Nakaseke: Over 400 women trained to preach govt's GROW project gospel

Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises Project (GROWTH) is a government's initiative being implemented by Ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development together with Private Sector Foundation Uganda (PSFU).

This project aims at responding to the needs of women entrepreneurs who want to grow their businesses, sustain their self-employment and create more jobs for others.

During the sensitization meeting of over 400 Nakaseke women held on Wednesday 5th at Nakaseke Technical Institute Hall located at Butalangu in Nakaseke district, Amuli Mayinja the Grant Application Support Assistant from Private Sector Foundation said that their objective is to increase access to entrepreneurial services that enable female entrepreneurs to grow their enterprises.

"We are looking at women entrepreneurs, their employees and we have pre-qualified a pool of service providers who are going to be providing value addition in the services that is being implemented by women in different locations," Mayinja said.

Mayinja adds that, this project is targeting women in the 135 districts and 11 cities of the country starting July this year.

"We are going to be giving out loans from Shs4 million to Shs200 million with 10 percent interest to the women entrepreneurs and the eligibility lies in a woman entrepreneur, associations, and Women groups that have graduated from government programs like Emyooga, PDM and others," he added.

In a meeting, Nakaseke women applauded government for the great initiative and they expressed hopes of changing their economic standards through it.

However, some expressed concerns of favoring and prioritizing a few particularly supporters of the political party in power, NRM stating that this leaves some eligible candidates behind hence calling for transparency.

"NRM has owned many projects in the district, favoring only their supporters leaving many non supporters frustrated yet these projects come for all Ugandans not just few, therefore we want the GROW implementers  to be transparent such that all of us benefit," said Hanifah Kalyesubula, District Councillor for Kiwoko Town Council.

Responding, the Woman Member of Parliament, Sarah Najjuma noted that  this money is here to develop every woman regardless of party ideologies.

"It is NRM in government and this doesn't mean that the project is targeting only supporters of NRM, we are talking about development of all people" Najjuma stated.

However, Najjuma urged implementers to provide application forms in hard copy at the district level to ease access especially by women in rural areas.

"We have Internet issues in the area and all application forms are on Internet, I kindly ask them to go traditional and provide forms in hard copy to reach more women on the grass root," Najjuma said.

This project was Launched in February 2022 and it is going to run for five years starting this year.