For close to a year now, JESE with support from CARE, has been implementing the Fill the Nutrition Gap (FNG) Project in Kyaka II refugee settlement in Kyegegwa district. The project was as a result of the fact that most of the development partners were paying attention to other issues and living out the component of livelihood. This left many persons of concern struggling to access food and most of the children got malnourished.

To reverse the situation, the FNG project was brought on board. This project has a number of components including Gender, nutrition, Agriculture and production and marketing among others.

Denis Mwesigwa, the project coordinator, says that before the implementation of the project, most of the families were surviving on insufficient food rations from the government and development partners.

The project is working with 1,000 households and these have been trained in different areas like moulding energy-saving cook stoves to reduce on the rampant cutting down of trees for firewood.

To start with, target beneficiaries were organised into groups and trainings in vegetable growing stated. Demonstration gardens were established in selected areas where association members would meet, learn and work together. The idea was to replicate the same knowledge in their own homes.

Zawadi Claudine is one of the beneficiaries. She says that before the project, they only used to grow maize and beans and had no idea about vegetable growing and her children had become anaemic.

“We were living in a terrible situation but when JESE and CARE came, we were taught how to grow vegetables like spinach, dodo, onions, carrots, egg plants and many others. We now see change in our homes. We eat well and our children look healthy,” Zawadi says.

Jean Hatimana is another beneficiary of the FNG project. He says that the training from CARE and JESE is transforming their lives. He notes that under their group they have established a big group garden where they harvest vegetables for home consumption and for sale.

“Going forward, our plan it to buy a motorcycle and start a salon as our alternative sources of income,” Hatimana says.

Francine Deborah is a Community Based Trainer (CBT) for Vijana Group notes that on top of vegetable growing, the project added the component of saving.

“Right now, every member of the group has a kitchen garden. We started selling some of the vegetables in July and saved some of the money. From July to November, we have sold vegetables worth 1.2 million shillings,” Deborah says.

In addition to vegetable growing, farmers were also given rabbits for sale and consumption. These have also added to the boosting of nutrition and ensuring food security among the beneficiaries.

VHT Component

Tackling the high prevalence of malnutrition needed a multi thronged approach. Having vegetables alone would not solve the issue entirely, and this is the reason why Village Health Teams were involved.

Lamonde Emmanuel is one of the many VHTs that worked on the project. He says that his efforts to fight malnutrition and anaemia were even hampered by some cultural beliefs of the mothers in the settlement.

“You would go to assess the health of the child and the mother would say you want to bewitch the child. But we would always say no: we only want to check the health condition of the baby,” Emmanuel says.

He, however, adds that the situation has since changed. Mothers were taught how to take care of their children, feed them well on energy giving and body building foods, and this has drastically reduced on the malnutrition cases in the settlement areas where the project is being implemented. “We even gave a mark tape to every household. Mothers can now take measurement of their own children. We thank JESE and CARE so much for this intervention,” he says. 

On November 24th, Joint Effort to Save the Environment (JESE) under the Rwenzori Agroecology Platform (RAP) with support from Iles de Paix (IDP) and CARE are organized an indigenous seed and food fair in Rwenzori Sub Region.

The event took place at Reinah Hotel in Fort Portal Tourism City and was concluded with an exhibition of indigenous seeds and food.

The major objective of the activity was to showcase the actual and potential contribution of farmer-managed seed systems on conservation of agricultural biodiversity, food security and food sovereignty of smallholder farming communities in Rwenzori Sub Region.

It should be noted that JESE, IDP partners, CARE and other RAP actors have been working with communities to improve food security through agroecology and increasing resilience of rural communities for a long time.

Globally, we observe increasing and overlapping levels of malnutrition, including undernutrition and over nutrition, and related non communicable diseases. Worldwide,795 million people are not able to meet their minimum dietary energy needs (FAO, 2015), 2 billion people lack essential minerals and vitamins (FAO ,2013) and over 2billion people are overweight or obese (WHO,2015).

