Sustainable enterprise is fundamental to Edirisa UK. Our focus on income generating initiatives gives individuals and communities the means to support themselves, while skills-based workshops offer families ways to save money.
Women's Groups
Our groups give women the skills, tools and knowledge to establish their own small enterprise, allowing them to secure future business and a reliable income for themselves and their families.
In total we work with over 200 women who produce a variety of ethnic Ugandan products which we purchase to sell in our shops, concessions and to lodges and other shops throughout Uganda. We donate equipment, ensure the women are paid fairly for their time and offer training workshops that help them to modernise and adapt their products for a contemporary audience. The women's groups offer a collaborative, social and supportive environment that also safeguards their traditional craft for the future. In 2023 we built a new workshop in Murandi, Lake Bunyonyi, for one of our groups.
All profits generated from Edirisa Crafts go towards supporting the Special Needs Education Centre.
The knowledge of how to weave baskets has been passed down from generation to generation. Skilled fingers weave stripped papyrus stalks into various products. We work closely with the women's craft groups, developing basketware designs and introducing new products to help them differentiate their offering. Our groups now produce a range of brightly coloured basket-ware with interesting designs. Some are fused with kitenge fabrics to marry these two ethnic styles together.
We run training programmes that help the women learn new skills including tailoring, knitting and weaving.
Edirisa UK has donated sewing and knitting machines, weaving looms, tables and more.
Two of the groups (Bukinda and Mujera) have been provided with workshops to provide a meeting place and a place to house their equipment and products.
Workshops on hairdressing, and jewellery making have given women the skills to style their own hair and make jewellery for themselves as well as start up their own small business offering their services to others and generating an income.
Edirisa UK has donated jewellery making kits, beads and other resources.
We have introduced the women to local ingredients with which they can make herbal medicines, creams and salves to support health and healing.
This has reduced their reliance on shop-bought products, helping them to save money.
Any excesses can also be sold.
We are grateful to Monde par la Main/Give a Hand of Canada for supporting our training workshops.
Watch the women making baskets at Lake Bunyonyi.
This is a video presentation made for a Design For Fair Trade workshop.
Filmed by Miha Logar, Comfort Abemigisha and Steve Hargan and narrated by Jon Lee.
Beekeeping
In January 2021, in partnership with Helen Thorne, beekeeper extraordinaire, we started a beekeeping project at Lake Bunyonyi. The long term goal was to set up cooperatives within our women's groups to manage the hives and generate an income from the sale of honey and the manufacture of soap and candles from the wax.
Initially we supplied 30 hives and equipment to women from 3 women's groups around the lake. We appointed a professional beekeper to head up the project and she supervises the placement of the hives and visits every month to monitor progress. The project has now grown to include the Bukinda area with a total of 105 hives. Honey processing equipment has been installed at the two locations and we have trained the women in honey processing. Our next workshops will include candle and soap making.
The women are already benefitting through the sale of honey and we will further support sales through the marketing of their products in our own shops and local organisations.
My family depends on the skills of my hands. I got those skills from Edirisa UK. I even teach other young women those skills and they pay me. My children are going to school because I sell crafts and work on women’s hair. Now I am learning to keep bees and I am very
happy.
Fortunate
Bukinda Women's Group
I am grateful for the chance to learn about beekeeping and have my own hive. Edirisa UK have taught me many things and my son would not have been able to go to University without the money I got from the skills they taught me – tailoring, weaving and good farming.
Violet
Bukinda Women's Group
My husband was sick and I was desperate. I had nothing to sell to cater for his medication. When I harvested honey from the beehive given by Edirisa UK, I sold the honey and I was able to take my husband to the hospital.
Edith
Bunyonyi Women's Group
Coffee
In 2018 we started working with Richard Rugaya founder of Gorilla Highlands Coffee (GHC), a speciality coffee producer and social enterprise aimed at promoting coffee tourism and environmental conservation in the Kigezi region. Sourcing their coffee beans from small-holders they are providing them with some stability and much-needed source of income. They are also focused on responsible and smart agricultural techniques to minimize their carbon footprint and preserve the forests of the mountain gorillas, all while creating a quality product.
Edirisa UK sells the Lake Bunyonyi branded coffee through our craft outlets and are distributing the coffee in the Kabale District. We distributed coffee seedlings to our women during Covid-19 and hope one day they will be supplying GHC. GHC opened a cafe in Kisoro in 2019 and we supplied the Simonetti coffee machine and grinder. In 2023 we provided funds to install a new roastery in the cafe building - the first in the Kisoro District.
In July 2023 GHC won a Gourmet Gold Award at the AVPA Coffee Contest in Paris. Over 200 coffees from 25 countries were judged and to gain a gold award is amazing!
