Our Story
Get to know what we are all about, our mission and vision, how we work, as well as the team that is behind all our activities.
Our journey began way back in September 2016 when I made a decision to leave my 8-year human rights career and chose to walk the social entrepreneur. My passion was to create a sustainable social business. At the time when I worked as a human rights researcher, I had had great experiences advocating for the rights of the marginalized in society through policy and legislative advocacy but somehow along the way I noticed there was a huge gap between policy and practice. A lot of my research work was based in Northern Uganda and I had an opportunity to interact with groups of women and young people who were displaced by the Northern Uganda
conflict that was between the Lord Resistance Army and the Government of Uganda for over 20 years. Each time I met groups of women who were struggling to send their children to school and provide them with the basics of life such as food, clothing and shelter, I often questioned the relevancy and impact of the work I was doing. There was a huge disconnect and this stayed with me for a while.
When I got an opportunity to work on a community development project through Rotary and later with ENventure/New Energy Nexus Uganda supporting community organizations to set up clean energy shops in the last mile, I got a mindset shift and started imagining a scenario where these women would start to run local businesses of their own to meet all the basic needs they lacked.
This was my uha-moment! I then realized that if I make it possible for these women to access both business and agricultural finance, their story would change.
In August 2020, I founded LINKAGES to pursue this mission. It’s been an exciting journey of learning and un-learning about the unique circumstances of running a business in a rural setting. As a team, each day are energized the impact we have made so far made and what keeps us even more energized are our projection for the coming years. For us, each day each at work is an adventure and an opportunity to do something new to add value and create impact in our communities.
We are passionate about creating meaningful human connections and the bond we have built with the communities we serve over the years, and knowing that women are such a powerful tool for development.
These among many other factors are what determines every decision we make. As a team, we are committed to pursue this goal because we understand that, when you support a woman to access finance and the technology they need to start and run a successful local business, you’re not only changing the life of that one woman, but her family and her community. We do not do all this by ourselves.
We value partnerships and we believe LINKAGES will go a long way in making a significant contribution in growing our local economies that will create an enabling environment for women and young people to live a life of purpose.
We can do more together!