Photography, Stories, Travel, Uganda

Note:- This is a post that was on an old blog that is now offline. I went looking for the images and realised I had not transferred them. One of the more fascinating visits was to a micro finance project in the form of a community run credit union. Plan again are involved and help train and set up the credit union. Because of the limitations on the ledger system they use, they limit themselves to 20 odd members. The setup is very simple, with a weekly meeting, held under a tree in the village. A committee is elected to run the credit union and all the members contribute by savings and repayments of loans. It was incredible to listen to the stories of the members of what they borrowed money for

• One woman borrowed to buy some chickens. She now sells the eggs to other in the village and surrounding areas
• A man used the money to buy goats. He sells goats milk and cheese as a result.
• One enterprising man, bought a bicycle. He uses it to run errands for people to other villages

The really interesting thing was to see people pay back the loan and then borrow again to add to their ability to generate wealth for themselves.

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For more informmation on the excellent work by Plan International, see their website www.plan.ie