Almost half our global citizens now experience food shortages and food nutrition insecurity to the extent that they cannot be active and healthy lives. Increased scrutiny of global food resources and food security has brought attention to shrinking diversity in major food crops in national diets.

According to the findings of continental Accountability scorecard launched by the African Union and the African leaders for Nutrition (ALN) in 2019, data shows that in African continent, 8 million children under5 years are stunted, 58.4 million of these stunted are in Africa.

Malnutrition is not only one of the worst killers of children under five years of age but prevents children and adolescents from reaching their full potential and traps entire populations in vulnerability. Through its negative effects on the development of human capital and its productivity, malnutrition contributes to the delay in African countries ‘economic and social development, with unacceptable human consequences on African individuals, communities’ and nations. Nutrition and Resilience concepts are strongly interlinked: nutrition is both an input to and an outcome of strengthened resilience. Reducing malnutrition is crucial to strengthening resilience because well nourished individuals are healthier, can work harder and have greater physical reserves; households that are nutrition secure are thus better able to with stand, endure more longer and recover more quickly from external shocks.

Conversely, households that are least resilient are more affected by shocks and therefore face the greatest risk of malnutrition; thus strengthening resilience is essential in efforts to reduce malnutrition.

The food and agriculture sector is essential to human nutrition and to communities ‘resilience, but approaches designed to increase house holds’ resilience to shocks do not always contribute to positive and sometimes even have negative nutrition outcomes. Specific attention is required to make resilience –building interventions “nutrition- sensitive.”

Indigenous and traditional food systems have served as a major source of healthy diet that ensures food and nutrition security. Access to secure, nutritious, and healthy food is one of the aspects offering greater human security and societal stability. Indigenous and traditional food systems have served as a major source of healthy diet amongst the local communities. Indigenous peoples are the world are stewards of nature and holders of vast local knowledge and traditions, handed down from generation to generation, that guide them in living interdependently with the environment.

Indigenous and traditional food systems represent a treasure of trove of knowledge that contributes to wellbeing and health, benefiting communities preserving a rich biodiversity, and providing nutritious food. Indigenous and traditional territories are home to 80 per cent of the planet’s biodiversity and often play a wider role in environmental conservation.

At the Indigenous Seeds and Food Fair, farmers showcased different agroecological practices, indigenous and traditional foods and seeds in Rwenzori Sub Region, and how these are preserved, prepared and consumed. 2

The event also created awareness on the value of indigenous/ traditional food systems, agroecology and their contribution in strengthening the resilience capacity of smallholder farming communities to climate change related stresses. Also, it provided a platform for experience sharing and dialogue on creating an enabling policy environment for scaling up agroecology as a driver for enhancing ecosystem health and transformation of food systems towards resilience, equity and sustainability.

This was achieved through discussions and speeches by selected key guests on indigenous seeds and foods, nutrition and other components and exhibition of indigenous seeds and foods, value added products, indigenous products display, herbs and herbal products displays that took place at the Green Belt along Balya Road in Fort Portal Tourism City.

The Fair was attended by Rwenzori Sub region community, Civil Society organisations, Private Sector, Local government leaders, Cultural leaders, media and Key farmers in the districts of Rwenzori Sub Region.

On November 22nd and 23rd, JESE conducted a training of key stakeholders from Agago District Local Government on using the Menstrual Health Management (MHM++) manual.

The manual targets women and out-of-school girls and was developed by MHM master trainers along with Ministry of Education and Sports (MOES) with support from Nuffic and funded by Orange Knowledge Programme.

In conjunction with Geregere Sub County Community Development office, key stakeholders were mobilized and these included; District officials (Gender officer, District Health Inspector), technical and political leaders, sub county personnel, Parish chiefs, health centres’ in charges, heath assistants, schools’ management committees, parents’ teachers’ association representatives, Village Health Teams (VHT’s) and wetland community management committees. 

A total of 65 people (Males= 27, Females= 38) participated in this training.

The MHM master trainers from JESE and HEWASA Caritas conducted the training in an intensified manner, covering all the 04 modules; Puberty, Myths and misconceptions; Sex and Gender, Understanding the menstrual cycle and its challenges; Knowledge on menstrual health management, and Communication of information around Menstrual Health.

