RuralWeb/Start-up finance/Examples from the community

• Hans: A bakery in Burundi saw their profit numbers going down. One day they prepared twice as much bread as normally. They went to the centre of the capital of Bujumbura and just gave their extra bread away – while telling people where they could find the bakery. From that moment they saw their profit grow with 25%!

• Ousseni: Advised a woman with a business in painting to stand out from the other painting-businesses. She started a painting-education for her employees. Especially the middle class customers in Ivory Coast prefer her company above others.

• Firmin: A Ugandan community started their own school with just 4 children. Next week it where 8, and a few time later it where 80! It prevented them from walking 10km distance to the nearest school. One day a government officer came by, and saw the school did not have a toilet, so the school needed to close down again. First idea was to start fundraising in Europe for the toilet, but it took too long. Finally the solution was just to start digging a toilet- and now there is one – made by the community themselves & the school is still running! See: suubirasepu.wordpress.com