Empowering rural vulnerable women with Oyster Mushroom production and Growing

In rural areas of Uganda, opportunities for economic engagement are nearly non-existent. Many families live in persistent poverty and struggle under countless extreme associated challenges. Consistently, many landless capable farmers and the rural population especially women cannot easily access land because of the costs involved, traditional norms and so many attached threats imposed towards acquiring land in Uganda. Taking Mityana district as a point of reference, Majority of the population relies on Eucalyptus and pine tree growing as the main job available plus some projects of farming favor only men. Women and the adolescent girl child therefore are excluded because it’s a traditional norm of women and the girl child to stay home while men go to work in farms but still most men on average abandon the family responsibilities because most men have more than just one family therefore in the long run an average monthly household income is between $30-$70 with less than six percent of households earning more than $100 yet the district has an average of two million people living with low socio-economic conditions, a high rate of HIV, lack of health care and lack of basic services, the shortage of land amongst women and the continuous neglecting of responsibilities at home by men has left a need to empower women economically through engagement in developmental trainings.

We are a female led organisation registered by the district of Mityana as a community based organisation and since its launch in 2020 amidst the  Covid 19 pandemic our focus of training and empowering women as well as a girl child within the locality Maanyi village in Mityana district, Uganda with mushroom cultivation within the beneficiary households has enabled women to earn a small living (SDG1), Food for home consumption (SDG 2) and also good health and wellbeing (SDG 3). Given the fact that most of rural women are housewives and stay home mothers there is limited or no source of income, and most women are forbidden or have too much responsibilities at home that can aid working but with this project the mushrooms are grown at home under less supervision and no worries of knowing the right season to plant because anytime is the best time to setup a mushroom garden.

The benefit of providing a bag of free oyster spawn/mushroom seeds to 30 households has empowered the community as well as motivating the rest to join us because a bag of spawn yields 2-3 kilograms of mushroom on a daily basis for thirty days which is enough for home consumption and also sales in order to acquire a small amounts of funds to run the home expenses. We have impacted 150 women and look forward to 1,000 women.

Together with the members we invented the making of briquettes at the end of the month since we make new gardens every after thirty days where old gardens are decomposed to make clean cooking fuels in homes (SDG7) hence allowing households not to rely on firewood or kerosene lanterns which are environmentally unfriendly, mushroom powder and mushroom wine but all this is still at a small scale level.

We a currently welcome volunteers, Advisors, funders and anyone willing to spread the word to the world for the organisation to get more awareness. Reach out on our website and social media platforms in order to learn more about our impact.

Website: www.maanyiwomendevelopmenttrust.org

Donation link:https://flutterwave.com/donate/twupnghyqxgn