Kabagambe Abias aged 26 years, a male, married and a father of 02 children is a resident of Mutwe village, Kinyonza Ward, Katalyeba Town Council in the host community of Rwamwanja Kamwenge District.
This household was vulnerable since it lacked a viable source of income that made them suffer from food insecurity and lack of basic needs the source of income and food for the family was to cultivate seasonally and sometimes sell his labor by doing casual work for fewer payments. That’s how the family members hardly met their basic needs. In some cases, if a family member got sick, there was no money to take that patient to a Clinic, the only alternative was to sell off his plantation before harvest at a lower price so that he gets money and take a patient to the clinic and the family would sometimes take one meal a day.

The couple’s saving culture was too poor and had no idea of starting up any IGA to boost household income due to a lack of knowledge and skills to manage IGAs and small businesses. After selling their produce by the time of harvest they would utilize all the money to zero balance leaving the household with neither saving nor an investment which would put then at a red line of total poverty.
Fortunately, enough when RACOBAO mobilized for a sensitization meeting in Abias village he picked interest and turned up for it in march Kabagambe in march 2018 which was calling upon people to come together and form VSLA groups. He joined mutwe Tumanyane VSLA established with RACOBAO’s support. He started saving 1,000 shillings per week until he saved 65,000 shs and obtained a loan of 100,000 shillings to start up a small business of a retail shop. The business since then started supplementing the monthly household income by 12,000shs. By the time RACOBAO interacted with Abias in the month of November 2020, the family members would easily access basic needs such as food soap, clothes thus increased hygiene and sanitation among the household members and at least the standards of living have improved.
English: I’m so happy that I started my own small business and I used the money obtained from our VSLA. Now I’m running my business including the growing of seasonal crops (maize and beans) for home consumption. And I’m no longer selling my crops prematurely before the harvest, I just go to our VSLA and acquire a loan according to my savings.
I thank our VSLA members and RACOBAO who came and trained us in VSLA methodology