ElectricAid project of the month

ElectricAid frees the BWDA 44

Based in bukasa, Wakiso, Uganda, the Bukasa Womens' Development Association (BWDA) is a typical rural grass-roots self-help development group.

These groups – more often than not started and run by women – are an unsung success story in development in Africa. They are making a big and positive difference to many lives; the movement is particularly strong in Uganda.

The members of these groups find that managed co-operation between similar people – in BWDA's case, mostly war and HIV/AIDS widows – is a successful engine of micro-level development. They are nascent credit unions in all but name. They use their members' monthly savings to fund the start-up of tiny income-generating projects – a cow here, a clothes stall there, a vegetable patch, a poultry house. The groups receive basic business, sustainable agriculture, and animal husbandry training – and pass it on to all their members.

The BWDA group came well recommended and authenticated to ElectricAid by the Voluntary Action for Development (VAD) organisation, which is an umbrella group for rural self-help in Uganda. The need was for additional seed capital for BWDA's micro-enterprise revolving fund and a modest grant of €8,600 in November 2006 has had far-reaching impacts on this desperately-poor rural community:

• All beneficiaries received business training
• Eight women were able to start simple poultry-keeping operations
• Fifteen women got into simple and sustainable horticulture projects
• Ten women started micro-piggery operations
• Three women received cross-bred cows to commence dairying
• Eight women started various small businesses, including market vending, clothes stalls, fish smoking, and brick making.

Grass-roots self-help in the Developing World is not rocket science, and need not involve large funding and elaborate programmes. Extraordinary benefits are being derived from modest amounts of your money. On behalf of the 'BWDA 44' - and of their successors – thank you.