Accelerating socio-economic development

3 August 2020

Raising the Village (RTV) submitted in July its report on the first semester of year two of the project led in the Kanungu District. The project aims to increase household incomes, facilitate civic engagement and accelerate socio-economic development in ten villages, the Bugongi cluster, from the District.

When the coronavirus (COVID-19) global pandemic reached Uganda the government placed the country on lockdown on March 30th, 2020.  RTV was recognized across all government districts as an essential service and was able to continue its agricultural, livestock and financial literacy trainings as well as its household and community follow-ups within the cluster.

Between January-June 2020 the following activities took place:

• COVID-19 community action plan and village communication plans were developed;
• Evaluations were conducted at month 18 of the project to ascertain levels of compliance in all areas of work;
• Outstanding distribution of male goats to community members;
• Revolving livestock “pay-it-forward” of pigs;
• Seed return and pass-on as per RTV’s agricultural revolving methodology;
• Completion of the 6th and final health outreach;
• Implementation of Ready To Eat (RTE) initiative to support food security following COVID-19 lockdown impacts.

 Notable successes during this period include:

• Community members contributed a total $10,109 into their respective village savings and loans associations (VSLAs);
• 86% of households attended the final door-step health outreaches;
• WASH practices improved from 85% at month 3 to 92% at month 12 and again to 98% at month 18;
• 82% of the community households are in compliance with the project’s waste management practices, with 97% of these households properly separating and sorting their non-biodegradable and bio-degradable waste.