Ribe Ber Orubu- “Unity is Good”- group joined THRIVEGulu in 2016. Three-quarters of the group are some of the most vulnerable women in Gulu, who are illiterate and struggle to take care of their families on about $3 a day. Almost all the women in this group rely on selling small goods in the market as the only source of income to support their families.
Over the past year, they went through our series of trainings on financial management and starting a small business, and toward the end of the year they received some seed money from THRIVEGulu to start a group income generating activity. They decided to do bricklaying this month, because during the dry season the group members don’t have as much agricultural work.
The group members work together to carry water, mix the mud, and form the bricks. Later they’ll fire the bricks and then sell them to local builders. Their goal was to produce 25,000 bricks, which they have already exceeded. In the end they’ll have almost 30,000 bricks, which they expect to be able to sell for almost 4 million UGX (about $1,200). This would be a 267% profit from their initial investment.
This month they also celebrated the end of their group savings cycle, during which they distributed each member’s savings from the year and shared the group’s profits from loan interest.
Daniel Nyeko (in the white shirt in the photo above) is a 60 year old widow who earns her living by selling milk from the cow she keeps at home. Every day she gets 4 to 5 litters milk, which earns her about $6 a day (which in Gulu puts her in a relatively stable low-middle class). The group celebrated her as the member with the highest savings in 2016.
Brenda, her fellow group member, said: “This is really a big challenge that the old Mama had shown us the young women in this group. She always used to advise us but most of us took it like a joke. THRIVEGulu had given us all the materials concerning how to start a business, how to follow a savings plan, and how to be in group but some of us failed to follow.” Now the group members are motivated to follow Daniel’s example, and they see big things for themselves in the coming year.
