• 28 July 2011:
  SYPO has recently started the new company SYPO Uganda Ltd, which will expand SYPO's microfinance activities in the Mukono district. The company will operate with the same model as SYPO's microdevelopment project, but more growth oriented and in a slightly different geography. The already existing NGO SYPO microdevelopment will continue to expand its client portfolio in Nkonkonjeru and Kikwayi, managed by Charles Musisi. SYPO Uganda Ltd will focus on growth in Kisoga. Employees Andrew Ssozi (loan officer) and Christine Ndagire (admin assistant) are very eager to start the real work; after registering bank accounts, licenses and other paperwork, the first loans will be issued early August. SYPO Uganda Ltd is currently recruiting a manager for the lending activities (see ad). SYPO hopes that the new company will grow to a portfolio of 3000 loans in the coming five years, with new loan officers recruited every year. All shares are owned by Stichting SYPO; profits will be reinvisted in the charitable efforts of the company.
  
  

• 16 november 2010:
  DRU, with daughter company Drugasar in Britain, is a manufacturer of wood and gas heaters for domestic use. DRU wanted to support SYPO in a way that was meaningful to their own business. As of 2010, DRU will finance loans in our microfinance project specifically for women who will plant eucalyptus trees as a business. Such loans help fight deforestation in an area where local climate change caused by deforestation is a major problem. For each heater that DRU sells, it will donate an amount to finance eucalyptus loans in Uganda.
  
  

• 16 november 2010:
  Impulsis (the joint programme of Edukans, ICCO and Kerk in Actie for supporting Dutch initiatives in their work with local organizations in developing countrie.) has decided to grant a subsidiy for the period 2010 to SYPO. This subsidiy will be used to expand our microfinance project, with the specific aim of reaching a portfolio of 700 outstanding loans. SYPO is grateful for the subsidy; the third time Impulsis has extended such a grant to SYPO.
  
  

• 10 november 2010:
  Probiotics are live bacteria in food that can help sustain a good intestinal health. This in turn can help protect agains diarrheal and malnutrition related diseases. The Dutch NGO Yoba for Life aims to spread probiotics and their health benefits in developing countries by cooperating with local yoghurt producers. We are happy to work together with Yoba for Life to start a pilot project in our yoghurt factory in Kikwayi. Probiotic yoghurt will be piloted as a new product of the factory. We are now looking for interns that can lead this project in the coming months. Please see the job description for details.
  
  

• 02 April 2010:
  The project SYPO microdevelopment has grown to 325 clients, and will hopefully reach 1200 clients by the end of this year. Not a single repayment has been missed sofar, and evermore loan applications are coming in from women who want to work to make their own businesses a success. Please view the movie below to get a better impression.

• 01 April 2010:
  The first clinic in the project SYPO MediStructures is now operational. Two more are almost finished.

• 24 March 2010:
  SYPO microdevelopment is in need of donations to reach more clients in rural areas of the Mukono district. Hundreds of women have now applied for loans to start or expand their businesses, but SYPO simply does not have enough money to give them the temporary capital they need. A silly reason not to grow, or not to help.

• 25 September 2009:
  News of the project SYPO microdevelopment: Oscar Westerhof has joined the work group microfinance. Oscar is a student of econometrics in the Netherlands, and will help with all aspects of the project, with a focus on promotion of the project in the Netherlands. In Uganda, the project continues to grow; every week new clients apply for loans. Within the project, microcredits are often used for small scale retail, but examples also include brick baking, poultry farming, computer services, and one client used her microcredit for a beauty salon! In the figure below, you can follow the growth of the project realtime; our online adminsitration application SYMBA allows you to see exactly how much money has been extended as microloans at any moment. 2800 shillings are about one euro, and the loans are usually around 100 euros. The left axis shows the amount in thousands of shillings.
  

• 05 September 2009:
  The project Counterpart Travels (website here), started by SYPO Director Duko Hopman, is now a project of SYPO itself. Counterpart Travels offers relevant and interesting positions for people who would like to do volunteer work in Uganda. Instead of building schools or digging toilets, this work matches the specific abilities and experiences of the volunteer. The volunteers can stay in Besaniya, the guesthouse started by SYPO. Of course, also non-volunteers are very much welcome to stay in this beatiful guesthouse-resort (photos here), with monkeys in the garden and views over Lake Victoria. All income of Counterpart Travels is used to support SYPO and other humanitarian projects.

