A sustainable economic uplift programme funded by Meeting Needs is proving successful for women in the village of Rwentojo, in SW Uganda. Working through UK registered charity, ‘Let Them Help Themselves’, Meeting Needs provided a grant of £3,900 last year to help 15 widows achieve a sustainable poultry business.
We are following the journey of the women who are working towards creating a small enterprise with the aim of earning enough cash to send their children to school and have a enough money left over to pay for a few basic essentials. The women have now started selling the eggs from the project and on
average they are earning £1.66 per tray. In Uganda a tray of eggs is made up of 30 eggs and the women are collecting upto 8 eggs a day. This is because some of the chicks died of avian flu and that left the women with roughly 8 hens out of 15. Avian flu has also impacted the egg market as nearby countries have stopped buying eggs from Uganda. We would ordinarily expect a tray of eggs to sell at £2.60.
But we still have some good news; Dezranta Nyakato, a 59 year old woman is currently earning
£3.32 a week from selling eggs and she used to earn 51p a week prior to joining this initiative.
Our initial aim for her, was to increase her income to £1.75 as it is the income a woman in her village needs to send three kids to school per term and feed her family. Find out more about the project here
