I am excited that for the first time ever, I have taken the initiative to register my social enterprise, Alinga Farms, to benefit from a Government Project.

Alinga Farms is now registered and if approved may benefit from the “Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises (GROW),” project that is being implemented by the Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU).

Two of us at Alinga Farms have already signed up and if approved we may benefit in getting trained on:

• Beekeeping
• Food preservation
• Mushroom growing
• Yoghurt making

At Alinga Farms, we hope to soon finalize an on-going audit of our associate farmers – out growers of our flagship product, Atorot, our brand of organically grown and sundried calyces of hibiscus sabdariffa fruit – in Pallisa. Through Alinga Farms, our associate farmers may benefit from GROW.

It is our hope to expand the production of Ebaale, our brand of organically grown and dried oyster mushrooms to increase production volumes in Pallisa; as well establish production in Entebbe; and branch into selling of fresh mushrooms.

Our plan is to re-open our Alinga Farms Shop, once at Bugolobi Market, but will now be at Entebbe. Our loyal customers within the Kampala metropolitan area need not worry, our delivery services to you will resume.

Novelist Kakwenza, was one of our customers while our Alinga Farms Shop was open in in Bugolobi Market.

“GROW is a government of Uganda 5-year project with a development objective of increasing access to entrepreneurial services that enable female entrepreneurs to grow their enterprises in targeted locations, including in host and refugee districts.” (GROW website)

My gratitude goes to Hon. Victoria Sekitoleko for shaming ‘elite women’, such as me, into becoming pro-active to know what is on offer for women development. ‘Elite women’, that is, who are in position to better access and to facilitate other women to access opportunities, such as GROW.

Hon. Sekitoleko’s advocacy was the final straw that I need to take the decision to visit PSFU and the GROW project secretariat in Kampala, in order to find out more. During my exploratory visit, I learnt that GROW has two major ways that it is established to support women businesses:

• Technical support – including training and other business support services
• Access to Finance – loans at lower interest rates of 10 percent per annum that will be made accessible through select banks.

We, at Alinga Farms, are getting our house in order and are delighted of this opportunity that will help us revive and grow our business better as we were when I gave a TED talk sharing our success story.

Yes, we have taken major hits in the past that brought us to our knees, but with the opportunity of GROW we now have hope for explosive revival.

Another reason why I took the initiative to register Alinga Farms with GROW is so that, as the Managing Director of CPAR Uganda, I may lead by example. Access knowledge which I may use to make informed proposals to our Board of Directors on how we may facilitate women to benefit from GROW.  

Particularly so, how beneficiaries of our CPAR Uganda “Uganda women’s economic empowerment loan fund” may benefit from Grow.