Fear of joblessness drove Nabasa into entrepreneurship

After joining university in 2017, Patience Nabasa, decided to venture into backyard gardening at her home in Kasenjenje in Kakoba, Mbarara City. While her family had the liberty to eat her vegetables, her plan was to harvest and sell in order to raise money for upkeep at university.

For many who do not hail from a well-to-do family, there is a tendency that once a parent pays tuition, hostel fees and money for food, he or she will not care whether or not a student possess es one pair of shoes.

You won’t start stories of how you need money to go to the salon for a new hairdo. For some of these parents, they will sell land to pay tuition for their children. Others live in an endless cycle of loans to raise their families.

Her start

“I was happy to join the university but my greatest fear was how I was going to spend unimaginable time on the streets in search of jobs. The glaring statistics of unemployment in Uganda freaked me out. I was exploiting all avenues to run away from this harsh reality. That’s how I started growing spinach, carrots, eggplants and green pepper, among others,” says Nabasa.

With some little savings, she bought a variety of seeds, manure, pesticides and watering cans. She requested her parents to gazette a small piece of land, where she would exclusively do backyard gardening. She spent the first month clearing the garden and setting up nursery beds.

“The little time I had after my lectures was spent tending to my garden. I was very deliberate about it and I needed to earn from it.  From my first harvest, I made Shs200,000 which I  reinvested in the project,” she says.      

Being the ambitious type that she was, this was not enough for her. She needed to make more money and spent more time reflecting on avenues that would help her earn more money.

During her second semester in 2018, while searching on YouTube, Nabaasa learnt how to make pompom flowers and shortly, it did not take her long before she started making these flowers herself.

“This was a breakthrough in my entrepreneurial journey. I started earning from pompom flowers. I got good money from these flowers and I saved Shs300, 000,”she says.

Still on YouTube, she learnt how to make Khaki bags. Nabasa used part of her savings to buy reams of paper. She then started making khaki bags.

Here she was, a university student who needed to juggle between academic work and projects to earn money. A few months into these projects, her university launched an agribusiness incubation hub, whose aim was to instill an entrepreneurial spirit among students.

Like they say, luck favours the prepared. Nabasa was among the first students to benefit from this initiative. 

“The university facilitated me and two other students to go for training in making banana fibre bags at Texfad in Mukono. Armed with these skills, in 2019, I embarked on this project,” she says.

With her education, YouTube skills and the training she underwent, she was ready to take off. In that same year, she established her company -Gifts of Nature that has scaled into making different products such as decorations, bags, mats, necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and charcoal briquettes. 

She makes these from banana fibre, plastic bottles, straws and old clothes that she collects from Mbarara City and from farmers.

Achievements     

Today, Nabasa comfortably pays her bills, her upkeep and also contributes to her tuition. In a month, I can earn on average Shs300, 000.The prices of Nabasa’s products range from between Shs1,000 and Shs50,000.

She sells her products in supermarkets, restaurants and hotels to food vendors and individuals who do decorations.

The budding businesswoman has attracted companies for partnerships such as Association of Volunteers in International Service (AVSI). Although she harbours plans to expand her business, lack of capital remains Nabasa’s greatest challenge and this has limited her capacity to increase production.

“I have no space to do this business; it’s at home, at university. Because I have just started, I can’t afford rent and machinery to improve production capacity and quality,’ she says.

Way forward

Nabasa says she is working on several business proposals to attract funding. She hopes to secure grants to facilitate bigger investment, large production space, and installation of paper processing equipment and also employ more youth. She plans to expand her market and sell her products across the African continent.  Her driving force is to avoid being part of unemployment statistics in Uganda. She also wants to be part of the solutions for poverty and an inspiration to many youth who are constantly lamenting about lack of jobs.

“We have smart phones but beyond Facebook and WhatsApp, there is more we can do with them in terms of learning new skills and earning money. Even if I dropped out of university today, I would still make money because of the YouTube channel on my phone,”Nabasa explains.Besides money, she is also passionate about conserving the environment.

At 24, the third year student, pursuing a bachelor’s degree in science with education at Bishop Stuart University, owns a company, born out of what others could call trash, old clothes, paper, banana plant and plastic waste.

What others say

 “Nabasa is an example of the youth that need to be supported. She has rewritten her life story. If empowered, youth can become economically empowered and contribute to development. Unemployment remains high because such brains are not identified and supported,” remarks Rosa Malango, the UN Resident Coordinator during her visit to the university’s agribusiness centre in August.

 “At the height of youth unemployment, as an institution, we mooted a plan to start an agribusiness incubation hub. Our focus was revolutionalise the life of the youth and interest them in entrepreneurship so that by the time they leave university, they have employability skills. Nabasa is our champion and we will continue to support her to realise her dreams even when she leaves this university,” Prof Mauda Kamatenesi, the university vice chancellor of Bishop Stuart University said.