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Key people: Anna Ocen and Sarah Muzaki
We spent two days with Anna and members of the loan programme. Before we came we had been hearing from all our partners in Uganda how dire the circumstances have been recently. There has been prolonged drought, extensive loss of crops, and extremely high inflation caused by demand for food from neighboring countries as well. It was therefore quite a surprise to visit this year and find this programme in remarkably good heart. There are a number of stories below and it was lovely to meet with so many of the beneficiaries and to see real progress. There are still challenges though as the country continues to experience rainfall shortages and high food costs.
Anna continues to do an amazing job leading these women. Sarah Muzaki, who we have previously reported on, is also proving to be a faithful woman and has recruited many other women to the programme in the area of town where she lives. Because Sarah is a relative newcomer she has not always been well received and Anna has had to visit with many of the beneficiaries at times to ensure that there is unity in the group. Sarah is however increasingly responsible for the part of the programme which operates in her village. She collects the repayments and accounts for it to Anna. 
Anna remains responsible for the main group (called the Pioneer Group). There are around 45 members with another 10 having been added in the last year. They operate in subgroups based around the market, Grace’s bakery, and in Sarah’s village.
We also discussed the bakery. It is still doing remarkably well given its relatively basic circumstances. They have expanded the range of produce to include baked bread. We discussed the large scale commercial project which has been on the books for a few years. Clearly this is not going to work and there were problems with the landowner once he understood that mzungus (white people) were involved. However, there is scope for a loan to the bakery for some quite basic equipment (bread prover, slicer and mixer). This could be part of the loan arrangement to the women who are working in the bakery. This is a group of about 6 or 7 people, and could be done at reasonable cost. They may look for a new rental property with power or a power connection would have to be made to the current site but would probably not be very costly.
Sarah is from one of the villages very near Mbale along one of the new roads. She is one of the leaders of a small group within the Mbale micro-loan programme and has several new members who have only recently taken a loan as well as some older members. Sarah collects the loan repayments and savings from each of these women and brings them to Anna. The women meet together as a small group once a week out in that village to worship together, encourage one another and to give each other advice and support. The road out to this village is very difficult at the moment with sections of it muddy and rutted.
Sarah has a number of businesses including buying second hand clothes and on selling them, and purchasing and then on selling beans to make a profit. She also grows some of her own maize and sells 
this in the community and to local schools. Despite the drought some of her crops grew although most of it died. Through selling this and her other businesses she is able to make the loan repayments within six months. Over the next year she is planning to cultivate beans. Because local chickens are not fenced and they eat the maize she has decided to grow soya beans as she thinks this will be more successful because chickens don’t eat it. She has also been making bricks and fired her own bricks as she was able to buy a small section of land from a neighbour. With the bricks she was able to pay builders to build the walls of her new home and she is planning to continue to save through her business to put iron on the roof, to build a door and to continue to progress in her life with her two young children.
We interviewed Lofisa two years ago when she was helped within the community as she had moved in as a single parent and was very unwell. She has HIV and at the time we talked with her two years ago she also had typhoid. Lofisa has two children who were also very unwell at that time. We were unable to meet with Lofisa this time as she was travelling away to get charcoal. She does, however, have a small room next to Sarah where she is able to store and sell her charcoal.
Sarah reports that Lofisa’s health has improved and the children’s health has also improved significantly. Lofisa is also now able to buy the medication that she needs and is doing better with the selling of charcoal. This business is very challenging as the government is wanting to discourage the felling of trees so Lofisa has to travel a long way on very difficult roads to buy various sizes of bags of charcoal. Some are as big as 50,000 Ugandan shillings (US$14) with smaller ones around 45,000 Ugandan shillings. She buys 25 bags and arranges to transport them back to Mbale.
Over the year Lofisa has taken four loans of 600,000 Ugandan shillings. Each time she gets a loan she has been able to repay and do a little bit of saving also. When she is away travelling to replenish her stock Sarah looks after her business.
Beatrice MugideBeatrice Mugide is new to the loan programme. She is a single mother with three young children and took her first loan a month ago of 300,000 Ugandan shillings. Beatrice came to know about the loan programme through Sarah and was able to meet with Anna, talk through her business plan, learn more about how the loan programme works and was accepted into the programme. Beatrice buys second hand clothes and travels with them to the big market to sell. She seemed pleased to be a part of the group and alongside the loan she also has the group support and the gathering together which for a single mother in this community is really helpful as sometimes they are very isolated.
