Co-operatives in Northern Uganda have invited Six Canadian Co-operative Association volunteers to help them measure their enterprises against international standards using CCA’s Development Ladder Assessment Tool (DLA). Follow Linda Archer’s exciting account of their 2-week mission working side-by-side with Ugandan co-operators as they plot the path forward for their co-ops and credit unions. The result is a snapshot of how the co-op is doing - and a set of benchmark scores for measuring progress as they grow their co-operative enterprise.

Monday 29 October 2012

Day 2 - Getting started

Today was the first day of meetings with our partners in Uganda.  Did I mention that we are paired up with a Uganda Cooperative Association (UCA) counterpart? Well each Canadian volunteer has been teamed up with someone who lives in the different regions of Uganda that we will be travelling to. The teams will work together to administer/facilitate the DLA assessment tool in the individual coops, I am lucky enough to have been partnered with a young man named Isaac. There are 3 types of coops we’ll be dealing with and luckily I’ll be working mostly with SACCOs (credit unions to us) since that’s what I know best, but more about that later when we’re in the field.   

Kampala has an interesting mix of typically African and western culture. To give you an idea of  what I mean, the other day we saw women on the street carrying their produce on their heads in big baskets (don’t  know how they do it – I barely mastered walking with a book on my head to have good posture) as we were on our way to an Irish Pub for dinner. 

So, now I’m exhausted and hope to sleep well. Good Night!

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