In many last-mile communities, households often lack access to regulated financial services such as banks and financial institutions, because they are considered “too high risk” or “too difficult” to reach. With limited access to financial services, these last-mile communities have few options when coping with financial emergencies, which can further aggravate and perpetuate the cycle [...]

In Kabukanga cluster in Kagadi district, Aisha lives with her husband, nine children, and her older father who she cares for. Though she’s struggled with multifaceted challenges stemming from ultra-poverty in the past, since partnering with Raising The Village, Aisha’s life has been transformed through holistic programming that engages all village members, including a specific [...]

Katungi is a small village in Kahoko Cluster, almost an hour away from the main town of Rukingiri. Like many last-mile villages, Katungi is isolated by distance, terrain, and the multifaceted impacts of ultra-poverty including a lack of basic infrastructure that makes it difficult for the community to access markets and services. However, as Raising [...]

In the southeastern parts of Uganda, situated around Lake Albert, lies the Kabukanga cluster with ten of our partner villages. These villages are the true representation of what it means to be last-mile, with the most challenging access and the region lagging far behind in socio-economic development as a result. We partnered with the communities [...]

Edson dropped out of school at the age of 14 to engage in subsistence farming with his parents to support his struggling family. Fifteen years later, as a father of four living in Kibarama village, Rukungiri District, Edson still relies on subsistence farming to support his household. During prolonged dry seasons, the family is at [...]

In the small village of Kyesabo – several kilometers from Mitooma town council – we met Feredensi in her garden harvesting onions and tomatoes. Parents to eight children, Feredensi and her husband rely on subsistence farming to provide for the family. A good harvest is critical to the family’s survival. Subsistence farmers depend on farming [...]

In a small town almost 2 hours away from Rukungiri’s main town, we drove around the towering hills to get to Kiteme village.  “You are most welcome,” said Georgina as soon as we arrived in her compound. She quickly poured us some water and “obushera” a very popular local drink in the area made up [...]

On a sunny afternoon in Rukiri A village in Kagadi District, a group of women are seated under a jackfruit tree, a common scene for many last-mile rural gatherings and meetings. This group of women make up the Bakyala Tubinge Obunaku Savings Group, which roughly translates to “Women Who Fight Poverty.” This group was formed [...]

In February 2020, Uganda registered its first case of COVID-19. Since then, the disruption of supply chains caused widespread food shortages, especially in last-mile rural villages in Uganda. Smallholder farmers and other local producers lost all contact they had with local markets and customers as well as other potential producers. Inevitably, this resulted in a [...]

Zephaniah, a farmer in the rural highlands of western Uganda, walks through his garden, picking ripe tomatoes. He is one of two billion smallholder and family farmers around the world, producing four-fifths of the food people consume overall.* He is also among the 433 million people estimated to live in extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa.** [...]