Women entrepreneurs in Hoima city, who were trained on how to manage their businesses have commended President Yoweri Museveni for initiating the GROW (Generating Growth Opportunities and Productivity for Women Enterprises) project.

The women say they have hope that the project is going to help them to grow their Business.

This project is focusing on supporting women already with business and the beneficiaries will be supported with funds ranging from shillings four million and above.

Jovia Katusabe, a businesswoman, describes the project as a magic bullet, which is going to help them to move their business to another level.

She adds that other projects such as Emyooga and the Parish Development Model benefit different categories but the GROW project is only targeting women.

According to her, many women have struggling businesses, which are suffering with high-interest loans. Therefore, GROW is a life-saver.

Hoima city Mayor Brian Kaboyo while speaking durimg the meeting to sensitize women about the GROW project.

She made the remarks on Thursday, May 2, 2024, after she attended a one-day GROW project training organised by the gender ministry.

Empowered 

During the training, the women were empowered in financial literacy, business management, customer care, record keeping and how to manage the finances.

Speaking during the sensitisation, which attracted over 100 women from Hoima city, Prudence Akatukwatsa, a gender specialist at the gender ministry, said they decided to train the women about the project before they start disbursing the funds to ensure the project funds do not get mismanaged.

According to her, women are good at doing business but they lack some skills, which sometimes fail them to sustain the business. With the training, the ministry hopes that the beneficiaries will grow their businesses.

Akatukwatsa said the project worth $217 million is funded by the World Bank and implemented by the gender ministry and the Private Sector Foundation Uganda.

She noted that the project is demand-driven and called for women to get organised to benefit from this project.

The project, according to her, is special because it targets women entrepreneurs and it is aimed at boosting such businesses from micro, small and from small to medium entrepreneurs.

 Akatukwatsa noted that because of a lack of financial support, women entrepreneurs rarely have their businesses growing.

Hoima City Mayor Brian Kaboyo urged the women who will benefit from the project to profitably use the funds because it is a revolving fund.

He noted that the Government has disbursed a lot of money through different programmes such as the Youth Livelihood Programme and UWEP to help Ugandans to move out of poverty but these have suffered mismanagement by beneficiaries and as a result, they fail to pay back.

However, he was optimistic that the project is going to help many women who have been struggling with their business to get a financial boost.

Monday Magrete, the Hoima city female councillor for the central ward and secretary for works, challenged the local leaders in the city to mobilise the women with small businesses to embrace the project and instead of leaving the project to women who have the financial capacity.