October, 2016
From Uganda comes a great story: how spunky women from 5 villages in Uganda scripted a success story – with beans. The non-profit project, called Empowered Voices, was set up in 2012 by Lene Martinsen from Norway and Kaley Sweeney from the US, to help women empower themselves - using their skill and talents. This committed duo has scripted many success stories with the support of organizations like The Art of Living and the International Association for Human Values, United Kingdom, (IAHV-UK) as well.
How Empowered Voices was Born:
Lene and Kaley were passionate about their mutual goal of helping their target community of women in Mubendu, Uganda, after personally engaging with them and assessing their needs. Deciding to pursue this as a sustainable, long-term development project, they helped these women set up “The Bean Project” as an agri-business, and beyond that, they brought in measures to improve gender equity, health and poverty reduction.
Beans are a popular food in Uganda, and a crop that gives high return on investment. Based on local consensus, women from 5 villages in Mubendu District in Uganda came together and formed “The Beans Project” – a cooperative for growing and marketing beans. They also underwent workshops to optimize their use of herbicides and pesticides, and learn sustainable soil techniques and general farming practices. A part of each member’s produce is returned to the cooperative to be given to new members.
Additional measures to support the members:
- VSLAs (Village Savings and Loan Associations) were formed, which helped the women save a portion of their income for collective financial growth, and also take personal loans for investments such as livestock and agricultural projects and for school fees. Members who do not take loans get to accumulate interest. They also have zero-interest loans for personal emergencies.
- Community-Based Organizations (CBOs).
- Leadership empowerment and development workshops with fellow Ugandans as guides and teachers.
- Exposure to other groups doing similar work.
- Three ladies from EV underwent a year-long Gender Value Chain workshop and gained group-marketing expertise and understood how gender inequality could affect their agri-business efforts.
Life has Begun Anew for Nakabugo:
A 48- year-old widow with 9 children, Agnes Nakabugo was thrown out of her house by her late husband's family. Confused and broken, she happened to receive from EV a home and seeds for her first crop.
Today Agnes shows no signs of the struggle. With perseverance, she was able to return the investment and make a profit from the surplus by selling her produce through the group marketing scheme. She is the proud owner of a plot of land and confidently shares plans of building a new house for her family.
From bean to bead:
Women are trained to create jewelry, purses and bags with local beads which are marketed in the US, UK, and Norway.
Men join in too…
Alexander collects beans, helps in marketing and has attended the gender equity workshops.
Alexander is a volunteer with EV
