Seed Effect - South Sudanese and Uganda

Causes: Refugees, Self-Sustaining Training, Microfinance

Missy Williams, Co-Founder

Scroll to bottom of page to see an urgent COVID-19 message

We were introduced to Seed Effect ministry recently by our good friend Brian Fikkert, Founder and President of the Chalmers Center. Seed Effect has adopted the Chalmers Center savings group plan and is ministering to refugees in Northern Uganda who have immigrated from South Sudan. The ministry demonstrates excellent stewardship and has had a great Kingdom impact on those living in the refugee camps.

Our Vision

For the world’s most insecure and underdeveloped communities to be stabilized through economic empowerment and the hope of Jesus Christ.

In other words, we serve the hard places. Our experience and the success of our Christ-centered, savings-led microfinance program has uniquely positioned us to be a catalyst that shifts the response to refugee crises, focusing less on short-term solutions and long-term aid, and more on Christ-centered, self-sustaining, and empowering tools executed by the refugees themselves.

How It Works

Without access to banking services refugees and those trapped in material poverty don’t have a safe place to save for lump sum expenses, like school fees, or a way to access adorable credit to support income generation. Without access to insurance, paying for emergency expenses can be devastating. Broken systems force many of these families to struggle to survive rather than thrive, and, as a result, they lack the opportunity to overcome poverty.

Seed Effect’s Christ-centered savings-led microfinance program provides a safe place for poor households to save and borrow money in order to generate income, as well as Christ-Centered community and spiritual discipleship.

At Seed Effect, we believe:

With the right tools, refugees and people trapped in material poverty can and want to provide for their families with dignity.
True transformation can’t happen apart from the Gospel.
The hard places are worth investing in.
How we help truly matters.

Core Values

Create an inspiring movement.

We believe that Seed Effect is a movement of hope, love, empowerment, and transformation. This inspires us, and those around us, to say yes, get involved, and become an agent of change.

Build transformative relationships.

We believe that we can affect Christ-centered transformation by building and nurturing relationships through indigenous leadership and a Gospel-centric relational approach.

Provide stability in unstable environments.

We believe that Seed Effect is called to serve by bringing stability to situations that are unstable. In other words, we work in the hard places where others won’t.

Do more with less.

We believe that the way we invest our resources matters. The places we serve are more challenging and more costly than others, but we work hard to spend available funds where we can achieve the most impact while promoting sustainability in our operations.

Promote empowerment through savings and income generating activities.

We believe that microloans and savings alongside education and discipleship are life-giving opportunities that empower the poor to invest in their dreams.

Leadership

Our stateside team partners with local leaders to promote long-term, sustainable community transformation. This approach empowers our indigenous team to love and serve their community as neighbors and enhances the reach of the local church.

An urgent COVID-19 message from Missy Williams, Co-Founder

Agriculture Project

When we surveyed our group members asking about their greatest need, they overwhelmingly requested agricultural support in the form of seeds. With travel restrictions currently in place (Seed Effect has obtained an exemption), our members, spread across Northern Uganda, have limited access to these seeds. This is where Seed Effect can help!

Our plan is to distribute both short-term vegetable seeds to harvest in 2-3 weeks and long-term seeds to harvest in 2-3 months to over 22,000 Seed Effect members. On average, these members care for an estimated 112,000 children. Not only do these seeds solve for food security but also provide opportunities for livelihood!

Soap-Making Project

In 2019, we launched a livelihood training program to train 2nd cycle Seed Effect groups in soap-making. To this point, we've trained 48 groups (1,200 members). While we do plan to expand this training when restrictions lift, our main focus with this special project is to help our members that have already been trained gain access to the supplies they need to make soap. Access to soap, as you know, is critical to keeping the population healthy and currently, again due to travel restrictions and inability to access materials, the supply is critically low. Our members will be able to make soap for personal use to sell to friends and neighbors. Additionally, we will facilitate the sale of soap from our members to other organizations also engaged in COVID-19 response including hand-washing stations (4Africa) and food preservation (Preserve International) to name a couple.

Stories of Hope from Scovia Mansuk, Seed Effect Uganda Director of Operations

The story of Seed Effect is an amazing one; it is one of those stories that tells us about an everlasting God who is near to the broken. Seed Effect has served in hard places during tough and difficult times with people who have lost hope. We have served through political wars, tribal and ethnic conflicts, domestic violence, and now the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic has led to an economic crisis necessitating more services for both refugee communities and the host community.

As an organization carrying the heart of Christ, Seed Effect Uganda is standing with all of our savings group members during this time. We are in the process of distributing more soap making materials and seeds now, and we will have more stories of impact to share in the weeks to come. But in the past few weeks, here are a few of the things we have celebrated:

During this pandemic, Seed Effect Uganda has provided savings group members with the chemicals needed for making liquid soap which they’ve used for their personal needs and to sell commercially for livelihood. Our staff, who are also all trained on making liquid soap, have been making, packaging, and distributing hand-made soap to public entities like hospitals and offices for people to wash with.
Seed Effect Uganda has hired local tailors to make face masks that we are distributing to savings groups both the refugees communities and hosts. The face masks will benefit clients like Gloria (mentioned below) who operate inside the markets.
Saving Group members are using their savings to buy more supplies for retail business.

Gloria is a member of GOD’S WILL Savings Group, and while many businesses have been affected and some forced to close, she is working hard to operate her business amidst the pandemic. Her savings group has also continued saving and providing support with social distancing measures. Gloria said “distributors are bringing supplies from Kampala at the cheapest prices, but now the buyers are few compared to when the pandemic wasn’t there”. With the lessons learned from the Chalmers Center trainings on Planning a Better Business, Gloria also decided to open a new Mobile Money business where the people in the market access sending and receiving money online from her.

We are so grateful for our partners who have also continued to support Seed Effect’s work during this time, empowering members like Gloria when they need it most.