We are nearly there.

Mark Neild Grow Chair

 Grow Movement recently sent Mark Neild Chairman, Cass Business School Alumni and ILM Fellow over to Uganda to assist with training our new Uganda600 team on our new IT system...and to give him some context as well as the experience of going to work on a motorbike.

"It was fabulous for me to get out on the ground and work with the team in Kampala on the final preparations for starting our projects.  We put the Project Management System through its paces, ironed out the last few bugs and tested connectivity.  It is not quite perfect yet, but at least we have a platform that will massively help us run over 600 projects at the same time.   The team on the ground is a true asset too.  I had the opportunity to accompany one of them finalizing clients for our projects and nothing really prepared me for the conditions in which some of our clients operate.  Crammed into a basement stall little more than 2m by 1m, selling a small selection of cheap good imported from China with insufficient money for any really inviting stock.   Try competing here!"

Uganda down town

 

"We also signed up a “job consultant” operating out of a small first floor apartment, but with a long line of hopefuls occupying every spare seat in the hope of an interview that might land them a job. 

Job consultant in Uganda

 With our support we can help him secure more job openings from potential employers and open up a training academy that will help him to give job seekers the skills they need to land better jobs."

"While there I also met the Uganda representative for DfID (our major funder), Charles Ocici who runs Enterprise Uganda our key partner in Kampala and the MD of a micro finance firm with whom we are doing a pilot.  Developing these relationships is absolutely vital to sustaining what we do." 

Really looking forward to getting Uganda600 started and a huge HUGE thanks to so many people for their heroic efforts to make it possible.