Dear Sabina,

Some Nabuur people are taking up DIY Solar for fund raising as well as pv power.
Jinja Central (Uganda) > Our Project > Step 4

Also have look at http://biodesign.webeden.co.uk

If you send your email address I will send pdfs with up to date info.

Yours

Graham Knight

Thanks, Graham!
That sounds like a great idea! Especially once we have the child care center up and running as a building :)
Best, Angelika

Hi all,

I have been nosing around other villages with nabbur to see who else has been doing good work with skills training. Some good ideas have come from Village in Sabbath, one villager found the following FREE computer training..

"IT lessons
Download the lessons for the introduction of IT to students who had no access to computers.
________________________________________
On this page you can download lessons for two school years.
Every school year has two periods. In each period you will find 6 to 10 lesson units. There are two courses - year 1 and year 2.
Content of each lesson: Objectives, Content, Teacher/ Student activity Time schedule
You can download all lessons in one zip file here.
© The materials were developed and have been tried out by two teachers:Mr. Roland Katsekpor, IT co-ordinator at Bisco school, Tamale and Mr. Lex Hogenbosch, chairman of Oog and teaching IT in Ghana from 2002 - 2004.
________________________________________
Year 1 Period 1 First computer steps Year 2 Period 1 Internet
Unit 0 Lesson plan year 1 period 1 Overview
Unit 0 Overview of year 2 period 1

Unit 1 Making acquaintance - function of a computer
Unit 1 Introduction to Internet

Unit 2 Names and functions of a computer system Switch on / off Unit 2 Making home page in Word

Unit 3 Windows terminology, basic mouse skills
Unit 3 Assessment home page

Unit 4 Working with two Window progam screens
Unit 4 Finding information

Unit 5 Mouse skills, Windows training
Unit 5 Email

Unit 6 More mouse skills with Paint
Unit 6 On line preparation

Unit 7 Quiz first period
Unit 7 On line; assessment

Year 1 Period 2 Writing text, drawing picture Year 2 Period 2 Database
Unit 0 Lesson plan year 1 period 2 Overview
Unit 0 Overview year 2 period 2

Unit 1 Keyboard and typing tutor
Unit 1 Introduction database

Unit 2 Introduction to word processing
Unit 2 Database unit 2

Unit 3 Type, save, edit text
Unit 3 Database unit 3

Unit 4 Open text, highlighting, spelling checker, simple formatting Unit 4 Database unit 4

Unit 5 More format commands: colour, alignment, insert, format picture Unit 5 Database unit 5

Unit 6 More mouse skills with Paint
Unit 6 Assessment Database

Unit 7 Computer terms, main hardware abbreviations
Additional Word list assignment

Unit 8 Printing documents, preview and view commands"

I will hunt some more ideas out and post them.

Cheers,

Simone

Some more ideas on skills areas to look at for income generation via neighbours in Sabbath......

"Possible ways of making additional income at the centre which do not require internet access - think all these have been suggested here before (either on here or via email):

* Data entry/bookkeeping/other services for local businesses
* Computer games that people will pay to play
* Designing stationery (letterheads/logos etc) for local businesses
* Photocopying (when its fixed), printing, scanning, writing CDs
* Selling computer supplies (paper, blank CDs etc)
* Typing documents e.g. for university/college students
* Selling cold drinks, snacks to trainees
* Classes for children during school holidays (I know you are doing this)
* Classes for local schools
* Showing film DVDs (don't know if you would need a license to do this and whether you have enough space)
* Companies could advertise jobs, services etc at the centre
* Charging items such as mobile phones

Some more good ideas from fellow villagers...

Some thoughts on revenue generating ideas:

- Provide a postal service for local businesses. Setup post boxes so these businesses can use the secretarial bureau as their postal address and charge a montly rent for each post box.

- Act as a central point for local suppliers to sell their goods to other markets. You can assist these local businesses with any paperwork required to transports their goods or export them and charge a fee for the service. This would also help to stimulate the local economy by providing greater opportunities for locals to sell their products.

Hi all,

This is an information from a micro-funding website, Kiva.org.
A woman in Nepal (Sanepa) makes candles and supplies her products to grocery stores. She took one month training for the work. According to her, "the demands for candles are increasing rapidly in Nepal because of power load-sharing. Nowadays here in Nepal we have 3 hours of power cut daily."
(Maybe Sabina knows more than me.)
She borrowed $150 to buy the raw materials. It is to be paid back monthly within a year.
The local MFI's repayment rate is 99.85% so far. That means this business (candle making) will be successful! :-D

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=48116&_tpos=...

I think consumer goods is always stable. If you think about international market, soap may be more stable. Actually many NGOs sell local soaps (I'm not sure they sell well). But from her story, candle has demand in Nepal and the making process seems to be safer and easier than soap. And candle is a kind of art. There are variety of colors, shapes and scent. I think it will bring women a fun time :-)

I think candles sound like a fantastic idea

Simone

Thank you, Simone.

Sabina, if you are interested, we can collect recipes on the net.

Dear All:

I think that's a great idea. First, we have to identify where to get a small funding to start up the business and then find the market.
From experience, it would be great if we have a ready market for the product and involve women in the community to this income-generating project. :-)

Best regards and more power!

Junjun

Dear all,

Thanks for your inputs.

Here in Nepal, soap and candle is successful in income generating for community specially women. We can do this.
Please be noted when we talk about soap , it is washing soap.

All people use soap to wash cloth than powder. It is in demand for ever. On other hand, yes due to load shading in Nepal in these days candle is also in demand.

I think we start to search the method of candle making and washing soap :-) making which can be easily adopt. Then we look for small grant to start training and start set business for women.

Thanking you all.

Best regards
Sabina

Dear all,
Sounds great - let's make a new task for the candle making where neighbours with experience can add their info and others what they find on the internet!

I also wanted to remind of the site that Junjun quoted regarding building up businesses - again, one important thing to get loans: a solid business plan!

Dear all,
Sabina would like to concentrate for now on the knitting project. So we won't open a new task just now for candle making, but do keep on posting your ideas for possibilities of skills trainings and how else Yoshinkel's women could earn a living!
Best, Angelika