Vuka small business graduates have been working hard for several months to launch their new social enterprises. Hear them share what they have learned in their own words – their joys and struggles, stories and celebrations.
Geoff and Beatrice: “We are celebrating the start of the peanut butter making! Little by little it is picking up. Learning to operate the machine has been another adventure. We are learning how important it is to record every expense that comes alongside the project – always keeping records.”
Ezekiel: The chicken coop is finished and in early September the second group of chicks of about 120 have been received! Currently chicks are receiving vaccination doses and start up food. I am devoting most of my time to them since in this phase the needs of close monitoring are very high.
Happiness & Emmanuel: “We learned things change a lot and quickly. We decided to build a better-quality chicken coop because of the weather where we are living, sometimes a lot of wind and termites, so it cost us more than we expected. Because of that we did not buy the full 100 chicks, We will have 63, and because we have 10 chickens who are hatching eggs we will get chicks from them to reach our goal of having 100.”
Joe: “What am I learning as I keep my monthly budget?
DISCIPLINE as I continue to plan and manage money and time, money needs are many but at the same time business must grow and succeed.
I know that I must have a broader thinking, as things and weather change, I have to also do what I can for the business to not collapse. We have the saying that says, “follow the wind and read the seasons”, which means when things are changing do not sit still and wait for the 2nd round.
My estimation did not come to match what was in the market by the time I received the money but I had to adjust things a bit though it did not affect my budget that much.”
Bosco: “One particular story I would like to share was when another customer went away with someone else flour which was more than their own. Our team did not realize and therefore could not track them down. The lady was very upset and wanted to leave, but I gave her a promise that if we did not find her posho (flour) we would replace it with our own.”
Judy: “This month has been a great and an exciting month, learning a lot of new things and being humbled – although being the owner I am learning under my young energetic and visionary shopkeeper! I must admit that he is my faithful teacher, so encouraging, humble and even willing to step aside and leave me sell.
This first month has been a month of adding more stock as the customers need, thus we have been buying things almost every other day. Every end week on Friday or Saturday we close the week and we marvel at God’s deeds because we realized that we have made some good money over that week. We have not made big changes as such we are still learning especially for those small things that we have to sell and we don`t know the prices we send someone to a nearby shop to buy for us then we can know the size they sell for what price. Pray for us for good health and that we will continue making more customers, we also have a problem with power electricity. It is on and off; we keep talking to the owner of the house but he seems to be very slow dealing with the issue.”
