Grameen Foundation : Resource Center : Print Newsletter : Fall 2003 : Ringing in a New Era in Rural Uganda
Ringing in a New Era in Rural Uganda
In March 2003, GFUSA's Grameen Technology Center launched the Village Phone Project in Uganda. Modeled on the successful Village Phone Program pioneered by Grameen Telecom in Bangladesh, this initiative will enable microcredit borrowers to purchase mobile phone kits to start cellular pay phone businesses in their villages. Team members Michael Eber, Abser Kamal, and Ryan Stanley have been working diligently on the ground in Uganda to ensure the project's success. Below, Michael Eber describes the impact that wireless communication is already having on one of the first villages connected through this effort.
Imagine traveling down a narrow dirt track lined with sugar cane, reeds, acacia and banana trees. No overhead power or phone lines block your view, and people walk or ride their bicycles down the middle of the track. You pass a small fire, a water pump and then, all of a sudden, a village! Stocked with rice, sugar, matches, soap, notebooks, candy and other sundries, Julia's shop and three or four others form a retail strip of sorts and provide goods to a small community in the Masindi District of Western Uganda. But there is something different in this village - in addition to selling basic goods, Julia also provides real time, voice-to-voice connection service to anywhere in the world.
A village phone in use. Julia is ten kilometers from any large communities, and about 20 kilometers from the nearest fixed line telephone. When the sun sets in her village, one sees the moon, the stars and a blue light coming from her new mobile phone. She also has a solar panel, an antenna, and the benefit of training from a local microfinance organization called SOMED (Support Organizations for Micro Enterprise Development) that helped her get started. Julia, an energetic and joyful SOMED center leader, recently told me about her shop and her Village Phone business, saying, "The two businesses go well together. People come to my shop and buy goods, [then stay to] use the phone; or they come to use the phone, and then buy some tea, batteries or toothpaste."
Julia is new to the business but upbeat and optimistic about its growth potential. She is developing a signpost to attract customers, although this is a work in progress. She has also given her telephone number to others and, as a result, serves as a personal message center for the entire village. In one instance, a neighbor needed to contact relatives outside Uganda and he provided them with Julia's number. Now, when the family needs to talk with their son, Julia delivers the message for a small fee.
There is also a school down the road and some of the girls use her phone to call their parents to request school fees or to talk to their boyfriends. People in the area make a living selling cattle, charcoal and maize, and often use the phone to call Kampala (the capital city, which is 200 kilometers away) to verify prices or notify a truck to collect their goods. Julia even uses her phone to order more stock for her shop. Reviewing Julia's logbook, I notice people from an eight-kilometer radius making phone calls. Some, she says, call simply to organize a party or share a birth announcement with relatives.
Leaving Julia's village, my colleague's phone rings. It is someone overseas providing status on an equipment order. Imagine, in the middle of Uganda we have clear communication around the world. It is exciting to see the prospects that mobile communication provides: international commodity prices, weather, and even Internet access. Meanwhile, kids keep playing football, a welder busily fixes a bicycle, and Julia uses some of her Village Phone income to pay school fees and buy new clothes for her children.
Grameen Foundation : Resource Center : Print Newsletter : Fall 2003 : Ringing in a New Era in Rural Uganda
Grameen Foundation uses microfinance and innovative technology to fight global poverty and bring opportunities to the world's poorest people. With tiny loans and financial services, we help the poor, mostly women, start businesses and escape poverty. Our global network of 55 microfinance institution (MFI) partners including our Growth Guarantee partners has touched more than 34 million people in 24 countries. In addition, we introduced and now sustain technology initiatives (Mifos and Village Phone) in Cameroon, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda, bringing our total country outreach to 28.
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