Grapevine

How little-known Nazigo Sacco became a model

One of the takeaways from David Joseph Schwartz’s book, The Magic of Thinking Big, is that thinking it is possible makes it so. Belief, the book says, allows one to see the routes to success.

That seems to resonate with the thinking of a section of secondary school teachers at St Kalemba Secondary School in Nazigo, Kayunga District, who came together in 2005 to form Nazigo Savings and Credit Cooperative (Sacco).

“The teachers were faced with challenges of self-development. They needed the services of financial institutions, but the nearest banks were in Jinja and Kayunga. The distances were a bit long. So they came up with the idea of forming a Sacco,” Mr Bruno Sserunkuuma, the chairperson of the board of the Sacco, says.

Mr Joseph Mutuyi, one of the founder members, says the teachers used allowances from the Parents and Teachers’ Association (PTA) to pool resources that would in time be used to provide credit for personal development.

“Some contributed Shs20,000 a month, while others contributed Shs50,000. By the end of 2005, we had raised more than Shs1m. That is when we started giving loans,” Mr Mutuyi says.