Kikondo, UG – Village assists SMW family’s goat and crop businesses to rise again after COVID-19 tragedy – 30 Sep 2021

The SMW family has found goat rearing an attractive business to earn income that supports food security, home maintenance, and investment in other business ventures. Goats require little ongoing maintenance since they can grow and sustain themselves by foraging for wild grasses. A baby goat of the local breed sells for $30 while an adult sells for $60, which is the basis for a profitable business. In the early part of the pandemic, business had grown to twenty goats and just before the untimely death of their father, the SMW family cared for forty goats. To provide food for her seven children, their mother had no choice but to sell every goat. At the depth of the COVID pandemic’s effects, the SMW family required food donated by Wamukisa, but a VICOBA member provided one young male and a younger female goat for the family to raise to maturity, requiring payment for the goats in the future. Their father’s extended family in condolence provided a small amount of money for another business opportunity.

Next to their FAITH garden, the SMW family owns one acre of land suitable for a field growing maize inter-cropped with beans. Wamukisa has trained the family in productive growing methods, including soil enrichment with manure and tilling in a way which protects seeds and promotes rainwater collection and retention. To combat COVID, Uganda has shut schools until January 2022. With academic education unavailable, the family has shifted to applied education. Wamukisa hired the older children to help plant and weed its commercial staple crop field during this growing season, where the children are paid and continuously trained in methods useful in the family field.