Help 23,000 Ugandan Grandmothers Care for Children

Great news!  Thanks to your generous support, even more grandmothers are being empowered to break the cycle of poverty.  The Grandmother Program is now able to support 7,301 grandmothers in 98 groups.  That’s 300 more women, in 6 more groups!  This is the largest number of grandmothers to ever be part of the program, thank YOU for making this possible.

The grandmother team has been busy visiting all of the grandmothers.  They have made 91 individual home visits so far this year.  The purpose of the home visits are to see the living conditions of the grandmothers; income generating activities; check if the grandmothers have kitchen vegetable gardens; make sure children are in school; to offer advice and support as needed.  In the homes visited, the grandmothers were engaged in many small income generating activities such as piggery, goat rearing, poultry, handcraft making, and small businesses like selling porridge, bananas, coffee and rice.  The grandmothers also had good kitchen vegetable gardens and all the grandchildren are attending school. However, most of the grandmothers still live in poor conditions with very poor housing structures, kitchens, and pit latrines.

There have been 45 group meetings visited by the grandmother team.  During the group meetings, the team informed grandmothers about income generating projects, food security, the importance of education, and health and sanitation improvement.  There were also two group exchange visits for grandmothers to learn from each other.  One group was trained on how to make beads and woven money purses. The other group was trained on how to dry sweet bananas into crisps.  The grandmothers were eager to learn new practices and can’t wait to use them.  They were very happy for the exchange program and hope there are more in the future.

Thank you for helping to expand the Grandmother Program.  YOU are changing the lives of so many wonderful women!

Links:

• Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project Website

Angelica is 60 years old and raising three grandchildren in the village of Kyamagote in the Kanungu District of Uganda.  Her grandchildren, Turinawe, Asiimwe, and Brian, have lost both of their parents.  Their mother passed away first and the children moved in with their grandmother after the death of their father, who was Angelica‘s son.  She had already raised seven of her own children and thought that at this point in her life she was done child rearing.  Angelica has been able to support herself and her grandchildren thanks to Nyaka’s Microfinance Program.

Angelica has been the chairperson for her Grannie Group for the last eight years and is grateful to the Grandmother Program for the revolving fund where she borrowed 200,000 UGX ($61 USD).  She used the money to buy bean seeds.  The seeds were planted and have increased the food security in her home.  With the continuous planting cycle of these beans, her and her grandchildren will never have to experience hunger.  There will always be enough food to feed her family.  In fact, Angelica expects to have a surplus of beans and hopes to sell about 120kg of them.  This will provide Angelica with a small income so she can buy other things needed in the home.

Thank YOU for making the Microfinance Program possible for grandmothers!  These loans provide them dignity and means to support themselves and their grandchildren.

Links:

• Nyaka AIDS Orphans Project Website