Greetings to you all,

It’s an honour to write to you again as the month ends.

This week, we continued with our efforts to continue to create opportunities for our Mamas to better their lives and families. I was able to visit Francoise, Lorna, Irene, Amina, Justine, Angel, Hamida, and Lilly.

It is wonderful that Hamida has raised almost all her 150 chickens while having lost only 6 of them. This statistic is quite incredible for most poultry farmers to only lose less than 10% of all chicks. The chickens are now just over 5 weeks old and ready for sale. She was waiting on a buyer who had promised to go to her to buy a few chickens.

Francoise is also doing incredibly well ever since she restarted her job. She has been lucky to have found maize and beans at a reasonable price these past couple of weeks so business has been good for her. She was able to save up some little money to top up on the school requirements for her grandson Jordan who is always excited to attend school. She says that Jordan is very bright so this encourages her to always send him to school on time. Otherwise, she is happy and looks very healthy at the moment so I am now more relaxed with her.

Lilly is doing okay. I found her on babysitting duties for a friend who had taken another infant child of hers to the hospital because of pneumonia. Otherwise, business is not so bad for Lilly and she continues to do business as usual with her tablecloths. She is doing a bit of repair on people’s clothes but nothing interesting for her. 

Lorna is doing okay at the moment. She had gone to a lady’s conference a few days ago to teach them a little bit of business skills. I found her cleaning up and washing utensils from the lunch meal of the day. Otherwise, her daughter Catherine stopped work because she thought she got a spiritual attack so she decided to stop work.

Justine is doing well, she has entered the house so it means that all the debris was cleared out and the floor is levelled. She also had the glass in the windows and doors fixed so she is super excited about living in the house because she never thought she would live in a house such as this. Her son has done incredibly well in supporting her and ensuring that the house is habitable. In all things, the one thing that makes me happy is the fact that her vegetable stall is still firm and operational. 

Irene has decided to venture into village rotational markets to sell her silverfish. They go out to villages targeting local markets to sell different items. This time Irene and her friend have targeted a newly created refugee camp for people coming from Sudan. They will sell at this market for about three days before they return. If all goes well, she can do it twice a month and this can go on for 3-6 months.

I met Amina at a time when she was in pain and couldn’t move freely. She had lymphoma on her right hip. It had been there for about 4-5 years. When went to the doctor, he said Amina needed surgery asap and he scheduled for her surgery the next weekend. He wondered how Amina had carried this thing for so long. Long story short, it was done last Thursday and I am glad it got done quickly because she was starting to be superstitious about surgery and everything.

I went back to visit the girls, Angel and Jolly. They are not doing so okay but they are doing what is necessary at the moment. They have managed to pay their electricity and rent bills. They also contributed a little money to help buy Jordans’ scholastic materials.

Thank you for following us yet again this week, thank you for supporting us yet again. It is always a pleasure working and seeing our Mamas work through their challenges like Francoise who has worked through her health challenges and is getting back to her feet and Hamida who has managed to raise almost all her chickens is now ready for sale. I look forward to visiting again next week to see what she has done with her income and also see if she has placed an order for more chicks to be able to continue with the sequence. And finally, Amina who has had her lymphoma removed and recovering well. Without your support, some of these situations would have been harder for our Mamas. It is a blessing to walk with you always. 

As the Mamas always say, “bbandabile mikwano gyaffe”. Regards to our dear friends. I like that they don’t call you anything else but friends. (Mikwano gaffe)

Report by

Andrew Echel

Director of Projects, Uganda 

ISEE Solutions Society