“Breakfast and lunch on our menu provided affordable good food for us. Both breakfast and lunch did not go beyond Shs. 4,000 (USD 1.02).

And the meals made up a well-balanced diet. Our meals were very delicious and nutritious. A balanced diet to provide quick energy for us to keep us active throughout the training.

Local dishes dominated our menu. We chose to have a selection of local foods.

We had matooke (green cooking bananas), beans, greens, cassava, sweet potatoes, chapati, millet ugali, maize ugali, fish and fresh fruits.

Maize ugali (aka Posho) served with pasted malakwang

We promoted indigenous food to enhance our dining experience. Ensuring we enjoyed familiar and nutritious meals throughout the training.

Our food, 100 percent locally sourced, gave us a source of proteins, vitamins, carbohydrates and more.

Our menu changed daily, offering different combinations of local staples for breakfast and lunch.

Our cyclic menu had a cycle of Monday to Friday for a period of two weeks of our training course, the CPAR Participatory Action Research Writing Masterclass. Friday marked the end of the cycle.

Our menu had different meals for each day of the same week.

That is to say, Monday meals were the different from Tuesday meals and so on of the same week.

Matooke (green cooking bananas) served with beans and greens

But it had the same meals for the same day in the next week. That is to say, Monday meals of week one, were the same as Monday meals of week two.

With the help of our trainers, we designed our menu to save money.

The low cost of feeding helped us to save money for other needs. Enabling us the peace of mind to stay active and focused with a full stomach, throughout the day.”

This is how our last cohort of trainees under our 2026 Dr. Paul Hargrave Memorial Centre human development program described the feeding budget allocation and feeding arrangement for their training course.

Last month, we, at CPAR Uganda, concluded a series of eight 11-day training courses, training 125 youth into community change agents, of whom 36 percent were young women.

Some trained as Media Change Agents, some as Research Change Agents and others as Self-Reliant Participatory Development Change Agents.

We conducted training courses in a manner that allowed the beneficiaries to be part of the training organization.

Among the participatory organisation tools, putting the beneficiaries directly responsible for making decisions about the training feeding budget for their respective courses.

Self-Reliant Participatory Development Change Agents Business Masterclass debate their menu and feeding budget.

Utilizing grant funding, CPAR Uganda gave each beneficiary a daily feeding allocation, with three conditions attached:

• First, the class had to agree on a group feeding fund – for purchase of food items for group meals.
• Second, each participant, using the feeding allocation grant, should make a group agreed contribution to the group feeding fund.
• Third, the training group, all participants, jointly make decisions on the menu and feeding expenses; while ensuring a balanced diet over the duration of the training.

Each training group used less than 50 percent of the daily feeding grant. They did so by exercising frugality.

The savings that they made, each trainee retained to utilize to cover their other genuine out of pocket needs.

Importantly, in order to make group decisions, we introduced participants to tools for making a menu, budgeting and budget control.

They had to keep basic financial records, the basis on which they made daily decisions related to their feeding.

It is our expectation beneficiaries will adopt, adapt and apply their experience during the training at household level.

That they will utilize their skills-set – practice of frugality, participatory decision making, transparency to all members, financial recording keeping and budget control for improving quality of live for themselves and their households.

Profiled photo @ Millet ugali (aka kwon or atap) served with pasted fish.