This was crowned by categorical action planning for District/ Sub County officials, heath centres/ schools representatives and community based structures cadres (VHT’s and wetland management structures).

Participants were actively involved both in experience sharing and functional drawing such as body parts with much preference on men with majority of the participants who ably identified the gaps in terms of their involvement on MHM issues. All participants promised to disseminate MHM information with immediate effect.

Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) are a valuable social safety-net for vulnerable groups of people. They provide a sort of adaptation financing and increase financial choices for poverty-stricken populations in the face of climate change
and Pandemics.

For us JESE, we learn that VSLAs are a valuable social safety-net for vulnerable groups of people. They provide a sort of adaptation financing and financial choice in the face of climate change. Poor people can draw their reserves to invest in climate Smart Agriculture, healthcare and education.

For the 30 years of its existence, JESE facilitated the mobilisation of over UGX10 Billions in Western Uganda that have been re-invested by rural households and providing alternative livelihoods. In this magazine, we share some of the stories of beneficiaries of this village financing model. Below are the stories of change:

Atuhaire Grace

I belong to a VSLA group called Kyembogo Bakyara Tukorre Hamu. I am a Community Based Trainer (CBT) but also a group member since I could not sensitise the community about an initiative that I am not part
of. So, I am the 30th member of my group. I started saving well like I was taught by JESE.

During the first cycle, I saved only UGX 520,000 and received UGX 620,000 at share out, which means I had a profit of UGX 100, 000. I learned that saving is one way to minimise the misuse of money because we save weekly. I also learned that saving money helps me make priorities. I learnt to prioritise and where
I need to spend; practices that I had never done before. It helped to avoid unnecessary expenditure.

The money I shared out in the first cycle was used to expand our coffee plantation by half a hectare. This was in collaboration with the entire family, here we all work on the farm including my husband. In the second cycle, I also saved UGX 520, 000 because we maintained the share value of UGX 10,000. We saved for 52 weeks, I received UGX 680,000 with a profit of about UGX 160,000.

We did not have a vehicle then when we started expanding our farm. We had challenges in transporting our coffee and bananas, so we waited for the share out and topped-up to purchase a pickup. It’s old but it serves the purpose that when we harvest coffee, we are able to take it for processing and no longer sell it to middle men. I got a loan of UGX 400,000 in the second cycle to start a piggery project. I am starting small and have bought one piglet at UGX 200,000. I also got another loan to support my children at school. My children are encouraged to study well.

VSLAs supports diversification into off farm enterprises

On-farm livelihoods are increasingly facing climate change risks, including uncertainty of seasons, pests
and diseases and the resultant farm losses. Such risks and vulnerability forced Allen Twinomujuni to diversify into the business of groceries, while drawing empowerment from the VSLA approach to obtain the much needed startup capital. VSLAs enhance sustainable access to credit and provide
opportunities for financial inclusion, income diversification and expanding the asset base.

Allen Twinomujuni is one of the many beneficiaries of VSLAs supported by JESE over
the past 10 + years and she narrates how VSLAs provided the launch pad to start her grocery
business.

My name is Twinomujuni Allen. I am the chairperson of Kyerenga Village Savings and Loans Association and an active member of Kyerenga Wetland Conservation Association. I am also a retail trader, operating a grocery in Rwaibale. I have been involved with JESE since 2019 when I was trained in VSLAs and taken for learning visits in Fort Portal to see how other farmers do things differently and profitably.

Since that time, I was personally challenged to be creative and pursue agribusinesses that have stable income streams. So, when I started out in my VSLA, I was inwardly persuaded to take out a loan of 300,000 Shillings to invest in crop growing. However, I lost it all when the crops failed. I paid off the debt with other produce I had kept that season. I dared the second time and took out another 500,000 in loan and this time I invested it in a grocery, selling a variety of food stuffs like tomatoes, potatoes, beans,
cassava and fresh vegetables, a thought that I had invested wisely this time.

