NGO helping slum dwellers reap the benifits of saving

Until October 31, New Vision will devote space to highlighting the plight of slum dwellers as well as profiling those offering selfless  service to improve conditions in these areas. Today, JOSEPH SSEMUTOOKE brings you the story of how The National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda and its partner NGO of Actogether are mobilising slum dwellers to make savings and improve their lives.

“Had it not been for the loans I got from my local savings group I would not have been able to pay tuition fees my for two children at Makerere University,” Hajji Abbas Mukwaya confesses.

Mukwaya, a trader in St Balikuddembe (Owino) Market who resides in Kisenyi II Parish, says his earnings were too inadequate to pay for his children’s university education, yet he had no access to loans. 

For Hajjati Haawa 

Nakaddi, a vegetable vendor in Jinja main market, owning a house was a dream beyond reach until she joined a savings group 10 years ago. 

The National Slum Dwellers Federation of Uganda (NSDFU) and its twin NGO of Actogether went around Jinja mobilising people to start up local saving groups to better their lives. Today, Hajjati Nakaddi is a proud owner of a two-roomed apartment in an estate.

Ronald Kasaalu of Kinawataka Market in Nakawa Division says the vendors at his workplace had long suffered with poor sanitation and lack of latrines until they started their own savings group under the guidance of NSDFU and Actogether. They were then able to use their savings to construct proper toilets which didn’t collapse shortly after construction like those the division had been constructing for them. Today sanitation has improved. 

Those are just a few of the testimonies you will hear from slum dwellers who are members of NSDFU/Actogether.

Who are NSDFU/Actogether?

NSDFU is a network of associations of slum dwellers from different urban centres in Uganda. It was set up about a decade ago to help the slum dwellers improve their lives. The organisation operates in five urban centres of Kampala, Jinja, Mbarara, Mbale and Kabale. It is also affiliated to Slum Dwellers International – the global federation of national slum dwellers’ organisations from 33 countries around the world.

Actogether is the NGO which was set up in 2006 to support NSDFU’s efforts by providing professional assistance from qualified social and development workers. With about 20 personnel, it provides NSDFU with services such as information gathering, analysis and presentation, among others.

According to the Action Aid International report of 2010, more than 3 million of Uganda’s urban population (between 55 to 60% of the total urban population) live in slums, with Kampala having about 1.5 million (about 50%) of the national share of those slum dwellers.

NSDFU and Actogether say they reach about 200,000 of those sum dwellers, through their membership of about 40,000 members organized under about 360 local slum federations/saving groups. The 40,000 members apparently translate to about 200,000 slum dwellers reached because each member represents a household of an average of 5 people. 

Small daily savings for joint action

Explaining how they operate, Hassan Kiberu, the NSDFU country chairman, says the organisation primarily uses the ‘regular savings’ and ‘joint effort’ approach. He says NSDFU has a membership of about 40,000 slum dwellers in the six urban centres where it operates.

The members are required to save a fixed meagre amount daily to better their lives. Each slum dweller contributes daily (in some cases between sh100 and sh500) to a local savings group in their locality or workplace, and the savings group puts the members’ contributions to use for the benefit of the community.

“Once the members in a given savings group have generated a substantial amount of funds, they decide on what challenge they can tackle using the money. Slum Dwellers International supplements their savings with either a loan or a grant to ensure there are sufficient funds to implement the project,” explains Kiberu.

Changing livelihoods

According to the information provided by NSDFU, so far more than 60 of its saving groups have used their savings to set up projects to improve their welfare.

The data from the organisation shows that in four of the six urban centres where NSDFU operates, water and sanitation projects have been set up, with water tanks, toilets, water taps and boreholes extended to the people in the slums of Mbuya-Kinawataka, Kisenyi, Mbarara and Arua, among others. In Mpumudde sub-county, Jinja district, Kawama Savings Group used its savings to construct permanent houses for its members. The group is currently building a large housing estate. 

Skye Dobson, the country representative of Slum Dwellers International (SDI) in Uganda, says the organisation has also helped many of its members settle their land ownership and land use problems, many of them in the Kisenyi slum where NSDFU helped members formalise their land ownership by acquiring proper titles. 

“In its line of activities, NSDFU also supports group initiatives aimed at promoting small businesses such as selling clothes, poultry keeping, goat rearing, bricklaying, candle and soap making among its members.

The organisation also helps the groups to access loans and promotes exchange of information, experience and skills by organising exchange visits and events among the groups at a local, national and international level,” she says. 

Brainchild of Gov’t  Kiberu says NSDFU works in partnership with the government, because it is a brainchild of the Government of Uganda which was set up when government invited Slum Dwellers International to open a chapter in Uganda.

He says in 2002, officials from the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development attended the first UN-Habitat World Urban Forum in Nairobi, and on learning of SDI’s activities invited it to open a local chapter in Uganda. 

Kiberu says NSDFU/Actogether now play a central role in the Government’s Transforming Settlements of the Urban Poor in Uganda (TSUPU) programme. TSUPU is a countrywide initiative aimed at improving the lives of the urban poor through focusing on land, services and citizenship. 

Kiberu says one of the most remarkable achievements of their partnership with the Government has been the generation of data about the different slums where it operates.

Where through working with the slum dwellers themselves, NSDFU has generated the statistics, thus helping the Government get proper data on different aspects such as population, housing, livelihood, etc, in different slums in the country. This has, in turn, helped the Government plan for the slums as regards service delivery to improve the livelihood in slums.