Feedback after two months in Uganda.

Time flies! 

I have been in Uganda for about 2 months now. 

Kampala is a vibrant city where one has endless possibilities and working with 3 groups surely keeps me busy. 

Time does fly but the tailoring and basket weaving groups have been serious and have done a lot of work already. 

I am working with 2 groups of tailors with disability in Kampala and Gulu, and 1 group of basket weaving women in Kikooba. 

The aim of the project is to develop their small scale business in a sustainable way. 

In addition to that, as I did when I was working in Kenya, I am using a problem-solving approach called the Positive Deviance Approach.  

The approach builds capacity with expression/reflection/analyse exercices concerning the groups' challenges and their reasons, main goals and their objectives and common behaviors to see what needs to be improved, kept or modified in terms of behaviors. The approach also uses Positive Deviants, which in this case would be successful/working tailoring and crafts groups around their areas, that the groups go visit and interview on different topics in order to have local examples, advice and sustainable solutions to their current challenges. 

The approach also teaches groups to build a realistic action plan to solves their challenges and reach their goals. And with those skills solve futur challenges and plan towards other goals. 

We are almost done with the preparation phase of the action plan with the Kampala group: KDI. We are meeting 3 times per week and the group is advancing very well. Here are pictures of their visits. In total, they had visits from or visited 6 different tailoring groups and fashion designers around Kampala:

Kikooba group is at the stage of visiting other basket weaving groups as we are only meeting once per week. The next step will be to gather the information and create the action plan.

Lugoro Tutte tailoring group is also at the stage of meeting other groups as we are meeting more or less once per month. More photos will come in the next post. 

Although the groups have different rhythms of work, they are very motivated and grasp the amount of information well. 

After the interviews, the teams gather all the information into the different challenge topics as shown on the picture below.  

In the next post I will show you how the groups put the solutions to their challenges and activity to reach their goals into an organized action plan.