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Friday 20 June 2014

The sky's the limit for Elizabeth

One year ago, Elizabeth Mujehe was successfully running her vegetable stall in the local market, which she had set up with a business grant from Child of Hope. This enabled her to provide for all her family, including a child that attends our school. However, Elizabeth wasn’t satisfied with just survival. After further training and through careful use of her hard earned savings, she has now dramatically increased her income.

Child of Hope's Income Generating Activity (IGA) co-ordinator Betty explained how she has done it: "Firstly, she managed to increase the turnover and profit on her stall through careful and strategic adding of items such as cassava flour and cooking oil to her stock.

"Secondly, she is now growing rice. This involves her renting a quarter of an acre of land that is suitable for growing rice. Rice growing is very tough work but it can be profitable. Elizabeth pays other people to help her, as the land has to be ploughed twice before she can plant the rice. The rice itself has first to be planted in nursery beds before being transferred into the field after the first month. After a further month, the rice has to be weeded. A month later, the rice is ready to be harvested. There are two harvests a year. In her first harvest, Elizabeth managed to obtain around 300 kilos of rice, which she then sold for around £125; a very large sum in Uganda.

"In addition to the two children attending Child of Hope School, her market stall had enabled her to send her other two children to local government schools. Now, with the rice business, she has been able to move them to better schools. With her ever-increasing savings, the sky really is the limit for Elizabeth.

"Thank you all donors for the support you are giving us. May God bless you all."