Teso Women Development Initiative (TEWDI)

Teso Women Development Initiative (TEWDI)s (TEWIDI Uganda) is an indigenous non-governmental organisation registered with Uganda's National Bureau of Non-Government Organisations and headquartered in Soroti City, eastern Uganda. Founded in 2009 as a community-based organisation and formally registered in 2014, it works across livelihoods and food security, climate action, and capacity building, with women, girls, and youth as its primary target groups. The organisation currently operates in four sub-counties within Soroti district, having previously worked across five districts including Serere, Bukedia, Kwen, and Busia before contracting its geographic scope following funding losses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A central activity is supporting women smallholder farmers to grow vegetables year-round through a dry-season horticulture model. The organisation provides seeds and seedlings, trains farmers in agronomic practices, post-harvest management, and collective marketing, and installs shared small-scale irrigation systems built from locally available materials. These irrigation systems are designed and constructed in collaboration with students from a local university, who gain practical water engineering experience through the process. Soil testing is also provided to farmers. Women farmers are organised into village savings groups, which function as peer support networks and internal credit mechanisms, enabling members to access loans without requiring collateral.

The organisation manufactures charcoal briquettes from agricultural waste, including groundnut shells, using motorised machines, and produces clay-based energy-saving cookstoves in household and institutional sizes. These products are sold to schools, supermarkets, hotels, orphanages, and individual households across eastern Uganda and as far as Kampala. Community members are recruited as commission-based sales agents. The briquette and stove enterprise, registered as a formal business entity under the organisation, generates income that helps sustain operations independently of donor funding. Each year, a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology visits to run an innovation and entrepreneurship camp for young people aged approximately 11 to 18. The organisation has six staff members and works with local government structures at parish, sub-county, and district levels to implement its activities and maintain accountability.