A mother of three in Masaka, Uganda, Aidah Asiimwe lost her income from her job as a schoolteacher as soon as COVID-19 hit. When the President ordered a nationwide lockdown, teachers like her had to rely on their savings and other income sources, if they had them, to keep food on the table for their families.<\/p>\n
An astute money manager, Aidah had already been supplementing her meager teacher\u2019s salary with income from a banana farm. She knew she could count on the farm income when her teacher\u2019s salary disappeared. But the lockdown started just before her banana crops were ready to sell, putting Aidah in a catch-22.<\/p>\n
Money was tight, and she desperately needed what little she had to feed her family, but she also needed to get her product to market and up-to-date information on the market price for bananas to figure out when to harvest her crop. To do these things, Aidah had to make her regular FINCA BrightLife solar home system payments so she could power her cell phone and radio.<\/p>\n
The cell phone would allow Aidah to coordinate with the buyer who would get her bananas to market. In normal circumstances, she would meet the buyers in person. However, an in-person meeting would put her at risk of getting infected with COVID-19 or, perhaps even worse, being caught by the police for violating the stay-at-home order.<\/p>\n
She also needed to listen to her radio to track market prices for her banana crop and sell when the price was high. Without this information, she\u2019d make less money than she deserved for her crop, and she couldn\u2019t afford to give up a penny.<\/p>\n
As Aidah struggled to make a difficult decision\u2014putting less food on the table today or having no money to buy food tomorrow\u2014she got a call from her FINCA BrightLife agent. The agent had welcome news: her solar home system was being turned on free of charge thanks to the generosity of supporters to FINCA\u2019s Emergency Response Fund.<\/p>\n