A New Beginning

Daniel with his wife, Winnie, and their children in Rubanda.

Daniel lives with his family in a village in the Rubanda district. On their small farm, they grow beans, sorghum, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, and bananas. For years, Daniel struggled with low crop yields and unpredictable income. “We didn’t know how to use what we had. We bought artificial fertilizer, but it was expensive and drained our resources,” he says.

When RTV partnered with his community in early 2024, Daniel joined the training sessions without hesitation. The sessions introduced practical farming techniques, financial literacy, forming cooperatives, and topics on food security and WASH. Along with training, Daniel received seeds and tools to put the new knowledge into practice. The impact was immediate. “Using compost, liquid manure, and organic pesticides made all the difference. My harvests increased, and I saved money by not buying inputs from the market,” Daniel says. His first post-training harvest of beans and Irish potatoes brought in UGX 900,000. With part of the earnings, he bought a cow.

Winnie winnowing beans from their farm

To improve his family’s diet, Daniel and his wife, Winnie, built a keyhole garden and planted vegetables like spinach, black nightshade, and nakati. “Now we grow enough vegetables to eat at home. Sukuma wiki is the kids’ favorite. They’re eating well and staying healthy,” Winnie shares.

Daniel preparing a new beehive for his beekeeping business

Inspired by lessons on cooperatives, Daniel joined a Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA). Each week, he saved a small amount, and the group eventually launched a soap-making project. “We make liquid and bar soap and sell it to schools, hospitals, and others in the area. We hope to expand to nearby towns,” Daniel explains. With a loan from the group, he also started a beekeeping business and now sells honey in the local market. Winnie joined a women’s VSLA, and together, they borrow to invest in the farm and cover school fees, repaying loans with earnings from their harvests and businesses.

Daniel has big plans for the future. “I want to buy more land and grow crops on a larger scale,” he says. He also hopes to start trading, buying produce in bulk from local farmers to sell in larger markets.

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Raising The Village (RTV) partners with last-mile, rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa and develops holistic initiatives that pave the pathway out of ultra-poverty towards economic self-sufficiency within 24 months. Our programs focus on improving agricultural incomes through training and providing agricultural inputs, diversifying income streams, removing barriers to participation such as lack of access to health, water, financial inclusion, and food security, and promoting healthy behaviors including adopting healthy WASH and gender equity practices. Since 2016, we have impacted the lives of more than 1.3 million people in last-mile villages in Uganda.