Our Work

Cooperatives have information, education and training as one of their principles. They have the responsibility of educating their members in various aspects. As UHOCU, we build the capacity of Housing Cooperatives in areas such as financial management, cooperative management and governance.

Land is a critical factor in the production of housing. The constitution of Uganda states that land belongs to the citizens within the various land tenure systems including; customary, freehold, mailo and leasehold. However, the existence of multiple, over lapping land tenure systems and the power vested in people over land has led to land conflicts, evictions and fraud in the land sector. Weak enforcement of planning laws and regulations has also resulted in haphazard development and unplanned human settlements.

 UHOCU’s land and housing component focuses on creating awareness on the land rights and suitable land use methods for primary housing cooperatives. The Uganda National Land Policy (2013), the condominium law, the 1995 constitution of Uganda are all instruments that clearly spell out the land rights of men, women, children, slum dwellers and other groups. Due to limited availability of public, members of the housing cooperatives buy land from private individuals in order to establish planned housing estates for their members. The high levels of fraud and forgery of land titles, overlapping tenure systems particularly in the central region and the bureaucracy in the land offices has left some victims of land grabbing. UHOCU established the land and housing unit to support Primary housing cooperatives in land identification, land verification, title search and physical planning.

Advocating for the use of appropriate building technologies is not only a matter of preserving and protecting the environment;

It’s one way of suggesting alternative building ideas which are eco-friendly and cost effective in the sector of housing. About 200,000 homes are needed every year in both rural and urban areas in Uganda to house the annual population increase. Burned mud and clay bricks are among the most commonly used building materials and yet these have resulted in high deforestation, pollution and unmonitored clay extraction.

UHOCU conducts training in alternative building techniques in order to equip women, men and youth with non-conventional building techniques in the production of Interlocking stabilized soil blocks (ISSB), water, sanitation and roofing. Building teams within housing cooperatives are also equipped with basic skills in suitable landuse techniques, project costing, marketing, value addition and the development of business plans.

ISSblocks as an affordable and environmentally sustainable alternative to fired bricks are made from soil stabilized with 5% cement, compressed in manually operated machines and sun dried. ISSBs perform better than clay bricks by increasing the structural stability of built walls while reducing the amount of cement needed as mortar.