Kasaka, UG – Nalongo starts household items shop – Feb 2025

Nalongo is the most recent addition to Wamukisa’s Kasaka team, and an important one she is! After learning the basics of growing organic vegetables early last year, she volunteered to help Wamukisa organize and mentor other families in her village to begin their own FAITH gardens and to form a VICOBA. This has led her to open a shop that supplies VICOBA members and her wider community with household items.

She became a member of Basooka VICOBA and has held the post of Secretary in the group. She started saving with the group, which encouraged other members to do the same. They saved for the whole of last year 2024. She realized that all 20 families with FAITH gardens walked 3km to Kasaka trading centre to buy household items, so she saved with a target of opening a shop at her house, using the savings plus a loan she acquired from Basooka group.

By January 2025 she had saved 500,000 shillings and received a loan of 140,000 from the VICOBA to buy shop inventory, plus a 150,000 loan to buy the small water container for watering the low-water-use kale pictured. She opened a shop at her house by transporting larger quantities of household items to the centre of the village. She now sells items to all neighboring families, helping them save a lot of time and energy.

Nalongo’s shop sales supplement her regular income working with Wamukisa, where she handles requests and trains new families who want to join the Wamukisa FAITH gardening program and Basooka VICOBA. She also has a new role mentoring Kasaka Secondary School’s new Agriculture Club. Because she demonstrates care for other people and ways to improve health and income, the Kasaka community trusts her and wants to follow her. Nalongo is looking forward to growing her shop as she expands her vegetable growing business