Households headed by widows often represent one of the poorest sub-groups in both Africa and Asia. The situation of rural widows and their dependents in Uganda illustrates the point.

Under customary law it is assumed that the welfare of widows and their children will be taken care of by the deceased’s kin. In Uganda, for instance, when there is no will, a widow is allowed only 25% of the estate of the deceased husband. All children, even if they are illegitimate, are entitled to 75%. In theory this applies to girls as well as to boys. However, in practice only the male children do inherit from their fathers and if they are not old enough it always ends up that the decision is made by the relatives to the man. Most cases end up in the widows being sent back to their parents’ homes with their children; usually infants.

 

The Director (in blue shirt) with volunteers assembling manual sewing machines for distribution to widows through the widows empowerment project .

 

Food security, education, stable life and health are right away placed in doubt because these women have no means income generation or provisions. They are left all on their own. Almost all cases end up in isolation of the widows and their children. This poverty situation often leads them to enter into practices and tendencies like prostitution and begging which leaves them at the mercy of men who usually have HIV and in some cases sending kids to beg on the streets in the city.

RCCM has approached this problem by organizing these widows, setting up seminars and meetings to train them in different skills like tailoring, handicrafts making, brick laying poultry faming and modern farming methods for those with land to improve output so as to be able to generate income from their farms.

 

A beneficiary of the project poses for a photo with her family of six.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A lady sits by her stall in the market place. She and many others need capital investment loans to start small businesses like this to support their dependants

 

We have provided sewing machines to different groups of women to allow them make some money through textile fabrication and related sewing work.

We provide training in business management and help them to secure financial services especially loans for small investments.

We are looking for US$ 60,000 to start a small micro-finance project to help these heads of house to access credit at very good interest rates so as to reduce the pressure from commercial micro-finance institutions.