UK Enactus "Helping Uganda Do Business" Team, 2013

The Enactus "Helping Uganda Do Business" Team are a group of 13 students from The University of Exeter who were specifically recruited to help Mwenya set up two social enterprises in Uganda. The project started in January 2013 and is still ongoing.  The team traveled to Uganda in June 2013 and achieved so much with the Ugandan team through workshops, skill exchange and lots of hard work. For more information about what they accomplished, please see "Our Story"

Project Leader

Elizabeth Bailie, Mwenya's UK Director and Co-founder, was responsible for the overall organisation of the trip logistics, briefings, project design, website design, fundraising, the smooth running of all projects on-site and the well-being of the UK volunteers while in Uganda. She organised this project during her final year studying at The University of Exeter. With a huge helping hand from her committee; Charlie Fraser, Liz Lynch and Funmi Osibona, the team helped improve the efficiency of the previous Mushrooms project and design and create Mwenya Tours. 

The trip was an enormous success and will be running again next year. Elizabeth will still be involved in the project next year but will be handing over the 'Project Leader' reigns to Rach Mewitt to continue improving and diversifying the innovative projects during her second year at University of Exeter. 

Mushroom Team 

The mushroom team worked closely with Jhon and Hajat to improve the mushroom production process scientifically and economically. Charlie Fraser is a masters student in Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture with a special interest in fungi and microbiology. Max Coulter is a final year biology student who has worked extensively on banana disease projects in Uganda.

Business and Finance Team

The business and finance team designed and wrote up business plans and finance reports for the mushroom and tourism projects in order to ensure the economic future for the businesses. The team were sure to use templates which the Ugandan team can easily adjust and use in the future. Emma Salisbury is a recent graduate in French and Business and Rach Mewitt is a second year business student who has been an active member of Enactus society. 

Marketing Team 

Niobe Shaw, Robert Ede and Emily Kirov all have a dedicated interest in marketing. They ran marketing workshops for the team in Uganda in order to help exchange ideas of how best to engage potential customers in Mwenya's mushrooms. The results were hugely successful, with over 5 deals being made with restaurants in Kampala during just 9 working days. 

Tourism Team

The Tourism team had one of the biggest jobs; to set up a one-day tourism package from scratch in two weeks. This involved running food hygiene training, many workshops, guide training, feedback sessions, trial activities and market research trips to Kampala. The team managed to design a fantastic cultural day for tourists which we hope will be very popular in the future. Ruby Brown, Jonathan Hughes, Liz Lynch, Funmi Osibona and Rachel Grant.