Learning to Thrive: ICOLEW’s Impact in Namayingo District

ICOLEW is implemented by DVV International in partnership with Uganda's Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development. In the first quarter of 2026, the programme reached 168 active beneficiaries across several sub-counties in Namayingo, 127 of them women. That is not an accident. The programme is designed to close the gender gap in local economic life, and the numbers show it is working.
 

The gold mines of Namayingo have always promised quick money. For many residents of this lakeside district in eastern Uganda, they have also promised early ends to savings, to health, to plans that never quite materialised. At the Madowa Regional Model Community Learning Centre, a different kind of promise is being made and kept.

Women here are learning to cut fabric, style hair, and run their own small enterprises. They are also learning something harder to teach: how to save, how to wait, and how to turn patience into income. Through the Village Savings and Loan Associations embedded in the Integrated Community Learning for Wealth Creation (ICOLEW) programme, members are pooling resources, accessing credit, and reinvesting in their own futures — a cycle the gold mines never offered.

ICOLEW is implemented by DVV International in partnership with Uganda's Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development. In the first quarter of 2026, the programme reached 168 active beneficiaries across several sub-counties in Namayingo, 127 of them women. That is not an accident. The programme is designed to close the gender gap in local economic life, and the numbers show it is working.

The reach goes beyond vocational training. Through the National Oil Seed Project, farmer groups in Bulundira, Madowa, and Simigini each received 25 kilograms of soya beans, turning literacy into household food security and market income. Literacy is the entry point. What follows is economic participation.

The programme is also building infrastructure where it is most needed. In Mukani Parish on the Sigulu Islands, one of the most isolated communities in the district — a new Community Learning Centre is already at the roofing stage. The Ugx 113.9 million investment will bring education and skills training to island residents who have long been left at the margins of development. Nearby, a partnership with Trees for the Future has established tree nurseries at Madowa, giving communities a stake in climate resilience while creating a future source of income.

What is taking shape in Namayingo is not a classroom project. These centres are becoming hubs for immunisation outreach, sports, life skills, and linkages to the Parish Development Model that connects community-level learning to national development structures. The people coming through the doors are not just gaining literacy. They are gaining the tools to lead their own communities forward.

The programme is progressive, participants have acquired the culture of saving and credit, which has enabled them to invest and improve their livelihoods.

 (Mathew Bwire, the District Inspector of Community Development)

The second quarter has already begun. More sub-counties. More women. More soya beans in the ground ...