‘…perhaps its founders had other thoughts about it…but it has now become a game-changer in our development trajectory. Its impact is seen and felt everywhere …’

The Executive Director at the Sage Fund was concluding his speech at the opening ceremony for Sage Leather Works, a multibillion leather complex in the city industrial park, one of the many investments bankrolled by the Sage Fund. The fund, initiated by development partners for monthly cash support to the elderly across Uganda, ran on donor financing until the government took over. This was after the donor-financing phase came to an end.

The Fund was ‘mature enough’ to be self-reliant, meaning it should be fully-funded from the government consolidated fund. And this marked its turning point. It all started with a casual remark by a colleague to the Executive Director during a social club bi-weekly fellowship, in the same week that the Fund had presented its budgetary estimates to parliament for approval. In his thinking, the amount sought for cash hand-outs to the elderly would have a bigger multiplier effect if invested in manufacturing in select sectors spread across the country.

The many factories would in turn provide employment for the many tertiary and secondary education graduates, a market for the local raw materials and other inputs, plus other indirect benefits. It is from these opportunities that citizens would earn income, and have enough to take care of their elderly parents and grandparents.

A departure from the earlier practice of hand-outs, this has proved a more dignified way of caring for the elderly, in conformity with our traditions, customs and norms. Our kinship system means that virtually everyone will have a relative by blood or by association, thus no destitutes to require institutional hand-outs as had been the practice at the inception of this programme. A dipstick survey in thirty-two villages across five districts where Sage Fund invested in manufacturing factories, household data revealed that 93% of those surveyed had a direct income from the factories, either through employment, supplying inputs, renting buildings or a combination of two or three revenue streams. During the same survey, virtually all the elderly, hitherto receiving direct cash hand-outs were content with the care they receive from their children, grandchildren and relatives, as opposed to direct cash handouts.

According to the Executive Director, the Fund retained the Sage name to remind everyone of its original purpose: supporting the elderly. And this is reflected everywhere in the Sage Group companies, who share a common corporate culture that includes a creed recited by all staff at the beginning and end of each working day, themed on the blessings that come with old age and the treasured wisdom that flows from our sages.
At Sage Leather Works, the product range includes high class leather shoes exported to Europe. And for each pair exported, the unit price includes the cost of five pairs of sabots for school children in the Sage Schools. Parents buy these sabots at cost.

Sage School Water, another investment of the Fund, bottles purified water in 50-litre barrels delivered to schools for pupils and staff to drink. From their collective corporate social responsibility pool, the Sage Group companies have built domiciliary clinics in the neighbourhoods where, besides government supplied-medicines and medical staff, the elderly get regular physiotherapy and palliative care. These sessions have become wisdom forums, where, as they undergo the treatment, the sages tell age-old stories, fables and proverbs.

One school teacher has spotted this fountain and is already compiling folklore books in various indigenous languages. Yes, Sage means Wise!

© Ben Kahunga Matsiko 2022

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