Helping Families Build a Future, Not Just Get By.
Caring for a child with a disability is a full-time commitment — one that often leaves parents and caregivers with little time or opportunity to earn a stable income. Many face an impossible choice every day: stay home to provide care, or leave to earn money for food, therapy, and school fees.
SCSP’s Livelihood Program -Savings and Loans project exists to remove that choice. Named for the persons with unique abilities and the families who support them across Mpigi District, SCSP’s livelihood programme — helping households build small, sustainable income sources so they can support their families without giving up everything else.
Who this Programme Serves
SCSP’s Livelihood Programme was built around caregivers of children with disabilities, and it remains their primary focus. But economic exclusion in these communities doesn’t stop there. Many vulnerable mothers — regardless of whether they’re raising a child with a disability — are shut out of commercial bank lending simply because they have no collateral to offer.
To promote genuine inclusion rather than a narrow eligibility list, the programme also opens its doors to these mothers. The result is a programme that lifts an entire community of women facing the same barrier to economic independence, rather than drawing a hard line around a single group.
Why This Matters
Families facing these pressures rarely see them ease on their own:
- Therapy, assistive devices, and specialist care carry real, recurring costs for caregivers of children with disabilities
- Commercial banks routinely turn away women with no land title, no assets, and no formal credit history — regardless of their ability to run a business.
- Stigma often isolates caregivers from wider economic opportunities and support networks
- Full-time caregiving responsibilities limit the time available to earn an income
- Without a stable income, school fees, transport, and medical costs are the first things families cut.
Left unaddressed, these pressures compound — pushing families further into poverty and children further from the services they need. This Livelihood programme was built to interrupt that cycle at its source: a mother’s or caregiver’s ability to earn, regardless of what collateral she can put on the table.
Our Approach
SCSP’s Livelihood Programme brings participants together into peer support groups, where they receive:
- Practical skills training in tailoring, farming, candle-making, and small trade
- Startup capital to launch or grow their own income-generating activity — no collateral required
- Ongoing peer support, so no participant is building this alone
A reinvestment model, where proceeds help extend support to the next group. This isn’t a one-time gift. It’s designed to keep giving back — each participant’s progress helping create room for the next family to join.
Skills Participants Are Trained In;
- Tailoring and garment-making — producing school uniforms, everyday wear, and traditional clothing for both household use and sale
- Farming and agriculture — growing food for household consumption and surplus income
- Candle-making — including mosquito-repellent variants with added market value
- Small trade and craft production — baskets, mats, beadwork, and other locally made goods
Participants often go on to sell what they produce through local markets and community events, turning a new skill into a lasting source of income.
What Changes for a Family
When a participant completes training and launches their own income activity, the effects reach the whole household:
• A more stable, self-controlled source of income — earned without needing collateral a bank would demand
• Greater ability to cover school fees, transport, and therapy costs without external aid
• Reduced isolation, through the peer support built into the programme
• A mother or caregiver who is providing for her family on her own terms
The Impact We’re Building
The programme’s impact has been documented through Social Return on Investment analysis and sits at the center of SCSP’s Action on Poverty Strategic Plan — reflecting our belief that lasting change starts with families who can provide for themselves.
Part of a Bigger Picture
SCSP’s Livelihood programme works alongside SCSP’s other programmes — Wisdom Hub Inclusive School, our Rehabilitation and Early Intervention services, and our Community Outreach and Advocacy work — because a child’s progress and a household’s financial stability are connected. A caregiver or mother with an income can sustain her family’s needs. A child with consistent support can thrive in an inclusive classroom. It is through Livelihood where that support begins, for caregivers and the wider community alike.
Support This Programme
Your support helps a mother or caregiver access training and startup capital — no collateral, no bank rejection — and keeps this cycle of support reaching new families across Mpigi District.
Support the Livelihood Programme [select “Empowerment project” ]