About Reconxile

In 2006, we were growing concerned that the distribution of money through Peinao to the good and worthy charities we had been supporting was becoming a bit of a mechanical act. What had started out as a worthy intent, had in a very short time (2-3 years) become a task. Somehow, this project which touched our pockets had stopped reaching our hearts. We were horrified that despite so much suffering going on in the world we had become almost blase about our role in helping (in a small way) to alleviate it.

We feel the solution is to get more personally involved, and so in March 2006, we went to visit the poor in southern Uganda, and in particular those in the slums in Katwe in Kampala.

Our intent (under the banner of the Transformational Business Network) was to help them to set up small one or two person businesses by providing them with seed capital (in some cases literally) or by helping them with investment to grow their businesses.

But the visit was a real eye-opener. Many had in fact already started small businesses, using the many charitable finance initiatives that are around, but in most cases they had run into trouble because of a lack of the disciplines that we in the West take for granted. It became clear that the greatest need was not for further small investments, but for very basic training in how to set up and run a small business.

And so we started Reconxile. Reconxile is a small project to develop basic training materials to help the very poor in the Developing World set up and run very small business concerns using the seed capital that they have access to (through community loans schemes, microfinance, and other charitable sources). The training materials are cascaded through the structure of local churches and other well-meaning groups. There are a number of reasons for this: they operate in the slums amongst the people who most need financial help; they have a heart for seeing the desperately poor succeed; they have buildings and resources to support the training; they have people who are able to read and deliver the training; and they asked for it.

The materials are developed by our people in Tesseract Management Systems without cost, but we have needed to get money out to the Developing World to support a number of related initiatives: production of training materials locally; training local trainers; supporting a local microfinance scheme, and more recently in setting up a structure/network of community loans schemes. We are extremely grateful to Hand-in-Hand for helping us to do this.

To access the materials that have so far been created, please visit the Reconxile website. To learn more about our work in Uganda, please visit the TBN website and click on the details and background tabs