I’m sure some of you are saying, “where are those blog post Karon was going to write?”  Well, it turns out that this trip has been more difficult than any other trip to access the internet.  In Uganda, I have access to the internet only in the morning before leaving for the villages or in the evening upon my return to my hotel.  On this trip, the internet has been down consistently during those windows of opportunity.  My apologies for the lack of posts.

However, Kerrie Sadler, one of the board members who accompanied me on the trip has written a beautiful reflection on the trip. I think you will enjoy it.  Here is is.

I’ve returned home and had awhile to reflect on the essence of my African experience.  What keeps coming to mind for me is the graciousness of the Ugandan people, even in the face of unrelenting poverty.  In each village we visited we were greeted with such genuine warmth by our borrowers!  Among the common forms of greeting we heard were the words, “You are very welcome.”  With those words and with hands outstretched in friendship, they invited us into their world.

That world is not an easy one to navigate; I had no real idea until I saw it firsthand.  Most women we support through micro loans are not just operating small businesses but also caring for their numerous children. Many of them grow, pick, dry, grind, slaughter, and otherwise prepare the food they provide for their families, as well as to sell at their village market.  And they cook in pots over fires – there is no microwave to pop a meal into when they’re on the run!

This is the lifestyle within which we have had the honor of doing our work, improving their lives with our micro loans.  But the improvements go beyond just the women. As one of our Ugandan loan administrators, Annette, said, “Mothers and children move together.” As such, what benefits our borrowers also benefits their offspring and uplifts an entire community.

These amazing, resourceful people ask for so little. They smile and are so grateful for the help we’re able to provide through the generous donations we receive from so many of you here at home. We repeatedly heard the words, “Thank you for loving us.”

I came away feeling that the world is now a little smaller due to the connections we have made in each of the villages we support. As Karon Wright once wisely stated about our African sisters, “They are us over there.”  We all want good health and an education for our children, and we all have the same basic needs.  I am convinced, now more than ever, that The Greater Contribution’s work is indeed making a measurable, lasting impact.

I’m back home and naturally reflecting on my most recent trip to Uganda and making comparisons between life in Uganda and my life here. The obvious comparisons have to do with our widely different standards of living. At times, just seeing the unrelenting poverty, day after day, mile after mile is really hard. I just can’t believe that almost half the world lives like that. It just doesn’t seem possible. It seems like it must be a science fiction movie about the end of civilization and yet I know it’s reality. But what a reality and how vastly different from life in America.

Most of our loan clients live on less than $1.25/day — hard to imagine, but true. They live in mud huts with palm leaves for roofs or if they’re a little higher on the economic ladder, they can afford a tin roof and maybe a cement floor instead of mud and dung. They eat one or two meals a day and suffer from an array of medical issues, some of them quite serious, that can easily be cured with a few dollars worth of medicine — a few dollars they don’t have.  Their children go without shoes and many never go to school since that requires paying school fees.

Yet in the midst of this abject poverty, I see a human spirit that is amazingly resilient. I see strength, wisdom and determination in these borrowers. It is remarkable to me that people can retain hope and ambition and the drive to learn and to better themselves against such incredible odds. Equally as important, they are neither bitter nor cynical. They are loving, kind, and appreciative. I wonder if I would do so well in their circumstances.

I am deeply grateful for the privilege of helping the women of Uganda.  The cost to help is so little and yet makes such a very big difference.

Upon arriving home, I received an email from our Loan Administrator, Annette, who wrote, “…thank you for the lives of many women that you have changed within a minute and for their beautiful smiles that shows real hope restored.”

I am also grateful that so many of you are of a like mind and give of your time, your talents and your financial resources to enable us to do this work.  If you would like to get more involved with this work, please email me at:   Karon@GreaterContribution.org.  Or if you would like to give a little each month to provide micro loans and help sustain our work,  please go to www.GreaterContribution.org and click on the Donate link and follow the prompt.

Thank you for following my journeys to Uganda and for your support.  Till next trip…

There is nothing I enjoy more than distributing the loan money to borrowers! You can almost feel the anticipation as the women gather to receive their loan proceeds. The loan money is carefully counted at the bank and placed in individual envelopes with the borrower’s name and loan amount ahead of time. As each woman receives her envelope, we congratulate her, she in turn thanks us profusely and occasionally even kneels before us! Many tell us they will work hard and be successful; some say they won’t let us down! Many are shy and simply say thank you. It is inspiring and humbling to see how much a small loan of $100 or $200 can mean and how grateful the women are. Truly a moving experience.

Here’s a woman counting her loan money…

…and a couple of borrowers in Tororo receiving congratulations from me.

In the Lwaboba center, our Loan Administrator, Annette Nasirumbi, asked the borrowers into the office in groups of three to receive their loans. As each group came in, Annette would deliver a few words of encouragement to each group, reminding them that this loan represented a great opportunity to turn their lives around and that they should not squander it! I was impressed that each time she delivered the message, it was a little different and yet always delivered with love, and inspiration! Annette is  a remarkable leader.

Here are a trio of Lwaboba borrowers who just heard Annette’s message and just received their loans. They’re seeing a new future on the horizon and you can see the joy and excitement on their faces.

Thank you to all of you who make these loans possible. You’re helping to change the world one loan at time. Please spread the word about TGC to all you know who would like to make a real, life changing difference in the lives of women.

After three days without an internet connection, I have so much to tell you!

