Putting Money to Work

The skies are blue today and the clouds look like cartoon sketches of explosion in the distance. Yesterday was a very big day for Global Ties in Uganda. For just about a month now, we have been assessing the needs of our partnering programs here in Ndejje. The school has many, but I think we would all agree that food and water is a good place to begin. The Kamba shop and the its members also have many needs, but there it begins with materials.

As Mollie and I work to address these needs by applying for grants and visiting NGOs to gain support, we see that there is an opportunity for Global Ties to get the ball rolling. While we were living in Florida, we made a very purposeful effort to allot 10% of our paychecks into a savings that we could use as our donations during this trip. Mollie and I did not know what Global Ties represented then. Donations are just half of the story. What happens when the money actually changes hands? Well, this is what Global Ties can represent. With the money that we saved before arriving to Uganda, we have made two contributions through Global Ties. Our first project was the micro finance loan for 20,000 Ush. ($10) that we loaned to two Kamba members. We have seen a financial gain for Kamba members of about $5 over a two week period. The loan has moved on to two new members. Because of its success and a profit projection we created, Global Ties decided to take an additional amount of $150 to add to Kamba's business account(not individuals). That of course was the easy part, and now that we are here, we as Global Ties have the chance to learn side by side with Kamba on how to be successful. We will meet twice a week to discuss all our challenges and all our successes. We are also creating an accounting method with Baunda (the treasurer), and with the very generous donation of a computer from Mollie's family, we can be very organized.

We did not waste any time getting the project started. Yesterday with Sarah, Jacques wife, we gave the money some real value; we bought materials! We were able to buy 20 kitenge fabrics and enough tailoring supplies to get us going. According to the projection we came up with, from this investment Kamba has the potential to realize a significant profit.

p.s.
It seems that our picture uploading device does not want to work anymore. We will get more pictures up as soon as we figure out the problem. Sorry!