NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Vanderbilt University sophomores Henry Manice and Wil Keenan‘s two-month trip to Uganda last summer changed lives – theirs and the lives of many Ugandan artisans and children.
After their interest was piqued by taking a class about East Africa, the two attended a UNICEF conference in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 2005 on behalf of the victimized children in Uganda. Based on those experiences, Manice and Keenan decided to start a company and a nonprofit to take a grassroots approach to community development in the East African nation.
“We decided – over a bagel at Bruegger‘s one Saturday morning – to start a company that would use its earnings to have a positive impact on the lives of people in Uganda,” said co-founder Henry Manice. “Poverty and a lack of access to quality education are two of the key factors contributing to the conflict in Uganda.”
They spent the spring of 2006 organizing their ideas, raising seed money for the company and preparing for a trip to Uganda.
Manice and Keenan first addressed poverty by creating Enjuba.com. Enjuba (which translates to “rising sun” in Luganda) sells handcrafted clothing and accessories created by a group of 26 artisans selected by Manice and Keenan in Uganda. The company focuses on providing the artisans with a sustainable income and helps them invest in their businesses.
With the help of a Ugandan named Francis Kadoli, whom Manice and Keenan met shortly after arriving in Uganda, they put together a team of artisans from all over the country. Manice and Keenan made Kadoli Enjuba‘s on-site manager, responsible for the production and collection of all Enjuba products.
“At Enjuba, we wanted a connection between the customer and the artisan,” says Manice. He and Keenan went to the different villages to meet artisans and invite them to join Enjuba. At the end of the summer, all 26 artisans were invited to the house in Uganda where Manice and Keenan were staying for dinner and a slideshow of the artisans creating Enjuba products. Toward the end of the evening, the artisans decided to share what Enjuba has meant to them.
“My business has become more organized,” says Kalungi Ahamada, a Ugandan who makes leather belts for Enjuba. “My family‘s welfare has improved so much through this encounter with Enjuba.”
Videos of the artisans creating their products and talking about Enjuba are available on the Enjuba website at www.enjuba.com. The website is also where customers can view the products and order them.
Enjuba.com‘s earnings are either reinvested into the company to expand and diversify the selection of products, or they are invested in enjuba.org, the nonprofit arm, which puts its resources toward improving education in Uganda.
“Our purpose was never for profit,” Keenan explained. “We want to focus on making people better off.”
“We wanted to build on the efforts that have been made to improve the education system there,” said Manice. “Academic merit is virtually the only means of climbing the socioeconomic ladder in Uganda, and we believe that improving the quality of Ugandan schools is the most cost-effective investment we can make.”
Keenan and Manice are planning a trip back to Uganda in the summer of 2007 after spending the year conducting detailed research on the state of Uganda‘s education systems. They hope to find one community to focus their efforts on while also developing Enjuba‘s product line and infrastructure.
“Our plan is to observe and get to know the community members, and then work with community leaders to create goals that everyone in the community is willing to work towards,” said Manice. “The underlying goal of Enjuba.org is to create an environment in which all community members feel that they have a genuine ownership of the fruits of improvements and a responsibility to maintain them, which should create the kind of collaboration that benefits all in the long run.”
Media Contact: Melissa Pankake, (615) 322-NEWS
melissa.r.pankake@vanderbilt.edu