we might need a lot of dough!

You may recall our previous posting about the ideas for a bakery at Kisiizi. This came out of the recognition that we have spare electricity at night and wondering how this might be utilised to the benefit of patients, staff and community.  We have been scoping out a number of aspects and happily it is looking promising as a viable venture.

On the flight out here we had an hour stopover in Kigali when we had to stay on the plane while other passengers embarked.  We turned to people in the row behind us and started chatting.  One Ugandan lady who lives in UK was visiting Uganda to see relatives.  When we talked a bit about Kisiizi we mentioned the idea of maybe starting a bakery and she said "oh, my cousin runs a bakery in Kampala!"
So yesterday, after previous phone calls, we went to visit her and look around her bakery.  She and her team were so welcoming and helpful that we left much encouraged and with a much better idea of the issues.  It was surely no mere co-incidence that we had this link up but we felt God had opened up the way.  The size of her bakery was ideal to advise us and they are clearly doing very well and expanding. She really picked up the vision for the Kisiizi bakery and its potential to help the hospital and to reduce the cost of living and be a long term income generating project. 

We also gave her some food for thought as we mentioned we were trying to find out about using waxed paper packaging rather than plastic bags that are so environmentally harmful.  Interestingly, Rwanda has banned plastic bags so we understand that bread there is sold in paper so it may be possible to organise.

The next step is to contact potential suppliers and estimate the costs of the project which will be significant, but has the potential to make a real difference long term.  We will then be looking for support to fund the programme. 

As we have looked into the logistics we anticipate it would be best to purchase raw materials in Kampala and transport them to Kisiizi and this then raises the question of whether we might them move other things at the same time and set up a supermarket, again to reduce the cost of living and to help the hospital with some income generation.

So the overall impression of our scoping exercise is that the project looks viable and we need to go on to write up a detailed proposal...  watch this space.