Only 13 days in, and the workshop is buzzing with activity once again. Our return to Uganda was met with warm smiles and eager faces, all the girls anxious to return to work after 3 idle weeks since the materials ran out. It is a busy and exciting time for us.
Afri-Pads is growing. And we’ve set our sights high!
Our plan is to upscale the existing workshop operations from 5 girls to 25 girls in just 8 weeks. Come April, we aim to have a second branch of equal size up and running. Operating a full capacity, these two branches will enable us to manufacture 60,000 Afri-Pads Menstrual Kits in 2010. Ambitious, yes, but the cogs are already spinning.
Already last week we moved up the hill into our new space, the building previously occupied by the Kitengesa Community Library. Nearly 5 times bigger than our original workshop, the space feels expansive … almost empty, but come January we anticipate we’ll be bursting at the seams.
This week we leaked the word that Afri-Pads is hiring, and local girls started coming out of the word-work for interviews. Within three days, we’d hired seven girls with sufficient tailoring skills and filled two tailoring assistant positions. 10 single-stitch sewing machines and 5 over-locking machines are on the way, and 15 chairs have been commissioned from Steven, our local carpenter. Pauls is coming from Kampala today with a shipment of fabric. All that remains for training to begin is getting everyone and everything in the same place at the same time. Then the real fun begins! Stay tuned.
