Kikondo, UG – Community trainings helps grandparents reduces expenses – 14 Sep 2016

The EFL family is reducing household expenses by implementing knowledge learned in Wamukisa trainings. The family has built a 2-bed vegetable garden, a water harvesting system, and a water filter to reuse wash water for irrigation. They have reduced their weekly food expenses by 3,000 UGS (US $1.00) and now fetch just three buckets of water per day instead of ten. Each bucket costs 200 UGS or take about half an hour to fetch.

Mr. EFL is 89 years old and his wife is 72. The have been looking after their daughter’s three grandchildren since she passed away. Their oldest grandchild is 16 years old and helps his grandparents with their farm. The family owns two cows and a one acre banana plantation. They have always enjoyed a comfortable life, but have felt the pressure of living on the edge of their family finances.
Since they started growing vegetables to lower their food bill and using water harvest and filtering techniques, the small reductions in expenses have greatly reduced financial stress on the family because they have a small cushion in case of emergency.

Mr. EFL and his grandson have enjoyed working in the vegetable garden and are interested in expanding their two beds so they can begin selling excess vegetables for an income. To do this they will need to improve their water access and learn to provide their own garden inputs like compost, seedlings, and foliar sprays.