Benedicta Nanyonga is the founder of Kinawataka Women’s Initiative and a former senior Note Examiner at the Bank of Uganda, a place she worked in for 23 years. In 2001, her doctor told her she was not fit for the job anymore and advised her to resign immediately because of the spinal cord problem she had got. She listened to her doctor’s advice and left her job at Bank of Uganda that same year. Nanyonga was worried about how she would survive without a paying job as she had not carried home a retirement package.
She recalls vividly a day in 2003, when she neither had money nor anything to eat but only water. She revealed that she slept on an empty stomach drinking only water for two days. She had nowhere to turn to and one night before going to bed, she told God during her prayer that after working at Bank of Uganda for 23 years and not stealing money, she was going to sleep on an empty stomach for the second day?
Nanyonga added that, the same night, she had a dream and in the dream, she saw a man who told her to begin picking used drinking straws and recycle them because that was where she was going to get her daily income. The following day, she began picking the straws, with the only Ugx 500, which she had. She bought two Jerricans of water and a sachet of detergent, which she used to wash the straws. After the straws had dried, she began weaving a mat out of them. When her neighbour saw her weave the mat, he admired it and promised to buy it. She said that he bought the mat at Ugx 7,000 which was the beginning of a new chapter in her life since then and she has never looked back. Benedicta used to collect used straws from bars and garbage centres. When people who knew that she used to work at Bank of Uganda saw her at the garbage centres, they would mock and laugh at her. However, their mockery and laughter did not bother her.
With the used straws, she is able to make mats, ladies’ handbags, shopping bags, safari bags, laptop bags, dresses, wine bags and clutch bags among other items. Above all, she is glad that she is able to conserve the environment from the plastic straws.
Just like any other business, Nanyoga is faced with a number of challenges; one of them being limited human resource. At one point, she received an order from Italy to supply 100 bags but failed to meet the demand because the process of weaving them is difficult. She said they use kitchen knives to press the straws, which is a difficult process. In addition, she cannot employ more people because of the size of their working space. The other challenge has been the Covid-19 pandemic.
Despite the difficulty, they got an order to supply all the Capital Shoppers Supermarkets’ chains in Kampala with the shopping bags. Coca-Cola has also used her products to advertise the Coca-Cola products on their website. That got Nanyonga an overwhelming number of emails from all over the world making orders. However, due to the less labour, she cannot take all the orders for fear of failing to deliver them on time.
The bags are priced between Ugx 5,000 and Ugx 7,000, the clutch bags Ugx 40,000 and the mats Ugx 100,000.
Nanyonga has not only kept the information to herself. She has trained 6,000 women and 7,000 youth in her neighbourhood in the same trade. She has also come to the rescue of needy children and she has so far helped 40 disadvantaged children. Today, Nanyonga has travelled the world over to exhibit her products from used straws and has also been invited to conferences in different countries to talk about her products, an opportunity she had never obtained for the 23 years she worked in Bank of Uganda.
She is grateful to God for her newfound opportunity, which she refers to as turning a burden into wealth. Ultimately, she is glad that she is conserving the environment every time she picks up a used drinking straw and recycles it.
By Irene Lamunu
