Reviving Siong's Project

 

 

A few months ago I introduced you to Peace Corp Siong and his baking project at Gulu Public Primary School.  He left Gulu last Spring, and upon his departure, the project died.  The school did not lock up the ingredients, so they were picked by the teachers.  The money wasn't collected by anyone in particular, so it was pocketed.  When I went to visit his project, I was upset; upset for the kids, upset for Siong, and upset for the lost potential.  Siong had left his project sustainable. I needed to do something. This was a class that taught baking skills, budgeting, selling, money counting, everything about running a business.  It was a real life skill class.

 

 

The school wanted me to pump my money into the project to revive it.  I refused.  It had been sustainable, so I was not going to aide them with money.  I wrote a requistion to the school explaining that Siong had given two years of his life to these children and this project and that his spirit still resided here with them. It was because of their carelessness that the project died, so it is their money that needs to revive it.  I asked the school to donate 30,000UGX ($12) to buy the necessary ingredients to get started again.  They agreed.

 

 

I put Juliet in charge of the whole project and let her pick her own trusted helpers.  She collects the money and buys the ingredients and teaches the class.  She is a wonderful lady.  The first baking day, we used 2 bags of flour.  We knew we needed to buy 3 bags for the next baking day, so we HAD so make 15,000UGX ($6) in order to bake the next week.  We made 15,500! :)

 

 

Meet Juliet. 

 

 

In previous classes with Siong, the kids were used to making fun shapes with their dough; snakes, flowers, bowls, etc, then getting to eat their creation. Now, there was nothing to spare.  We have to sell each and every roll if we are going to get this project sustainable.  Everyone was OK with that.  They enjoyed mixing the dough, kneading the bread, and shaping into rolls.   

 

The dough rises in the sun for about 30 minutes.

 

 

Now the dough is ready for the oven.

 

 

Into the oven it goes.  The oven is heated by firewood.  For some reason, the left side gets much hotter than right side and some rolls were burned.

 

Our second baking class used 3 bags of flour, so we made more rolls, selling each at 500ugx, or about 20 cents.  Our goal was to raise 28,000ugx because we needed 15K for 3 flour, 10K for lard, and 3k for sugar.  We made 28,000! We did it!  This coming week, we have special Rotarian guests visiting our project, and we are making bread for their lunches all week.  They will buy us out!  Of course, we will charge them the customary mzungu price (White man's price which is higher than the local price), which will boost our project's sustainabilty!

 

These P7 girls from Gulu Public are once again learning important business skills.  They want to send their love to Siong, the founder of this project, and let him know that they will do their very best to keep his dream alive.  Everyone at Gulu Public loves you so much, Siong.  Goodluck to you as you move on to your next big adventure...