The GES Jinja project is being carried out in an organization called CESEF and activities began in July 2010, under this project, we want to show the community that change can be brought about in society even by the local population, its all about reorganizing them, making use of the community assets as well as using a community/group/association as the best avenue for change

We believe that a community of individuals united by a shared passion is the most powerful avenue to change the world socially and environmentally and that’s why all our activities are done in groups/associations of the local population,

Currently, we have two activities running, the first one is the village saving and loan association (VS&LA) activity where we combine youths with micro businesses which don’t earn them more than $5/day, they save in this association and borrow within this association at low interest rates and few legalities like for example security hence creating cheap opportunities for credit.

We have two groups at the moment each group having 20 members though our target is 30 members per group at the end of 2010, and by the end of the twelve months saving period, our target is not less than $4000 or 8 million Ugandan shillings savings per group

We want to do beyond saving and lending so that we involve other activities like free training and consultancy to youths with micro businesses.The skills we want to develop include attitudes that make up an entrepreneurial mindset, lateral thinking, questioning, independence and self-reliance, risk assessment, decision-making, networking and innovation. We also want to provide business expansion support to help members make the transition from micro start-up to sustainable growth

A youth micro entrepreneur in his retail shop serving clients, most of these micro businesses earn not more than $5/day yet they have the potential of earning more than $15 a day if at all additional entrepreneur training is provided and credit opportunities with affordable interest rates are made available, he is a member of the first youth association to formed under the GES Jinja project  and he is called Kawanguzi Jackson

Another GES project in Jinja is the modern piggery project for the youths, we chose to begin a modern piggery farm because pigs have an advantage of producing many offspring at ago at least twice a year yet have low demand on land compared to cattle, sheep and goats therefore, they offer a better solution to the ever growing human population and poverty alleviation programs

The demonstration piggery project will be ready by December 2010 and its also located in Jinja-Uganda, more information about this project will be available starting this December