EIAAT Donates Bicycles to Primary going children of Bright future Primary School

Some of the donated bicycles being arranged for loading on the pickup.

Loading the bicycles for Bright future primary school

The vehicle carrying the bicycles arrives at the town of the primary school and it is received by the excited Head Teacher as he waits for some of the students to arrive and offload them.  The local villagers in the town look on..

Some students give a test drive to the newly arrived bikes.

The students off help in offloading the bicycles to be taken down at the school

Hand over documents being given by the propriator of EIAAT to the principal and head teacher of Bright future Primary school for signing.

The bicycles are paraded at the primary school compound by the students who delivered them from the pick up.









.Some of the school blocks of Bright future primary school,

In the classroom of on  of the blocks of the school.






















The school compound of Bright future primary school.

 Class room

































The Some of the cheerful teachers as they work on the students papers and prepare study materials.





















In Kawempe, at some of the less effluent and densely populated places of the city suburbs.

Activities of Entrepreneurship Institute of Applied & Appropriate Technology (EIAAT)

Background

EIAAT Entrepreneurship Institute of Applied and Appropriate Technology ltd located at Stensera Rd, Nabunya zone Rubaga Division on the outskirts of Kampala, is vocational institute which teaches school drop outs and school leavers a vocation so as to prepare them for a working life and a bright future.  We offer courses like, tailoring, welding, metal fabrication, bicycle repair and computer use and applications.   

Private institutions are amongst the most important providers of vocational training.   Currently around 45% of all vocational training available in Uganda is provided by such private institutions.

Properly trained workers is the prime requirement for the reduction of poverty.  This will provide a hope for a better future for Ugandans and the economy.   Vocational institutions develop, sustain and expand a countries industries and contribute to economic growth as a whole.  

Unfortunately there are not enough vocational institutions or appropriate opportunities for Ugandan youth to learn vocational skills.   The private vocational institutions face many problems.  There are widely differing standards. Vocational institutions have failed to gain recognition by the government or by the people who should be benefiting from them.   Poor administration and insufficient communication between the training institutions are some of the problems. 

Access to the few institutions remains difficult.  Because of limited resources of the private institutions they can only finance themselves with difficulty.  These institutions mainly rely on school fees from students to finance themselves.  This results in high fees.  This is why the majority of Ugandans are too poor to pay the school fees. 

EIAAT is owned by two directors Charles Mulamata and Joyce Kayongo.  A married couple.  They are also involved in other business.  Metal fabrication, solar and renewable energy and energy saving stoves.

Our vocational institute receives donations of 40ft containers of second hand bicycles and sawing machines from Pedals for Progress (P4P) of USA New Jersey.  The used bicycle are sold locally.  The major income is used to finance the importation project for more containers.  The surplus is used to finance the vocational institutions administrative costs and its other development activities.   

The second hand sawing machines are used in our vocational institutes tailoring division.  A student starts with a sawing machine and learns how to use, service and repair it.  The student, if interested in this particular sawing machine, can start to pay for it in installment as the studies progress.  If at the end of the course the sawing machine is fully paid then the student takes the sawing machine. 

This scheme encourages the student to plan for the future, teaches the student to save, and encourages proper handling and looking after their future sawing machine.  This introduces the student, in a practical way, to the life of  entrepreneurship. 

We are the largest, and most expensive project.

EIAAT is the largest program in East Africa and the second largest in the whole of Africa for importation of bicycles and sawing machines.  If the container coming in December has 450 bikes we would be at 1,865 bikes and 187sawing machines so far imported and supplied to  Ugandans since the project started.

 The cost of freight to Kampala is about $10,000 for a 40ft container.  This you add other costs, import duty and other taxes. 

We had failed to raise this money and our project had come to a halt.   It is only through the hard work, persistence and dedication to the cause, by David of P4P that he was able to solicit funds to cover the freight cost.  We are indeed grateful to David and the funders for awakening this project.  We are indeed lucky that  EIAAT in Uganda is one of the active participant in P4P program. 

  The other expenses are transport, loading offloading especially during customs check and finally to the final destination go down.

At this go down there are expenses like off loading, sorting, grouping, counting, and the regular administration costs which include staff salaries, electricity, phone charges etc to enable an establishment like EIAAT to function normally.    EIAAT was able to complete its store so it was saved from paying rent but since we are in a prime location we have to take the value of a storage facility of that nature in our location into consideration and include it as a cost to the project.

Therefore even if the bicycles are donated, we the local agents must sell them to recover these costs and remain sustainable.  The bicycles and sawing machines cannot be donated by us the agents.  The price we sell the products,  however are very reasonable that is why we can supply to local whole sale traders so that they can retail the bicycles.

Benefit to the customers of the bicycles sold by the institute are enormous.  These bicycles are sold at a low price.  Bicycles are very useful to our country as some roads in remote areas of the villages are in very poor conditions which are impossible to navigate by cars.  In some of these places there is no public transport and the only means of transport is a bicycle or to move on foot cars do not reach easily.  These places which cannot be reached by cars are left undeveloped as the local people do not have easy means of mobility to go to where services can be provided.    Also service providers find it difficult to service a wide  area without convenient transport means.

The increasing cost of fossil fuel also contributes to the demand for an alternate more convenient less expensive means of transport.   The easier, almost free, all weather, all road available on demand  means of transport offered by the bicycle is the most appropriate for such areas in a developing country.

