Internet café

With our support, two of the older teenagers of the house opened an internet café in July of 2009 after finally overcoming many challenges.  The most difficult part was to find the right location for the café; it had to be in a commercial area with enough potential customers passing by and had to have enough security due to the expensive equipment inside.  We also had to make sure that there was a good power source and enough phone outlets to allow the equipment to function reliably.

Training the two to professionally manage a small business has taken time and yet has been a fantastic learning opportunity for them. They trade off shifts to keep the café open seven days a week. On a daily basis they are learning important skills as they work with money, interact with customers and suppliers, and solve a range of problems that arise.  They still work under the close supervision of the orphanage administrator because of the high level of responsibility required.

This opportunity for the kids has also been made possible thanks to the generous support of the Foundation Renta for providing start-up funding and the financing for a generator that we added in February 2010 to solve problems of electrical black-outs that are so frequent in Uganda.  

Hopefully very soon, we expect that the older of the two, John Ssenoga, will be able to leave the house and support himself through his work at the café.  The business is still young and there are a few more problems to work out before it makes enough money to reliably support an independent adult.