Uganda: Workshop/factory Checks

From Uganda 2012

On this distribution, we were lucky enough to be able to visit places where the bedkit items were made, before beginning the distributions. We have never been able to do this before. The great advantage of this is that in addition to checking on the local procedures for choosing the sources of items selected for the bedkit, all the team gets to appreciate the economic impact of SCAW purchases and the extraordinary effort that goes into purchasing them. The economy of each country that SCAW visits is different so that the purchasing procedures and the manufacturing systems are very different from one country to another. This is one important reason for the variety of bedkits that SCAW supporters see in their photos.

Here in Uganda, although we distribute bedkits widely across the country, most bedkits items are made in the capital, Kampala, or in the countryside around it.

Our first visit today was to the place where this year’s boys’ clothing was made. This was a small home-like operation with fewer than ten workers where young people, men and women, worked at sewing machines making clothes. One of the workers told us that he learned his trade at school. He said that he enjoyed the work as they got to make a variety of garments. He offered to make Peter a suit! One of the women told us that she could make ten of the garments she was working on, in a day.

The owner of this little factory was a woman entrepreneur very like the members of the Inner Wheel who, for many years, have been SCAW’s wonderful partners in Uganda.

Our other visits today were to small, Chinese-owned, factories managed by Ugandans or Chinese, located in rural areas. One, with 500 workers, mainly women, had won the order for our bedkit bed sheets. This was an open, airy, building with around 20 Chinese staff onsite. The second was a much smaller operation where this year’s mattresses were made using a foam, based on local materials. This plant had allowed the Inner Wheel volunteers to assemble and store all 6,000 bedkits onsite. This was an important contribution to this year’s SCAW operation as safe, clean, storage and an assembly site for a small mountain of bedkits is a critical part of our enterprise.

Our last visit was to the place where the bedkit flip flops were made. They were produced by a plastic press, using, what appeared to be local materials. This plant was part of a small complex of factories where 85 Chinese work. All those we met had been there for more than a year, one for ten years. The plant was founded 35 years ago.

Did you expect to read about China in this blog?

Jill and Peter
for Team Uganda 2012

Click to leave your comments.