Our Project is based in Kampala the capital of Uganda.  We have received requests and plan to expand our distribution network by setting up agents throughout the country.  So far we have representatives in the following districts.  Others have expressed interest and we are considering supplying to them.

Masaka, Jinja, and Gulu.  People in these areas are our Whole sale traders

Sales      

Bicycles Sales

We target 3 to 6 containers every year.  But of late we have been hardly making one container per year.  Our program suffered a set back and it was nearly wiped out if not for the assistance received from David of (P4P), for whom we are very grateful, when he solicited a grand to enable a shipment of one 40 feet container to us.  We now Expect that container in November 2010.  The sales of the products from this container will awaken our project, afterwords we will be sustainable and will be able to get to our target of 3 to 6 containers every year. 

Conclusion.

We expect to import 3 to 6 containers every year for the coming 2011.  That is approximately 2,700 bicycles and 300 sawing machines every year.  This is coupled with the number of trained students in our vocational institution who are able to gain skills and find work or start their own enterprise.

Offloading our end of the year 40ft container of bicycles and sawing machines

Funding of kick start container.

We are thank full to the funding organisations that were identified by David of P4P for this kickstart container.  The funders are:

1. HWMF (The Helen & William Mazer Foundation)

2. Clif Bar Family Foundation.

This donation has enabled this project to resume its activity.  

The  Container Arrives.

Our 40ft Container arrived in the country on 16th Dec 2010.  But we were able to clear it on 23rd December 2010.  It took us time to get the money to pay for the taxes.  Delay results into demorage, storage charges, container charges etc.

Uganda is the most expensive (in terms of transport) of these programs because of the distances involved and the fact that Uganda is land locked.   

We also have a high exchange rate affecting us because of the weakening  Uganda Shilling to the US$.  The last time we offloaded a container 1US$ was equivalent to Shs1,850.  But today it is Shs. 2,230. and rising fast.  Putting in consideration that the lower rate was two years ago does not help matters any because our income generating capacity has not seriously improved since then to compensate for the weaker shilling.
On top of that we have taxes to pay. 

10% import duty, 18%  Import Vat, 15% internal vat, 20% Sir charge on all second hand goods, 6% withholding tax, an unknown excess top up charge.  At the end of the year 30% cooperation tax.

Our  Chief sponsor

Our vocational training institute is sponsored by Pedals for Progress a company in New Jersey USA.  This Social Entrepreneur collects bicycles from Americans meant for the overworked land fill and sends them to developing countries all over the world.  We are lucky to be part of this wonderful program on behalf of our country.   Currently there are 3 active programs out of the original 9 in Africa.  We are the second largest in Africa and the largest and only surviving one in East Africa.

Bicycle Showroom Shop/Store Project.

This program had run into cash flow problems as we diverted the cash into construction of a store and showroom for offloading the container.  We could not raise the money to import these bicycles.
This project was worth it even though it wiped out our working capital and cost us two years of inactivity.
This store saves us Ug Shs.1,500,000 (or $643 at exchange rate of 1US$ = 2330 Ug Shs.) Per month
Or $7,725 each year.

The Shop/showroom section of the store.

We have a Bicycle display rack outside on which we assemble all the bicycles on display.  It has a capacity of 10 bicycles.  It accommodates both children and adult bikes easily.  With fast mounting and easy locking facility for the bikes on display.  It is raised such that in case of rain the bikes do not get soiled from the dirty water from the rain splatter.

Very spacious Showroom

Inside the showroom is quite spacious, allowing sorting of different bikes in different categories so that a customer can make a choice from the different types without having to move the bikes or climb on top of other bikes.  This is very important to preserve the bikes quality and to allow proper appreciation of the quality.  This also affords us easy cleaning of bikes as we can move easily within different rows of bikes and reach each bike easily.

Stock Taking, Categorising, and pricing.

The first day is very tough.  It is better for the container to arrive in the evening because we can work without much disturbance from the traders.  They would like to pick the bikes as they come down from the container.  Also if there are many people on the container they remove small items from the bikes.  it is very difficult to control them.
We make categories of mountain, racer, city bike, children  bikes and group these further into Excellent, Good, Fair, and poor in each category, then we give each group in a category a wholesale and retail price.


And then the Traders arrive

We sell the goods we receive through our country wide distributors.  Majority come from the city center -  Nakasero and the suburbs - Ndeeba, Nateete, Kibuye.  We also sell to up-county agents and across the borders.  There was a rush for the first pick.  Each agent groups his pick and puts it in a selected place.  Some outside, others in other rooms.  The first days sales are brisk.

We use the money mainly for freight for the next container and the balance to fund the vocational institute.  Our target is to import 3 to 6 containers a year and 300 sawing machines.

A bicycle means many families can be taken out of poverty and a sawing machine provides a much needed employment.

David also is carrying the project forward and has succeeded in negotiating with Mr. Claig Calfee of  www.calfeedesign.com a world renowned designer and manufacturer of high quality bicycles made out of Carbon frames Sapphire.  Through his project of making Bambo bicycle frames in developing countries.  He has started design and manufacturing establishments around the world.  See  www.bamboosero.com  We at EIAAT are extremely luck to be one of the selected, to be trained, local manufacturer of bicycle frames to be made out of Bamboo for export to EU and American countries.

This is a wonderful project which will use local materials, introduce new skills and employment to local people and earn the country foreign exchange.

In this container we cleared through customs 8 epoxy glue which will be used for making these bamboo frames for the bicycles.

Mulamata Charles

Principal EIAAT