From the grocery, I am able to save 20,000 every month and the rest of the money is invested in food production and a piggery project. I am also working towards establishing a zero grazing dairy project”
I am grateful to JESE for introducing to us the VSLA initiative because the women do not have to stake their land and other assets any more to guarantee loan acquisition. The process is easier and friendly
to our status as women who in most cases do not own land or assets to raise collateral required by
the banks.”

My name is Kaija Paul from Matiri in Kihuura Sub County, Kyenjojo district. I started working with JESE as a farmer from the year 2000, when Kyenjojo was actually still part of Kabarole district. JESE came with its agenda that included transforming agriculture, environmental protection that included planting trees, Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs), marketing of our farm produce, and how to improve sanitation and hygiene among others.


Those days, we used to get water for drinking from rivers and would be so dirty. As a result, typhoid cases got so high but when JESE came, they built for us boreholes and taught us how to boil the water to prevent typhoid cases. I remember very well how the cases of these diseases were reduced. Even when the schools were very few, they encouraged us to educate our children.


In the year 2002, they brought us cows and introduced zero grazing to us. They also brought us goats, which were imported from South Africa. Here in Kihuura, we were very lucky because we were the very first to have those goats in the region. These goats multiplied and they could be in the whole country now. On farming particularly, they taught us many good practices. In Kihuura here, we used to collect grass and burn it when clearing the fields for the planting season. But JESE staff stopped us from doing that. They told us that when we burn the grass, we reduce the fertility

levels of the soil. They told us to start burying the grass, and we did that. We were taught how to dig vertical and horizontal trenches to tackle soil erosion and other challenges. From that time, our harvests increased, and our incomes also increased.


They also brought us improved varieties of Irish potatoes and bananas and we started growing them on a large scale. On my side, I am so grateful and proud of JESE because of the transformation they made in my life. First of all, they gave me a cow which I looked after for a long time and I really earned so much from it. They gave us varieties of coffee, bananas and coffee which I still have up to date. By the time I met JESE, I had very young children who were just starting to go to school, but they encouraged me and showed me ways how I could educate them.


Right now, I have eight (8) degrees in my home. These include doctors, nurses, teachers, accountants among others. My last two children have just completed S.6 and they passed very well. All these were educated with money I earned from JESE interventions and advice. I have built a permanent and beautiful house and I have some means of transport now. I have never gone to the market to buy food for my family because we grow enough food here.


The five hectare of coffee that I have can enable me to harvest over 100 bags per season. That is really some good money in my advanced age now. During those earlier training, we were also taught how to integrate trees in our coffee gardens. I now have mango trees where I can earn over Shs 150,000 per harvesting season per tree. That is also some income for my family.


In 2018, JESE partnered with Wash Alliance International (WAI)/ WASH SDG to implement a WASH SGD in Agago Sub Catchment aimed at contributing to sustainable and equitable access to and use of inclusive WASH services by communities through the adoption and scale up of improved WASH behavioural services.

This project is being implemented in the in 15 Sub Counties and three town councils. These had very low sanitation levels.

Before the intervention, these areas had issues of shortage of safe and clean water and low latrine coverage which was resulting into open defecation and the related water borne diseases.

But that was not all. There was also a challenge of flush floods, which were destroying food crops and leading to the sinking of latrines.

To reverse the situation, JESE with the Agago district leadership, facilitated community members to create a 1.5 Km flood control trench. This has controlled the floods since the running water that would affect the gardens now gets collected into the trench.

Currently, numerous results have been registered including high crop productivity in Kamonojwii, Geregere Sub County.

Also, sanitation levels have been boosted from 12.5 % to 70 % and 06 flood prone latrines were established with due consideration to the vulnerable households (PWDs and elderly).

Nam central, Kamonojwii and Latinling Namare villages in Latinling parish, Geregere subcounty, Agago district. These villages are south of River Agago and sit in the hotspot areas identified at the beginning of the project along Olupe micro sub catchment that feeds into the River Agago where the WASH SDG 6 sub programme is being implemented in Agago district.

The three villages were faced with the following challenges; floods, encroachment, deforestation and poor sanitation and hygiene at household levels.