• 24 August 2009:
  Over the years, SYPO has learned that the enormous distance between SYPO in the Netherlands and the projects in Uganda severely complicates the cooperation. To support the growth ambitions for the coming years, SYPO has decided to start a permanent representation in Uganda. Director Duko Hopman and financial manager Emma Kandelaars will move to Mukono town in September to start this representation and work on the expansion of SYPO projects. SYPO will get permanent offices on Besaniya hill in Mukono town, were it will also run a guest house to cover the costs of the offices.

• 23 August 2009:
  After a difficult month, the yoghurt production in the factory in Kikwayi has started again. The Ugandan government plans to ban the plastic packaging that is currently used in the factory, which delayed production. During the coming months, the management will look at alternatives to package the yoghurt, for which plastic cups seem to be the best choice. Starting in November, the factory will start selling yoghurt in the capital city Kampala.

• 22 August 2009:
  Early 2010, SYPO will start 'SYPO microbanking'; a possibility for sponsors to lend money directly to women in Uganda with good business plans, as posted on the website. The sponsor can follow the repayments and comments of the beneficiary, and can once again give out the loan to a woman once the first one is repayed in full.

• 20 August 2009:
  SYPO is looking at possibilities to start an 'outsource centre' in rural areas in the Mukono district. Simple data entry management can be done after limited training by people from these areas, and the amounts that European companies can afford to pay for this kind of work can make a huge difference in Uganda. If you have a company or work in a company that has such work that can be done over internet, please let us know, as it will help us estimate whether this project is viable.

• 18 August 2009:
  SYPO looks critically at its own projects, and tries to measure whether the projects have sufficient effects on the wellbeing of beneficiaries. For this effort, the cooperation with academic institutions is very much welcomed. In the near future. SYPO will expand a medical project and microfinance project to new regions. If you or your institution would like to conduct causal research into aid effectiveness on microlevel data, please inform us in time, and we can offer you the infrastructure and adjust our working schedule to the research.

• 15 August 2009:
  There are now over 80 loans in SYPO microdevelopment. No client has defaulted yet or missed a single repayment. Enthusiasm for the project is enormous; every week loan officer Charles Musisi receives new applications from women eager to start working on there own development with small credits that enable them to start or expand a business.

• 12 August 2009:
  Two new locations for Health Centres II have been selected for the project SYPO MediStructures, which builds primary healthcare in Mukono district. The medical commitee and placement commitee together decided on the locations. Land is given by the local community, as are construction materials and labour.

• 23 June 2009:
  As you can see, the new website SYPO is now online. With the new design SYPO stresses that the foundation has grown from a single project to multiple projects with all the same theme: structural entrepreneurship. The style was designed by students of the St. Lucas college. The logo symbolizes "stand on your own two legs", which is the our ambition for our projects: to be able to eventually operate without external help.

• 30 April 2009:
  In the coming months, the SYPO microdevelopment project will extend the first loans to women in the vicinity of the Kikwayi village. We hope that at the end of 2009, the project will count one hundred participants, but first we want to look carefully where any problems may arise.

• 20 March 2009:
  In March 2009, five more cows will be given to women who are willing to adopt an orphan, as part of the yoghurt project. The women will go to a week long course to learn how they can best take care of cows and how to make a good shed.

• 3 March 2009:
  Since early 2009, several different projects will be supported and implemented by SYPO. Due to this expansion and diversification, we wanted a more solid organizational structure. There is now a Board of Trustees established that monitors the progress of the foundation. Besides Ger van der Bruggen and Pieter de Hoop, who have been involved in SYPO from the beginning, Ben Tiesnitsch joined the Board of Trustees. Ben has thorough management experience, but also a passion for East Africa and development aid.

• 25 February 2009:
  There is money to build the first pilot clinic for the MediStructures project. We hope that the clinic, which will be built in the Kikwayi village, will help the first patients in April. As for the other clinics within the project, the ongoing costs (such as salaries of the nurses) will be paid by the government.

• 2 January 2009:
  The internet based software environment 'Symba', which facilitates the administration of the SYPO microdevelopment project, has been completed. The program was developed by Ralph Hopman. Charles Musisi, an employee of the project in Uganda, will register new customers and their transactions through this online system. The program calculates not only what Charles must know about the loans, but also ensures the direct communication with the SYPO microdevelopment working groep in The Netherlands.

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