Building Back More Resilient In and Around Rubanda, Uganda

Thanks to funding from the Austrian Federal Ministry for Social Affairs, Health, Care and Consumer Protection, in partnership with Jugend Eine Welt, activities related to COVID-19 and its impacts are being implemented by MMS in and around Rubanda to benefit vulnerable women and children.

These two stories capture the change that is being brought about in small, but not insignificant ways, to their daily lives.

Here is Mary's story.

Mary is a strong-willed and determined woman who has beaten all odds to make her life better. She is a single mother, making every effort to bring up her daughter alone, after her husband abandoned her.  

Living with HIV, Mary now attends the clinics organised by the Rubanda Primary Health Care Programme, where she was very pleased to be invited to join MMS’ women’s group and become involved in handicraft work.  Mary enjoys these activities because they give her not only support, but joy and hope, as she spends time chatting and laughing with other women in the group.  Together, they build back better.

As part of the project, Mary also received a male and female rabbit four months ago and, very quickly, her farm has grown to now include eight rabbits.  She looks forward to extending it even further after the rabbits have continued to multiply. Income from selling the rabbits is already helping her to provide what her daughter needs for education and some of the rabbits are eaten by the family as a source of additional nutrition. In her kitchen garden, Mary grows vegetables for home consumption, too, from the knowledge she has acquired about using manure from the rabbit droppings to enrich the soil.

And now for Rose’s story.

Rose is also a single mother and one of the clients living with HIV who uses healthcare services provided by MMS in Rubanda.  After this project’s training sessions, she applied her newly acquired skills in kitchen gardening to grow vegetables for sale and for her own household consumption. She uses the small amount of income that this generates to respond to some of the basic needs of her family and, like Mary, also enjoys cooking the fresh vegetables to boost immunity during the ongoing pandemic. She is very grateful for the Austrian-funded activities.

She regularly joins other women in the district at basket-weaving sessions and for other social activities and already starts to feel much less isolated in life.