Recently, we re-visited our amazing administrative team and some individual borrowers in Lwaboba. Here you see Annette, our Loan Administrator and Fenny, one of the senior members of the community, in their new office. They are thrilled with the new opportunities that the program brings them and are jumping into their new roles with enthusiasm, joy and creativity! They are determined that every woman in the program will be successful.

Visiting borrowers in their businesses is always an interesting experience.  Many of the women run their businesses from their homes (like many of us in the U.S.!) and so we had opportunities to see their homes as well as their businesses.  Here is Deborah at home with chickens she’s raising in a room behind her living quarters.

We questioned the wisdom of several women in the group all raising chickens.  Would there be a large enough market for all this poultry? We learned that in the even years in Uganda, there are a lot of circumcisions of adult males which necessitate parties that last three and four days with large, extended family members attending, all eating lots of chicken! Carolyn Corwin worked with quite a few of these women on their business plans and now knows so much about this business that the ladies have jokingly dubbed her the poultry expert!

Aidah is a lovely, tall woman who told me her older husband is in poor health and she is the sole support of the family of seven!  Her five children sleep on the floor in this tiny room and she is both very grateful to have gotten a micro loan and also frightened about her future.   These are the women who need our help the most.

After visiting several businesses, our Loan Administrator,  Annette, insisted on serving us lunch at her home , which you can see consisted of potatoes (called ‘Irish’ here), rice, bananas, chicken, beef and the au juice from cooking the meat and poultry.

The Ugandan diet is sadly lacking in vegetables and we’re always glad to eat a more healthy diet at our hotel. But the fact that the food is such a wonderful gift from a lovely woman living in such incredibly poor conditions is so moving and generous that lack of vegetables is irrelevant. Annette explained that we had done a lot of business together and it was time to “come together in friendship”. The character of Ugandan women is strong, loving, and a treat to experience. How could we not help them?

We wrapped up the training in Lwaboba yesterday and at the end of the day, Carolyn and I were gifted with a very large bucket of g-nuts (peanuts)!  Whatever the economic level of Ugandans, they are always giving and generous.  I am often embarrassed to receive gifts of food, clothing, baskets, jewelry.  They welcome us into their homes, insist on sharing meals with us and truly treat us as honored guests.  Knowing how much we have and how little they have, we hate to accept what might cause a hardship for them and yet cannot risk hurting feelings by declining.  The generosity of those with such severely limited means is truly touching.

Today we were off to Tororo to observe the first day of borrower training there. Stella, the TGC trained trainer had already demonstrated her skills in practice sessions with our leadership group, but today she was amazing! She took the techniques and content she’d been given and built on them in a very creative way.  She was animated, continually engaged the audience and created a learning tools and an  environment that would be the envy of any of my trainer friends in the US.  She demonstrated a relentless dedication to making sure every woman understood the lessons being taught. What an inspiration and what a gift she is to the TGC program. I am often stunned at the talent and sophistication of the women in these remote, impoverished areas and I want them all to have the opportunity to fulfill all the wonderful potential they display and be all they can be.

Here are some images I hope will convey more of the story of training women in business skills.

A canopy is erected to create a comfortable environment.

The ladies are each given a bag containing a notebook, pen, calculator (every business person needs one), a passbook in which to record her loan payments and savings and donated toothbrushes and toothpaste.

They use the notebooks and pens right away, taking lots of notes and really being engaged in the training.

The training  audience is quite diverse.  Today there is a set of five month old twins and four other infants and toddlers as well as numerous feathered friends who frequently added their comments to the discussions!

You can see that training here has a little different flavor to it and yet the goals of educating remain the same and are accomplished brilliantly!

Tomorrow will be a joyous day as we distribute the loans!

It is really thrilling to watch the local women embrace the learning we’re bringing to them.  Yesterday, the main topic of the session was budgeting, a concept that is foreign to most of the population!  This topic is especially important to the women now as they will receive a micro loan,  a large amount of money for them, and they need the skills to manage it so that it truly helps them create a business that will be sustainable and enable them to work their way out of poverty.    We are committed to changing lives– not just lending money and having it repaid and thus, education is critical in this process.

After talking about budgeting principles, Scovia, the local trainer, trained by TGC,  gave each participant a budget worksheet with a sample budget and a blank and asked each woman to create her own budget.  Using the new calculators that we supplied to them, they went to work.  There was intense concentration on their faces and yet a great enthusiasm filling the room.

As you can see in this photo, Scovia moved throughout the room, helping whoever needed help.  The discussion afterward revealed the great need for the skill and gratitude for it.

As in any training, there is a diversity of ability and experience among the women.  Those who are more advanced are delighted to share examples from their experience which is so helpful to the novices. That sharing along with a local woman delivering the training makes for a powerful experience for these lovely ladies.

Although we have trained the trainers in the TGC content (written in collaboration with a group that trains African women and culturally specific to them), it is impressive to see our local trainers add their own very relevant examples and techniques to make the training even more meaningful.   In addition,  the women are always cheerful and always smiling and after a break in the training, Annette, the Loan Coordinator for the Lwaboba group, would reconvene the training sessions with some kind of fun exercise to energize the group.  One that Carolyn and I participated in yesterday, was their version of singing and spelling out  YMCA.  We were all led in writing out the numbers one through five with our bodies. This primarily involved using arms, shoulders and hips. There was a lot of misspelling and a lot of laughter!  More evidence of how we are more alike than different — a little exercise and a little laughter are always welcome!