Sunday, June 26, 2016

Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots of Money) Pet Shop Boys

Today we had two main areas of focus-microenterprises and supporting economic development and whole child education.  We were spending most of the day at Pastor Francis’ school and we learned the meaning of the phrase “TIA” (This is Africa) when we learned late the night before that Pastor Francis wouldn’t be there because he was in Rwanda.

This was actually not a huge problem since Jessi, Michael, and I had been there for a week and had a good understanding of all of the projects so we were able to help lead the group.  We made a quick stop at George’s yogurt shop so the other participants could see one of the more successful microenterprises that Pastor Francis has assisted.  We then walked to the school for a quick introduction and tour before the students had their break.  Once on break, everyone spent time playing and talking with the kids who are so personable and loving they can’t be resisted!

At eleven o’clock we began our microenterprise work.  We asked all of the microgrant applicants to come and speak about their requests.  We had about twenty applicants and so divided into two groups with each of our participant groups hearing from about ten applicants.  It was so fun to share some of the stories we had been hearing all week with the rest of our group.   

Here are just a few of the stories we heard:

George owns a yogurt shop.  He started as a small business out of Pastor Francis’ house.  He now has a shop on the main road and sells yogurt, juices and bagged water.  He owns a plastic sealer, which allows him to seal the plastic bags containing all of his products and he sells to individual customers and also supplies some grocery stores.  When the sealer overheats he has to stop work for two hours while it cools down so he was asking for a new sealer (250,000 shillings or $83) so he could alternate the use of them.  He also asked for a label maker (150,000 shillings or $50) as he is interested in making his own label and developing his own brand of yogurt.

Zemu is a single mom of three.  She has been raising chickens for eight years and teaching her children how do it as well.   She requested about $120 for 30 more chickens, feed, and some cement so she can construct a building to hold her chickens.

James owns a millet grinding business.  He has been successful but would like to purchase some large bags of millet (300,000 shillings or $100) so he can get ahead on his profits and reinvest them in his business.  He also requested some seeds so he can grow more millet and generate more profits in the future.  In the long term he’d like to develop better marketing and branding for his business and expand to more wholesale customers.

Celestina is a single mother of two who has advanced HIV.  She has been selling small food items and charcoal in a roadside shop for the past seven years.  She requested about $100 worth of items for her shop ranging from charcoal to fish to cooking oil to bananas and spices.  These funds would help her develop and expand her business.
 
Charles is a carpenter by trade but an artist at heart.  He went to three years of art school and then determined he must make functional art in order to make money.  He does beautiful wood carved furniture as well as some sculpture projects.  Charles doesn’t have employees but rather hires secondary students from local schools on the weekends in order to teach them the skills of the trade.  Charles requested 600,000 shillings for a heavy duty router so his work will be more consistent quality and faster as currently they are using a hand chisel.


Helen is a single mother of six whose husband rarely comes home. For the past year she has been traveling to the market once a week and buying clothes and then selling them door to door in her neighborhood.  Helen requested 200,000 shillings worth of clothes (about $70) in order to help get her business gaining more profits and so she would not have to travel to the market and pay transportation for a few weeks.

Fred is currently a cook at a school but his dream is to become a farmer.  He has moved back to his village and built a pen for pigs and a coop for chickens himself to save on expenses.  He has seven pigs already and requested 150,000 shillings ($50) to buy three more so he can begin breeding them in a few months.  Once he makes enough money he’d like to buy up to 300 chickens and use that money to expand his business, feed his family, and pay his children’s school fees.

Margaret is a widow with five children.  Her meat shop has been open five years where she sells pork and other food items.  She is currently renting a food stand and she would like to open her own shop.  She requested about $100 worth of products for her shop.  She hopes to earn enough money to acquire her own shop and pay school fees for her children.

Each person was given a few minutes to talk about their business and then our group members asked some questions.  We had some new applicants that required translations so our process took quite a bit longer than we had been expecting.

We worked until lunch and then headed off to the Sugar Corporation complex where we had an amazing Indian lunch and also toured the golf course.  The flowers were amazing.  After lunch, we were back to Canaan School for a presentation on child psychology in Uganda and then we wrapped up the microenterprises.  It was a busy day!







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