The flood mainly arising from not only settlement within the wetlands but also other human activities that led to encroachment of wetlands and cutting down of trees without replacement. Due to loose soils and flooding nature of the area, many households find it hard to get good yields from their gardens due to water logging in the farmlands. Impassable roads due to floods that cut them off to access other commodities from the market.

JESE through the WASH SGD 6 sub programme intervened with an aim to achieve Climate Vulnerability
Resilience and inclusive Water, Sanitation and Hygiene services. Community training and awareness
creations were conducted per village and each village came up with Simple Doable Actions (SiDAs.). These
awareness training led to a change that is visible today.

JESE facilitated a district extension staff (District Agricultural Officer) to create awareness and train
communities in the three villages on the best possible ways to achieve good crop yields irrespective of the alarming floods.


Community members were trained on different agronomical technologies and climate smart agriculture.
They include; inter-cropping, crop rotation, agroforestry, mulching, creation of contours bands, trenching
in the farmlands, kitchen gardening among others.

Establishment of kitchen gardens by households

Out of the 162 households in the three villages, about 10 households have taken up kitchen gardening as a serious venture to grow vegetables. About 30 households practice it majorly for home
consumption. Some households are earning up to about Shs 150,000 per month from the sale of eggplants from the kitchen gardens and yet they also sell some to the neighbours that are not accounted for.

At least a basin full of egg plants is obtained daily when it starts yielding. One cabbage is sold ranging from shs500 to 1,000 depending on the size. This has improved the household incomes when the vegetables are sold. The money is used to purchase the basic necessities at household levels.

Vegetables from the kitchen gardens
The health and sanitation have been improved since the income being got from the kitchen gardens is used to buy soap, construct latrines and sanitary pads among others. The nutrition levels have
also increased with the various vegetables being grown in the kitchen gardens like cabbages, onions, egg plants, Sukuma wiki, Dodo, green pepper, and spinach. This helps in a balanced diet of family members
thus being healthy.

The community members are so thankful to the WASH SDG Program especially partner JESE for the wonderful work they have done in the community.


Ocaka Robert said that in 2012, the flooding started after returning from the camps yet his grandfather told him that it last happened in the 1950s. Their houses started falling off around 2016 to 2019 with water sometimes coming from underground yet they were sleeping on the floor and they lost a lot of properties.


Robert added, “we could not construct latrines during the rainy season, the latrine is always filled up with water, the walls are weakened and washed away and it forces me and my family members to defecate in the bush.” He added, “I think the bad practices of our fathers, grandparents and I are the real cause of what we are experiencing these days”.


He applauds JESE for the creation of the trenches as he laments, “After the creation of the trenches, we can now construct latrines freely and this has reduced on open defecation”


“I could not cook using a local three stone stove when the whole compound is filled with water and the kitchen also has water coming from the ground. This affected me and my family members, making us go some days without food,” Akidi Rebecca said.


She added, “my garden is always filled with water and my crops destroyed, which led to famine. We lose a lot of money from the garden activities yet later on they are destroyed by the floods”


Akidi said, “The water run-offs always make the roads impassable making our access to the only borehole in the area hard and also to the market and hospital”.


She added, “The creation of the trenches has made us get good yields since there is no longer water logging in the farmlands and has improved our livelihoods. The roads are now passable since the water is channeled to River Agago.”

Parked maize flour that is processed by Kabambiro farmers

Joint Effort to Save the Environment with funding from Ilex de Paix (IDP) is implementing a program called Mpanga Super Farmers Program (MSFP) in Kabambiro sub county, Kamwenge District. This program aims at striking a balance between environmental, social and economic aspects in the implementing communities.

This program targets small holder farming households. In the year 2018 and 2019, maize price was at an average of 300 shillings in Kamwenge and our beneficiaries suffered great loss amidst much efforts of negotiating for better prices from potential buyers like New Kakinga and JB Kaganga but could not yield much. In the year 2020, MSFP beneficiaries started working towards maize value addition while processing it to posho and bran as a bi-product.

