Its upon that basis that BSE22-2 a final year team has taken initiative to help better the crisis by developing a web cloud based system CFA to tackle the various challenges.

Welcome to my Blog.

My name is Najjuma Diana, a final year student offering a Bachelors of Science in Software Engineering at Makerere University.

I am working with a team of 4, myself inclusive. My team and I intend to build a Community Fund Advisor system that helps the Trade Representation Office at Kampala Capital City Authority Financial Department to easily make well informed fund allocation decisions and keep track of the registered groups whose mini cloud will be able to communicate with the cloud at KCCA.

22nd March, 2022.

The semester is almost mid-way. My team and I have so far accomplished the following tasks:

1. Concept paper submission
2. Data collection plan
3. Submission of data collection tools

We requested for an introductory letter from Dr. Nsabagwa Mary and she issued it through Dr. Swaib.

26th March, 2022

Today one of my groupmates, Ken is meeting up with a senior KCCA Officer at central division to discuss our day of appointment in field.

27th March, 2022.

Day1 : FIELDWORK WITH THE GROUPS

Earlier this afternoon, my team and I printed out our questionnaires and interview guides. Since we were coming from different parts of the city, we chose a meeting point that was Kobil Petrol Station Kamwokya, a few meters from the Acacia mini round about. At 5pm we headed to Kisenyi B, a slum in Kamwokya where our target group was having their weekly meeting at 6pm. The people were so welcoming, since we had met one of the chairpersons who introduced us and announced our arrival.

We then sought consent from the groups to allow us be part of their meetings so that we could observe and slowly by slowly interact with individuals who could be interviewed or issued questionnaires.

I for one was privileged to interact with Ms. Barbara Barungi, a dedicated member to one of the prominent groups, "Tuli Bumu". I interviewed her and also helped her fill out a questionnaire since she preferred not to write.

My entire team got a chance to interact with a member or two representing each of the groups in attendance.

We witnessed so many activities and gathered very informative data that will be included in our project report. It was such a great experience, we learnt a lot.

We met a few challenges for example; some of our respondents did not know English, this called for need to translate the interviews guides and questionnaires to the appropriate local languages. Otherwise, we are grateful to the people of Kamwokya Village Savings and Loans Associations for their time and cooperation. Our project greatly relies on their contribution and we hope that in return, we are able to successfully develop a system that will automate their activities and improve their make life easier for them.

29th March, 2022

Day 2: FIELD WORK WITH KCCA

On this fateful day, the team, enthusiastic as usual hit the road very early in the morning. By 8:00 EAT, we were seated on the cold benches in the KCCA corridors awaiting the arrival of Mr. Waliggo, the Trade Representation Officer in charge of coordinating the registered VSLAs (Village Savings and Loans Associations). The gentleman despite high position was very humble and welcoming. He shared with us his story about work, his responsibilities, interaction with the "omunti wa wansi", what it meant to be a mediator between KCCA and the VSLAs, how he was helping the VSLAs get funding and many other interesting aspects.

"I have very many files in my office, each belonging to a group, some files are very old, I do not know whether the owners(groups) are still in existence. I communicate with some chairpersons once in a while, I also receive their request for funding, that is when I revisit the files to check progress but it is usually out of date", he narrated.

He shared the challenges he met as a TRO and also suggested ways through which we could be able render help we wanted to. It was a very informative meeting and we are grateful to him and the KCCA Financial Department at large for their cooperation.