very tribal and unreached people group. 

Local projects are being developed and evaluated by local people and there is therefore less need for BHW to be involved. We like it that our partners are developing self-reliance in these areas.

There are many good people in this network who are being assisted out of poverty. 

 

Key People

Leadership Profile

Justus Matsiko
Justus is married to Grace and lives in Mbarara city. They have four children. He was orphaned at five and was then raised by his grandmother before being taken to another family.

in 2008 he was sent to GLO in Zambia by the elders of Rukungiri chapel for discipleship training which lasted for 10 months.

Justus is involved extensively with Marumba Christian School and more recently they have taken over a secondary school in Rukungiri as well. He is active in church, and is entrepreneurial, raising cows in Mbarara, running a maize grinding mill in Rukungiri and a milk cooler all of which support the schools and ministry.  

Reuben Tumuheirwe 

Reuben is Justus Matsiko’s older brother (born in 1971). When his parents died, he was unable to continue his secondary education and had to start to do manual work for survival. He has been married to Kemigisha Monica since 2000. In addition to their own children Reuben and Monica regularly have other children living in their very small house and are very generous with their time and care of others.

Reuben became a Christian in 2000 through the sharing of his other brother Johnson (who is the chair of EM Fund). Since then he has continued to grow spiritually and has been ministering with Rukungiri Bible Chapel. He travels in the local area and has planted several other local churches in Western Uganda. He is a faithful servant in his community.

Reuben continues to impress with his dedication and heart for serving those less fortunate and his commitment to the gospel.  

Other People Involved

There are other wonderful people involved in this ministry, such as Hilder Nabimaya and her husband Christopher Agaba in Kihihi who are committed to teaching Foundations for Farming to young people in their very poor area, Elias who is a wonderful farmer and who specialises in water tanks, and numbers of farmers practising and teaching farming principles.

 

Vision And Annual Strategy

Vision 

The vision is to economically empower people within the Emmanuel Mission network. 

Many very poor people who have no other access to resources and struggle to feed their families, have formed themselves into project groups but have no access to seed funding. EM Fund seeks to address this.

Mission: To provide financial support and services for Emmanuel Mission Uganda to enable local churches and associated organizations to grow and flourish.

Objectives:
1) To create awareness of resource management  issues and create management skills and abilities within Emmanuel Mission churches
2) To provide loans to Emmanuel Mission churches, groups and individuals
3) To develop income generating activities among Emmanuel Mission church members
4) To enhance self-sustainability among members in the Emmanuel Mission churches
5) To provide relief to disaster-stricken communities in Uganda This particularly applies to Congolese refugees who are often settled on flood prone land in Western Uganda.

Strategy

Bright Hope World, in conjunction with EM Fund has created a central self-sustaining fund to enable local people and organisations to establish their enterprises. The plan started with lending to four existing projects and then looked to increase the number of projects in the group as the initial funds were repaid. The funds will then be lent out again with multiplying effects.

Eventually the hope is to have numerous enterprises functioning around the country that are assisting the poor to become economically self-sustaining. The fallout from Covid-19 and the Uganda government's response has slowed, but not stopped this. It is likely to take a number of years to realise this vision.