When we arrived at Jen’s home she was sitting at a small foot pedal sewing machine making 
skirts to sell in the market. She also had bales of second-hand clothing in her small home that she takes to sell in the market.
Previously Jen was rearing cows however she had some problems. One became sick, one died giving birth to a calf and another was killed. She lost all of the cows she owned and was struggling to live. She heard about the loan programme and talked to Sarah and Anna. She has now taken three loans and the last one was 800,000 Ugandan shillings (US$220). She is managing to make repayments with the tailoring and selling of second-hand clothes. She is also a single mother.
Rearing cows had helped her fund university education for her older children however she continues to have a 16 and an 18 year old living with her.
Once her business is big enough she plans to return to rearing cows and she showed us a corral behind her home.
Sharon is an 18 year old young woman who is an orphan. She has no relatives at all who help her and she is in Senior 6. She has been a member of the loan programme for three years. Her last loan was 500,000 Ugandan shillings (US$140) and she used that to buy second-hand clothing which she sells in the outside markets and also to fellow students at Mbale High School. With the profits she is able to rent her room, pay her school fees, buy a little food, pay back the loan, and she also has a little savings of 50,000 Ugandan shillings in the loan programme.
On the day that we visited she was very unwell with a chest infection. She had managed to buy some medicine however because it was near exam time Sarah offered to get her further medicine. Sarah also said that around exam time several of the nearby women invite her to eat with them in the evening. Several of the women around watch out for her.
Sharon would like to attend university one day.
We met with Sarah two years ago and at that stage she was selling firewood. This was a good business and she had built it up to the extent that she could buy a lot of firewood, store it and sell it to the local community to help with their cooking. However, a while ago local officials came and took the firewood away - a whole lorry load of firewood was taken from her in a large truck.
The government wants to stop people chopping down trees and so they are trying to shut down businesses that sell firewood and charcoal. This is very challenging as currently there is no cheap alternative. There is rarely electricity out in these villages and gas is extremely expensive here.
Her stock was taken in February 2017 however she had been in the loan programme for some time and had some savings. This helped her to start again although she needed to top up the loan by 1.5 million Ugandan shillings (US$420). She has developed new businesses of buying and selling soya beans, and buying and selling second-hand clothes and bed sheets. She is making repayments to the loan and is able to continue renting her home.
Prior to receiving the loan eating was very difficult as she did not have a business but now she is also able to feed her family.
These kinds of challenges and situations are not too uncommon in this community. Sarah has begun the journey of rebuilding her livelihood.
Anna prizes the unity of the group. Even when there has been some jealousy around the bakery and the sense that people are being favored she has diligently visited all the members and worked hard to ensure unity and agreement.
Because Mbale is really a city it is hard to gauge ‘community response’ but Anna is a respected woman in her community. She recently had the opportunity to travel to Zimbabwe to be the keynote speaker at a women’s conference over the course of a week.
It was great to see businesses that were struggling a year ago in better heart this time. It showed in the market place and when we visited, and even those who were just starting out were seeing good benefits. This was a real surprise to us.
There isn’t really a need for change here and we think that the strategy of organic growth is working well. The group is effectively three subgroups in different areas of the city.
The current drought and economic situation is clearly one of the huge challenges faced here. It is having major economic and social implications.
The unity of this group remains impressive but is also fragile. The fact that the subgroups meet regularly and pray and worship together (even the Muslim women!) means however that there is good cohesiveness. It needs to be guarded.
There are still some issues regarding future leadership. It is worth praying for the raising up of future leadership with integrity. Without this there will be problems.
1) This group remains wonderfully cohesive and is a real credit to Anna. The people support one another in ways that are really impressive.
2) For the growth in the group. Probably this programme has more potential for growth but we like the way that the growth is organic and not rushed.
3) That the economic situation and crises in Uganda have not crushed the group. We encountered other groups in the country where the circumstances simply mean that payments are not being made at all, and embryonic programmes have just collapsed.
Anna continues to impress us. She just keeps on going. Her health is dramatically better as a result of the medication we bring each time. We continue to have strong faith in this partnership and love spending time with this micro-loan group.