Tugende

In Uganda, where unemployment rates are high, many young people and adults with little to no education, usually supporting extended families, work as motorcycle taxi drivers (boda-bodas).

Most motorcycle taxi or boda-boda drivers cannot afford a motorcycle, nor access financing from mainstream options to buy one. Instead, they use a large portion of their earnings to rent their motorcycles and their incomes are, therefore, reduced.

Tugende helps boda-boda drivers own an income-generating asset, directly improving their livelihoods and providing a pathway out of poverty by:

1. Facilitating access to a stable source of income for the drivers and their families, as their income roughly doubles from USD 5/day before ownership to USD 10/day afterwards.
2. Allowing them to own a productive asset with significant resale value at the end of the 20-month financing period.
3. Providing several other benefits such as insurance, driving permits, safety training, financial literacy training and other products.
4. Tugende itself is a job-creating company. A leased motorcycle increases the number of employed individuals by more than one, each one supporting both the driver as well as an average of 6 dependents.