During the meeting to discuss the planned ideas on maize milling, JESE initiated the process of forming a marketing association (MA) for collectively marketing beneficiaries’ harvests. The meeting also resolved that members should start fundraising through members’ registration and buying of shares. JESE took the responsibility of building the MA capacity in areas of quality management, business development packages, leadership and governance packages.

Through MSFP, the MA in partnership with JESE undertook the initiative to raise money for MA maize milling business. This initiative had a primary purpose of providing milling services to program beneficiaries and the community so that they can spend less on acquiring posho and bran for human and live stock. The MA started a fundraising drive from its members where an approximate of 11 million shillings was raised.

After raising the money, it was agreed that the money be used in acquiring land for the business and JESE pledged to support them with a full set of milling machine, electricity installation and connection. Last year, the MA were able to buy a plot of land with a permanent structure and also restructured it to suit the milling project. Thereafter, JESE installed and connected power to the structure and also procured and delivered a full set of milling machine. On 24/12/2022 the MA started its milling business while serving its members and the entire community. All community members were very happy with the quality of posho produced and they pledged to support the business. By the end of April 2023, the business was able to generate 6.860.000 million shillings from milling for community members.

This interested JESE to negotiate with the MA leaders to do a co-funding on supporting the business with branding and packaging of their product, secure a digital weighing scale and a tricycle to facilitate marketing of posho within the sub county and nearby sub counties.

Joint Effort to Save the Environment (JESE) over the years has been engaging farming households in Kabarole, Kyenjojo and Kamwenge to improve incomes and nutrition security through dairy farming with a focus on zero grazing. To address the nutrition challenges in the region, JESE has also focused on engaging and supporting the primary schools and vulnerable youth in Fort Portal City to implement horticultural activities.

Our Work on Horticulture with Primary Schools  

Horticulture is unique to JESE and has created opportunities to engage young boys and girls and patrons in the primary schools to ensure school environment supports both health, wellbeing and learning about safe food production and consumption both at school and in their homes. 

This intervention has increased the children’s nutrition and knowledge among young children, attitude and practices to optimize their healthy lifestyle by encouraging them to eat healthiy and stay physically active, demonstrating practices for safe production and pupils’ interaction and discussion on nutrition and safe foods through debates.

The intervention has created opportunities especially in the new government curriculum for school teaching to link the theory and practical lessons using the set demonstrations.

Members of Nyakagongo Primary School Agriculture Farming Club (Left ) with members of the farming club of Kagote Primary School Agricultrue farming club weeding their demonstration garden (Right)

Our Work on Horticulture with Refugee Households

JESE work with refugee households in Kyaka II refugee settlement to improve incomes, food and nutrition security. Currently, JESE is engaging 1,000 refugee households in horticulture using the key hole method (see photos below).

A beneficiary refugee household in Kyaka II refugee settlement

Our Work on Horticulture with Youth

JESE supports vulnerable youth in horticulture through urban farming to create employment for the youth, improving livelihoods and strengthening sustainable food systems. JESE is currently supporting 200 vulnerable youth in Fort Portal city to use small spaces in growing and management of horticultural products including sukuma wiki, onions, cabbages, spinach, zucchini, beetroot and amaranthus among others.

Youth undergoing training in horticulture (left) with a youth supported in urban farming (Right)

Our Work on Dairy with Small Holder Farmers

JESE supports small holder farmers to integrate livestock (dairy) in their farming systems. Currently, JESE is working with 450 households in Kicwamba in Kabarole district under this intervention to enhance incomes and nutrition security at household level. JESE is using this as a complementary interaction between the livestock and crops whereby the dairy units are able to provide manure to the farm to enhance soil fertility and crop remains as fodder for the animals and for nutritional purposes at the household.

Members of beneficiary households in Kicwamba under the Mpanga Super Farmers Programme that have been supported with zero grazing units



Through the work of JESE, I became civically empowered. When I was mobilising and forming groups, many people embraced it and were happy to join because I convinced them that it would work out. I later contested to be the District Woman Councilor and was elected unopposed both at party primaries and general elections.

