Economic Empowerment

Uprise Foundation

Economic Empowerment Program

The economic empowerment program uses the world renowned model of Village Savings and Loans Associations commonly known as VSLAs. VSLAs play an important role in meeting the needs of women and men whose principal purpose for accessing finance is to help them manage household cash flow, respond to life-cycle events or invest in small income-generating activities. Moreover, VSLAs provide people, no matter how remote or poor, with access to small amounts of local capital on flexible terms and to transact such loans frequently at very low risk and negligible cost.

A group of community members (men, women and youth) sets up a self-selected and self-managed group where they meet and make weekly savings (also called buying shares) of as little money as less than USD.1 on a weekly basis. When the money accumulates, members start borrowing small loans to do startups in their community at a very low interest rate. Members can borrow twice their savings and pay back with a small interest. A saving cycle is 12 months, the money saved plus interest made from the loans is shared at the end of the 12 months, members start another cycle and keep increasing the share value annually. A group of about 25 rural women, for a period of 12 months could save up to UGX 6.5M (USD.1750). This amount usually increases in the following years as members have established businesses that provide an extra income and some spare cash for saving. It costs Uprise Foundation a total of USD. 350 to train a group, procure a saving kit for it and monitor the group for 12 months or until they get independence.