Day 25

Felix and I go to visit a tea plantation. I wanted to have a look at a cooperative before I leave: the tea-pickers know what their work is and what they earn. The cooperative also has a savings and credit cooperation (SACCO). Felix has good contacts because the university worked with the tea plantation to conduct a microfinance study looking at income, savings behaviour etc. To repay the favour, I promise to make my photos available.

We stop by the field to talk to the tea-pickers. They earn 70 Ugandan shillings per kilogram of tea picked – that’s less than EUR 0.20. The so-called poverty line for everyday needs is set at USD 1.25 per day. That meand these people need to pick more than 6kg of tea a day to be able to satisfy their subsistence needs. You can only really imagine how much that is if you’ve ever weighed out fresh plant shoots. The workers have enormous baskets strapped to their backs and move across the field bent double; the plants are almost one metre tall.

I spend the afternoon reviewing this week’s meetings, and the evening conferring with Oliver and Felix from the German development organisation GIZ; alongside Geoffrey from the Banking Department is another attendee, Brenda, who has been taken on part-time to boost the chair’s staffing levels. I’m pleased, because it means the department is finally growing. It’s high time - Geoffrey can’t manage all the work alone.

We discuss the next steps: Several banks have agreed to cooperate with the university, offer internships, would possibly like to send employees to give lectures, and are prepared to take part in a review workshop. Now the department has to set a date for the workshop, invite the banks and prepare topics for an expert lecture series. On top of this, there is a further position to be filled in the department, and the basics of banking need to be taught in the students’ first semester.