When a salary alone is not enough - Burundi

When a salary alone is not enough

When a salary alone is not enough

Convinced that the salary alone was not enough, Ms. Alida always had the idea of starting a business. Her entrepreneurial dream will materialize with the birth of her first child. The dolls that she made herself for her child, will be much loved by those around her and on social media and will become her field of entrepreneurship.

Ms. Alida MUGISHA, is a young Burundian mother who is a civil servant at the Investment Promotion Agency (API).

She has been producing children's toys locally for a year according to the tastes of her customers.

It was when she became a mother that she started making dolls for her daughter herself. She said to herself that this will help to forge strong bonds between them, she explains.

The dolls made soon caught the attention of her friends on social media who were quick to ask her to make some for their children too. This is how his business was born.

She is passionate about what she does and she manages to find between 4 and 5 hours a day to take care of her business after the regular hours she works as a civil servant.

Alida Mugisha had already understood that she cannot live on her salary alone, and always had the idea of starting a business. The popularity of her toys will make her understand that making dolls for children was already the income-generating activity she needed.

For her, being an employee is not easy, it requires great organization and determination to achieve her goal.

The products it makes are Dolls/stuffed animals, pregnancy and breastfeeding cushions, mobiles and cradles, decorative items for children's rooms, key rings and pendants for bags, etc.

As for the raw material used, it finds it locally. She uses fabrics and cotton. There are also other raw materials that she imports from Europe, such as felt fabrics to make decorative items for children's rooms.

Before production, she first thinks about the design she wants to do, then moves on to designing and cutting for sewing. After the sewing, she makes the padding from the textile cotton that she carefully chooses, and does the assembly by sewing by hand. Sometimes Alida also uses hot glue, especially for decorative items or crib mobiles.

Ms. Alida produces to order to be able to customize the products to the customer's taste. But sometimes, she manufactures articles en masse for special events such as Christmas markets or exhibitions of products by Burundian artists, and therefore, she can produce around fifty different articles at the same time.

As a monthly income after almost a year of start-up, she can have between 100,000Fbu and 150,000Fbu ($50-75) in profit, after having paid her two temporary employees as well as the raw material used. She plans to increase the workforce in the near future as orders are coming in overnight.

Its products are sold locally and targets nurseries and kindergartens interested in its products. It also participates in fairs and exhibitions organized locally.