Tucked into the far north of Uganda along the South Sudan border, Lamwo District is home to thousands of refugees who fled violence and, in most cases, arrived with almost nothing. When a Seed Effect member in Lamwo first joins a Savings & Loan Group, they start from one of the most constrained places we see anywhere in our program.

We work in hard places, and Lamwo is one of the hardest. 

It is one of the most remote districts in Uganda. Its main town sits roughly 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Gulu, the region’s largest city, over roads that turn slow and rough in the rains. It is still healing from decades of the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency, which at its height drove nearly the entire Acholi population from their homes and left behind deep poverty and thin infrastructure. 

Today, Lamwo hosts the Palabek Refugee Settlement, home to more than 85,000 South Sudanese refugees, over 80% of them women and children. Add erratic rainfall that undermines farming security, and scarcity becomes the starting condition for nearly everyone. 

That is exactly what makes what happens next so remarkable.

Where our members begin

Lamwo is one of our three newest branches, all opened in 2022 and 2023 as we reached into harder, more remote parts of northern Uganda. Of the three, its members enter with the least, and this is the reality they carry into their first group meeting: real scarcity, real hunger, and very few financial tools to build on.

On average, a new member in Lamwo enters our program with:

• The lowest cash income is around $3 per week.
• The highest reliance on day labor, at 14%, as their most reliable source of income.
• The worst food security, with 19% eating only one meal a day.
• The lowest pre-program loan access, at only 21%.

Groups in Lamwo respond by setting share values at half the level (1,000 vs. 2,000 UGX) of the other two, Kiryandongo and Rhino Camp. As a result, the overall savings numbers in Lamwo are lower, but within that constraint, the program delivers.

Lamwo's members start with the least, and do the most with it.

Over their first three savings cycles, Lamwo members more than double the weekly income they bring home, a 2.4x climb from where they start. They also steadily build assets from a thin base, their poultry flocks growing about two and a half times. Groups meet faithfully and also report some of the highest trust in their savings groups anywhere in our program. The smaller numbers on paper reflect where our members begin, not how far they travel.

Santa’s home, Pamela’s business

Santa Angwech knows that journey. A South Sudanese refugee, she joined a Seed Effect group in Lamwo in 2022 knowing very little about saving or running a business. With her first loan, she bought a house for her children. It was “a safe place to live,” she said, that “became a home filled with love.” A second loan started a small business selling cassava, beans, charcoal, bread, and silverfish that now steadily provides for her family and their education. Looking back on her life before, Santa says she “used to struggle every day,” but today she “feels hopeful and happy.”

Pamela Aryemo’s turning point came the same way. She first heard about Seed Effect at a Sunday church service, joined a group, and began saving alongside a Bible study on restoring the four relationships at the center of our work: with God, with self, with others, and with the land. Her first loan let her start selling tomatoes, onions, and cooking oil, and over time she grew it into a small wholesale business.

Through Seed Effect, I gained access to financial tools. Through weekly saving and taking loans from my group as needed, my finances have been boosted… This helped in paying school fees and buying food. My business saves time for our community members. They no longer have to go far distances to source the items they need.

The change reached her home, too. As the financial pressure eased and the Bible study deepened her faith, Pamela’s husband came to know Jesus, stopped drinking, and became a support to his family. “My children are happy,” she said, “and I am happy too.”

Independently validated

In 2022, Dr. Steve DeLoach, a professor of economics at Elon University, launched an independent, controlled-access-to-treatment study of our program in Lamwo, comparing members who had started saving to a similar group who had signed up but not yet begun. The findings were striking: members were significantly more likely to have a safe place to save and their first-ever access to credit, and significantly less likely to sell off an asset to cover a medical bill or school fees.

Most telling of all, those gains held even after the UN cut refugee food rations by a third partway through the study. In one of the hardest years imaginable, the program still made families measurably more resilient.

The deepest roots grow in the hardest soil

The hard places are worth investing in, and the people who live there are capable, resilient, and made in God’s image. Lamwo is not a place where our model struggles. It is a place where, in the toughest soil, it is putting down some of the deepest roots.

Every $90 empowers a member like Pamela.

Donate Today »