Mend // Growing in Confidence and Community Investment
Langee Vicky, a seamstress at Mend, has her own sewing machine at home. But she doesn’t let it sit idle. Instead, Vicky has started making school uniforms. She pays a small monthly fee to rent a stall at the market and was quickly asked by a local woman if she was able to make uniforms. […]
Student Success Becomes a Family Affair
Last week, while tagging along on home visits with some of the mentors from the Legacy Scholarship Program, I found that some of the students weren’t home. “Where are they?” I wondered aloud. The simple answer? Keeping busy. When students return to school at the start of February, they will have had two months to […]
Adult Literacy: doing business better
Alaro Ida remembers trying to run her own income generating activity even before joining one of Invisible Children Uganda’s (ICU) Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA). She would buy corn from a farmer in the village and then take it to the trading center to sell it at a mark-up price. She also sold peanut […]
Village Savings: building a business
It all started with a small loan. Abwono Milly is a member of one of Invisible Children Uganda’s Village Savings and Loan Associations, and she recently started up her own business with a loan she took from the group. Milly took a loan (about $3), added it to some of her personal savings (about $2), […]
Groundnuts generate income
Many members of Invisible Children Uganda’s Village Savings and Loan Associations take on Income Generating Activities (IGA) to earn extra income. The groups meet every week to save money together. They pool their earnings and out of that are able to take out loans to start up IGAs like rearing poultry, keeping goats and cows, […]
Legacy Scholarship: Papito’s Pigs
During the period when LRA attacks were still intense in northern Uganda, many businesses came to a standstill. Ayen Rose’s business that she had started between 1999 and 2000 to raise pigs was among the unlucky businesses that did not survive the war. Forced to resettle in one of the Internal Displacement Camps, Ayen Rose […]
Livelihood: Exchanging Ideas
The Invisible Children (IC) Livelihood team has started up 45 Village Saving and Loan Association (VSLA) groups recently in Bobi and Lakwana. In VSLA, community members are able to pool their money and take out small loans to start up businesses. After several months of operating the new business, members pay back the loan with […]
Legacy Scholarship: Tony’s cows
Tony, one of Invisible Children’s (IC) Legacy Scholarship Program (LSP) students, was recently given capital to start up a cattle-farming enterprise in order to gain financial independence. “I chose rearing of cows for my project because they are easy to maintain, I am assured of milk for my family, and with breeding the cows can […]