Uganda
The Kyalimpa furniture making group in Kjanjojo District is one of many small businesses we have supported in Uganda. This is the chairman’s take on how the business and the lives of those working there have changed.
Our lives have improved so much. For example my three children can now go to school.
My family spends 45,000 Ush (£10.50) each week on food and 27,000 Ush (£6.30) on school fees. My work is my family’s only income. On average I now earn 100,000 Ush (£24) per week, which leaves about 10,000 to 20,000 Ush (£2-4) for putting money by for the family or for putting back into the business.
The money we’re reinvesting means we can manage the business properly. We can replace worn out tools or buy new ones so we don’t have to make do.
The records we now keep means we can budget for the future and know how much profit we will make. In the next six months we will invest in machinery and increase our raw timber supplies. Because we’re so much busier now we have taken on two trainees.
The quality of the tools is good. We paid 100,000 Ush (£24) for them. We think they’re worth a lot more, but we couldn’t have bought tools like this locally for the money we had.
The tools have helped us do more work and respond to the needs of our customers. We now provide a general joinery service for house construction, making up the doors, door frames, windows and roofing.
We still make furniture. We’re looking at our furniture designs to see what improvements we can make. Things are looking much better.
Kyalimpa received a furniture making kit and business training from our partners the Uganda Rural Development Training Centre in 2002.
