Our Background
On June 19 1995 in the City of San Diego a group of mourners of a young African woman who died in an accident came up with the idea of working together supporting each other in businesses in order to become self sufficient and independent of employers. They registered a community service organization called COSEDA, Community Services Development Association. Members paid dues and gave small loans to individuals to start and run their businesses. After some two years we were beginning to see gains and pride in several businesses, however, for whatever reasons, the group fell apart.
In January of 1997, Dr. Okech Ogwaro, who was the President of COSEDA went to Uganda for another funeral of his brother. At that funeral a few teen agers saw a bus pass and refused to stop. They decided they were going to start collecting money to buy their own bus to serve the village. Dr. Ogwaro pledged an equivalent of US 25 and others paid a few shillings to a total of 2250 shillings ($1.00 + 25 =26).
COSEDA has grown to the current membership of over 1000 and was certified as a Village Cooperative Bank (COSEDA Cooperative Bank), serving two whole Districts of Arua and Nebbi. Both are located in West Nile area of Uganda, the harshest region in terms of available opportunities and climate.
It became necessary that we start an intermediary financial services that can continue supporting the village enterprises, thus Rural Community Financial Development Services (RUCOF) was founded which latter changed its name to REDFunds (Rural Enterprises Development Funds).
COSEDA is one of our lending centers.
Our Main Challenges
Initially we had a lot of problems with poor villagers thinking money coming to them from abroad was donation that they need not pay. That made them not to work hard at all, expecting donations will keep coming because they are poor. We had to show them a list of lenders and sources and terms of the loan by the lenders.
We provide easy opportunity for families that would not qualify for business loans through regular banks and other financial institutions. We rebuild inter-ethnic trust by bringing in business opportunities to different areas to allow good family livelihood that is the cornerstone of stability in any community and a solution to inter-ethnic conflicts.
Giving people business opportunities ensure practical, creative and innovative solutions to the problems affecting communities in large economically deprived areas of the World, enabling them to empower themselves, establish self-sufficiency, self-determination, strengthen their families and help restore their lives and neighborhoods to safe and productive communities.
We encourage other investors to invest for the very good cause- empowering sustainable self-reliance. We don’t ask for donations; we encourage responsibilities in all our borrowers by working for every penny they get as they build their self esteem and community pride.