Budget Game Take Two

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We started the day strategizing what we wanted the afternoon lesson to be for the group we met with last week. During that seession, we played the ‘bean game’ and it was not completely understood by the women. But, they were asking good questions so we decided to try a new game with them. This time they would be placed into small groups and given a monthly budget. They needed to decide how to spend their money between several different needs and wants. At the end, the women presented and explained their budget. It was great to see the women understanding their needs vs wants and all of them had money left over for savings.



Uganda has basically been shut down with COVID since March 2020. Restaurants, bars, clubs, schools, etc have not been open. One of the many unfortunate things that came out of this shut down is that the government forced RWO to shut down their shelter. RWO had to scramble to figure out where the girls should go. Many of the girls and women were fleeing from child marriage, domestic abuse or had been thrown out by their family. Because of this returning home was not a safe environment, but some had to do so anyways. Lock down will officially end Jan 24th, so the hope is that RWO can reopen the shelter as the need has only increased during COVID. Also, I have heard on multiple occasions here that many Ugandans believe that Bill Gates created the covid virus. Some believe that he made it for population control and others believe he was testing vaccines for other diseases in Africa and created it by mistake. This was surprising to me because I would have expected that Bill Gates would have been viewed in very high regard here with all of the work he has done to eradicate malaria and address poverty. But, I think it can be attributed to lack of education and no real sources of news.



After work Hope, her sister Claire, Irene and I stopped at a local pork joint. Pork cooked along the road side is very popular. I tired the ribs as well as the sausage and they were both great. I learned more about their families as well. Hope has 21 siblings, that she knows of, with 9 different moms. She and Claire said they never really got to know their father until they were adults because he was never home. Hope’s uncle stopped counting at 54 children, but has had more since then. There is certainly no way that either father could care for all these children and so it falls to the mothers to make ends meet. Hope had many suiters, some in their 60s, come for her to be his 2nd, 3rd, 4th wife, but fortunately her mother allowed her to say no. Hope, Irene, Claire all have just one child and do not have plans to have more. Which I think is a good anecdotal example of how education can curb the issue of more children than can be cared for. But, still as of today 54% of the Ugandan population is under the age of 18 years old so there is a long way to go.



We finished the evening with Irene playing a variety of East African music for me, time will tell if I will be able to bring home some new dance moves.

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Comments

[Beverly Totty]

Budget class
What a simple BUT vital tool to those precious ladies . Great work! Blessings to you and your team. BT