There is a kind of quiet determination that doesn't announce itself. It shows up early in the morning, sets out goods on a table by the road, and keeps showing up day after day not because it's easy, but because children need school fees, food needs to be on the table, and there is simply no other way. That determination has a name in Kimukunda Parish. It belongs to the women of Bakyala Twekulakulanye, a group whose name, in the spirit of solidarity, means "Women, Let Us Develop Ourselves." It is a name they have earned the right to, stall by stall, morning by morning.
A Visit to the Stalls
When the Tabasamu Foundation Uganda team visited Kimukunda Parish, we found a group of women who had turned the roadside into a workplace. Their stalls modest, functional, and full of life are the economic backbone of their households. There is no shade structure to speak of, no formal marketplace, just a stretch of roadside that these women have claimed through sheer persistence. Through these stalls, they are educating their children and sustaining their families, one sale at a time.
What struck the team most was not the scale of the operation but its resilience. These are businesses built without safety nets no storage, no fixed premises, no guarantee that tomorrow's weather or traffic won't disrupt the day's earnings. And yet the women return, every morning, because the alternative is worse.
Chairperson Nankambi Rebecca welcomed the team and spoke plainly about the reality her members face: limited capital, rising expenditures, and a shortage of income-generating projects beyond the stalls themselves. The challenges are real. But so is the resolve. In the spirit of her message: they are there every day, and they simply need a little more support to do more.
The Ground Beneath Their Feet, and the Road Beside Them
The Parish Chairman echoed a need that many small-scale traders in Kakuuto know well: a dedicated, stable place to work. The women currently operate along a road, exposed to dust a daily discomfort made worse by ongoing road construction nearby. It is not a small complaint. Dust settles into the food some of them sell, into their lungs over months and years, into the goods laid out for customers to inspect. Limited access to farmland further narrows their options for diversifying their livelihoods beyond what they can sell from a roadside table.
It is a familiar bind for informal traders across rural Uganda: the very road that brings customers past their stalls is also the thing degrading their workplace and their health. Progress on one front, in this case, arrives at a cost on another — and it's a cost the women of Kimukunda have had little power to negotiate away on their own.
What made this visit particularly meaningful was the presence of Hon. Kaka Lubega Ismail Uthuman, the area MP and Executive Director of Tabasamu Foundation Uganda, who came not just to listen, but to commit.
Hon. Lubega pledged to help the group secure a dedicated place for their work a permanent space where the women of Bakyala Twekulakulanye can operate with dignity and stability, away from the dust and unpredictability of the roadside. He also committed to engage road constructors directly, to find practical ways of addressing the dust problem affecting both the stalls and the health of the traders working them.
Beyond infrastructure, he encouraged the group to deepen their engagement within their SACCO a savings and credit cooperative that can unlock financial services, group lending, and a culture of collective investment. His message to the women was direct: saving together and investing together is how communities build lasting wealth, and a strong SACCO can do for the group what no single roadside stall ever could on its own turn small, daily earnings into shared capital for bigger things.
Why This Visit Matters
Groups like Bakyala Twekulakulanye rarely lack the will to grow; what they lack is the connective tissue a stable location, working capital, and a champion willing to follow through on promises made in the field. A pledge from an Executive Director who is also the area MP carries weight precisely because it sits at the intersection of political will and grassroots need. The test now is follow-through: whether the dedicated worksite materializes, whether the dust conversation with road constructors produces real change, and whether the SACCO grows from a good idea into a functioning engine of savings and credit for every woman at those stalls.
What We Carry Forward
A visit like this reminds us why Tabasamu Foundation Uganda exists. Not to bring solutions from the outside, but to walk alongside communities like Kimukunda to listen, to amplify, and to connect what people are already doing with what they still need.
The women of Bakyala Twekulakulanye are not waiting to be saved. They are already working. What they need is ground to stand on, dust-free air to breathe, capital to grow, and partners who keep their word.
We are proud to be one of those partners and we will be back in Kimukunda to see this through.
To learn more about Tabasamu Foundation's programs or to support future outreach efforts, visit tabasamug.org.