There was no other woman who dared to challenge me and this really encouraged me. I was successful because of hard work, diligence, mentoring and support of JESE.

My involvement with women groups and community voluntary work endeared me to the people, resulting in my election as women leader at the Local Council.

I have used my position and women’s groups as platforms to influence the government to provide safe
and accessible water through construction of boreholes and protected springs. I am glad that the burden of moving long distances to fetch water has been relieved for women and children.

I was trained in the VSLA Approach by JESE and assigned to share this knowledge and approach with fellow women. After successfully mobilising women for natural resources conservation, I challenged them
to begin thinking about saving money alongside the duty and passion to conserve the environment.

While women expressed fear about saving money because they had no clear source of income, I thought to myself and consulted other women about the idea of making crafts from the material resources available in the wetlands. The idea came so strongly that we embraced it. After securing the source of income, the women mobilised for the VSLA and started saving every week.

Today, our SACCO is one of the biggest in Butunduzi/ Rwibale Villages.
In the VSLA training by JESE, I was introduced to making saving plans and upon return, I passed on the
knowledge to fellow women, whom I trained in making their own and as a result, each woman developed a saving plan and a vision map. The women began to work to achieve a shared vision of their homes.

For a long time, JESE has been working to protect the forested areas in Kyenjojo, specifically Matiri and Itwara. But restoration also comes with a question of alternative sources of livelihood for those who encroach on these forests. As an alternative source of livelihood, JESE with partners like Forests of the World, has looked at apiary as one of the businesses that communities surrounding forests can engage in to earn a living and get out of the forests.

Here is the story of one of the bee keepers and a business mentor that JESE has worked with to promote the business of bee keeping in Kyenjojo district.

My name is Sophia and I work here in Kyenjojo town council. I’ve been a beekeeper for over 10 years now. I like bee keeping because I started it a long time ago and I have come a long way.

Everything around me is Beekeeping and honey is my main source of income. The day when I met JESE, I had had an intervention with them some time back, like 10 years ago. But now they wanted me to meet their beekeepers and help them on value addition because I have walked a long journey in beekeeping.

Mainly, I am a practical trainer, I have an apiary myself and I do harvest myself and get out the honey from one level to another. I helped groups to start adding value to their honey. I helped them to see that if you have comb honey, how you can turn it into a fine product which is honey itself. After getting the honey, there is another product called beeswax stage 2 from where we get candles.

They also learnt how to make propolis – a gum substance that bees use to seal holes on a bee hive.
This substance is collected by bees from any tree that gives sap and trees that have flowers with a
gum substance like guavas and avocados. Bees visit all these trees to collect this product that is medicinal and good for cough, flu and it also treats stomach complications. We also make a product
called Propolis Ointment which is for external use only like on skin rashes.

The groups which I trained were mainly youth groups, and they are now doing so well in bee keeping especially in value addition. They produce their own honey and no longer sell comb honey.

After harvesting their honey, they process it very well through all the stages, pack it so well and now put it out in the market for sale. Worth an investment. Bee keeping is worth investing in. If I can give an example of myself, I started with some little money with around 10 jerry cans of honey. I started small with half a stall but for some two good years now,

I have moved. I can now sell 10 jerry cans in like six or nine months. Every month when I balance my records, I see that I can make an interest that is almost half of what I invest in.
Honey has quick money because every time I am moving, I carry some in my bag and in a taxi
someone needs honey, and the same happens when in a bus or when I enter a public office.

I thank JESE for the intervention because I was identified as an entrepreneur by JESE. These
people found me as a simple entrepreneur. My honey wasn’t labelled yet. Someone called Faith Tusubira visited me here with James Okwiri and they told me that my products were nice but what was lacking was the Branding. They encouraged me to have a product that would be competitive on the market and can inspire other people to also do the same.

I really thank JESE and Forests of the World for this great work. I request them to give me more knowledge and training to enable me to excel in this business and be able to help other groups overcome their challenges.

Contact Us


Kitumba Cell,

P.o.Box. 728 Fort Portal

Western, Uganda

Tel: +256 772492109

Off: +256-483-425 253

Email: jese@jese.org

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