Just Small Change - Uganda (CDD)
Just Small Change is a UK registered charity working in Uganda. They have three projects in the Budaka District of Eastern Uganda which interlink to improve families livelihood, namely a Goat rearing project, a Village Savings & Loan programme and Village Health Teams.
The Goat and Village Savings schemes empower the women in the communities and give them the chance to improve their own lives and those of their households. Both these schemes become self- sustaining after 2 years.
The Village Savings and Loan scheme is a simple but very powerful programme which aims to increase household income and resilience. It helps members to work together, combining their savings to make a viable amount for one member to then borrow, get started in a micro business and then repay with interest. This larger sum is then loaned out to another member and so on.
LYT is proud to have funded 180 women (6 groups of 30) in the Village Savings and Loan scheme with a CDD of £3000 in 2024.
Additionally, in the Lyama area of Budaka District, Eastern Uganda, Just Small Change has created a new intervention started in 2024 focused on reducing malnutrition among the under 5s by teaching their caregivers how to cook nutritious meals based on low cost, locally available foods.
Lyama sub-county in Budaka District is a low lying, rural, swampy area of severe deprivation, which has seen very little development work to date. The population live in widely scattered settlements, with very few connecting tracks or roads. Survival is mainly by subsistence farming and some fishing. According to the Ugandan Government’s Nutrition Action Plan, roughly a quarter of under-5s in the area are malnourished, with the figure being even higher in the poorest rural outreaches such as Lyama.
The first step in the project is to educate local Volunteer Health Teams (VHTs) in the basics of good infant nutrition and in how to spot children at risk of wasting or malnourishment. These VHTs have been trained as part of another Just Small Change programme running in the Lyama area. The nutrition training lasts for four days followed by a Community Day. This is a good example of the synergies created through JSC’s interlinked interventions in the area. Next, the VHTs and the project staff run a community outreach day, during which the most malnourished children in a village are identified and their caregivers invited, with their children, to join a twelve-day community cooking programme. Over this time, the caregivers cook meals together with the project staff and the VHTs, using ingredients contributed by the caregivers alongside those provided by our nutritionist. They eat the meals with their children. As the children respond to their improved diet, they gain appetite, energy and weight, so the caregivers see the benefits of what they are learning.
After the programme has finished, the local VHTs, who have also taken part in the twelve-day programme, continue to monitor the children’s growth and to support the families in nourishing their children. Six additional visits are made by project staff over a twelve-month period, with the children’s weight and growth being monitored at every visit. The VHTs and caregivers also spread their knowledge among family, friends and neighbours, so that more children and families benefit. Additional topics are also addressed during the follow up visits, to maximise the benefit to these young families. These include parenting styles, disciplining young children, communicating with young children and hygiene and sanitation.
Let Yourself is proud to have contributed a CDD of £6,000 in July 2025 to Just Small Change in support of 3 new nutrition projects in additional villages.
Please visit their website to learn more about these incredible projects:
