Locals have applauded the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development’s strategic interventions required to summersault to middle income status by 2020.
Indeed, officials from the ministry are currently out in the field to collect baseline data from beneficiaries of the Uganda Women Entrepreneurship Programme (UWEP) or what’s commonly known as the Women Fund.
The team has this week so far visited Irish potatoes field established by members of Gahinga Women Group in Kisoro district with financial support from UWEP received in September this year.
UWEP’s communications manager, Mr Frank Mugabi is confident the harvest should earn the group enough money to payback the credit facility extended by government and also remain with savings to reinvest into their enterprise.
“UWEP aims to add value to Irish potatoes produced in Kisoro, and with this, farmers expect less difficulty in getting market for their produce, which translates to better incomes,”Mr Mugabi told TheUgandan on Tuesday.
“Reflecting on the organisation and hard work exhibited by the Gahinga Group, we as the ministry are sure they will recap the money invested and even make profits after harvesting. Such groups help us plan and enhance the quality of human capital,” he added.
The Irish potato, also called the earth apple, is one of the most consumed tubers in the world. As the local market for irish potatoes keeps growing there are people in South Western Uganda making a killing out of growing them.
Before heading to Kisoro, the UWEP team also met and interacted with one of the Women Groups in Kiruhura District who have also benefited from the Women Fund.
They are running a bull fattening enterprise facilitated by the Shs8 million they got from the programme in September 2016. They expect the animals to have grown to size by February so that they sell them off and buy another set.
They bought each calf at Shs250,000 and expect to sell each at Shs1,500,000. This will be great profit for them to pay back the credit they got and also have enough money to buy another set of animals and continue growing their enterprise.
This is the kind of fundamental change UWEP is targeting.
