Alaisa lives in a single room with her husband and three of their own children. Her sister and her brother-in-law both died of AIDS and Alaisa is looking after their two children as well. Her nephew is HIV positive - he is very prone to malaria and misses many days of school.
Her husband can sometimes get work digging the soil on other people's farm for ush1,000 ($US0.54) a day. He is happy to get ten days of work every month, but would like more.
Her husband is also a trained tailor. Alaisa often pleads with other tailors in the area to rent their sewing machines for ush5,000 ($US2.70) a month. They cannot afford to buy material to convert into clothes, so they can only perform simple repairs for between ush200 and ush300 ($US0.11 and $US0.16).
Alaisa use to own thirty chickens, but twelve died because she couldn't afford to feed them properly. One kilo of maize bran (chicken food) costs ush300 ($US0.11). The chickens sleep in the same one room apartment that Alaisa and her family live in because Alaisa fears they will get stolen again. They eat some of the eggs and sell some for ush100 ($US 0.05) per egg. She hopes to sell some of the chickens to raise school fees.
At the moment, they are managing to keep the children in school. They are paying ush15,000 ($US 8.18) per year for each of the children to go to school. Alaisa wishes she could send at least some of her children to a boarding school, but cannot afford the fees.
Malaria is a problem in Alaisa's home, much like everyone else's in her village of Namukama.
Alaisa can only afford to feed her family once per day. Sometimes they cannot afford to eat at all and they go hungry.
Alaisa walks a five kilometer round trip every day to fetch the five jerry cans of water her family needs. The water is unsafe for drinking and needs boiling.
She hopes that many Namukama necklaces are sold on GrassRootsUganda.com because she wants some capital to pay for school fees and uniforms. She would also use the money to rent a bigger home and purchase a sewing machine.
She wished that her husband could have a permanent job and the Namukama could get electricity one day.