With the cash transfers, I have been able to solve the issue of school fees for his education.

For Nyinamahuro, the education of her grandson is paramount and thus the first expense once the unconditional cash transfers started was his education. Nyinamahuro’s basic source of income and livelihood is her farming.

She primarily focuses on growing maize, cassava, and sweet potatoes which due to their popularity amongst farmers in the country do not necessarily bring about a great turn on investment lest cultivated on a grand scale, something which Nyinamahuro and many other farmers are unable to achieve due to the limitations such as land distribution, man power and capital which renders them small-scale.

Uganda faces major challenges in providing quality and accessible basic education to children and adolescents. Today, around 4 out of 10 young children aged 3 to 5 years attend early childhood education, showing marked progress from 2011 that saw 2 out of 10 children enrolled. Similarly, 8 out of 10 children aged 6 to12 years attend primary school and more than 1 in 4 attend secondary school.

However, access remains inequitable: the secondary level enrolment of the richest 20 percent of the population (43.1 percent) is five times that of the poorest 20 percent (8.2 percent). In geographical terms, the highest Secondary Net Enrolment is seen in Kampala (52 per cent) and lowest in Acholi (7 per cent). Child marriage, teenage pregnancy, abuse at schools and school fees keep many teens, especially girls, out of secondary schools. Costs associated with education account for 6 out of 10 people leaving school, and pregnancy accounts for 8 percent of girls who left school. Similar challenges remain in the quality of education: only about 50 per cent of the children in Primary 3 were proficient in literacy and numeracy in a 2018 survey conducted by the Government.
[Source; Unicef Uganda]

With the cash transfers coming in, Nyinamahuro has been able to overcome the biggest hurdle which was the inability to afford the school fees for his education and now that he is enrolled, she can also focus on other activities like increasing the range of her farming, providing better meal diets for the family as a whole.