Neerlandia Foundation, BISS Bakeries, Child Care Africa
Neerlandia Foundation has committed to help BISS Bakeries to start a Working and Learning Center in Karamoja. BISS will be implementing this program together with Matany Girls Vocational Institute in Napak District. The centre aims to prepare women for a career as an entrepreneur or employee in the bakery industry. The BISS curriculum will be used. Neerlandia has been a long-time partner of BISS, sponsoring the first bakery in Kaabong in 2022 in collaboration with Child Care Africa. After setting up 4 bakeries together, we realized that we need a larger number of trained bakers in Karamoja. Trainees will find employment within BISS bakeries, start their own BISS bakery or find employment elsewhere in the bakery industry.
Child Care Africa (CCA)
Already in 2019, Child Care Africa approached Bake for Life to see if a bakery in Karamoja was possible. After some conversations, BISS Bakeries (1 of Bake for Life initiatives) and CCA joined hands to implement this program together. Together with the founder, we opened the first bakery in March 2022, two days after which the unfortunate event occurred of the founder dying in a car accident. Though the legacy of Dorian Cosijnse is still moving forward, with Child Care Africa helping an increasing number of children in Karamoja to be educated. Also, the dream of having many bakeries in Karamoja is being continued. When Neerlandia sponsors a bakery, the money that is paid back by the bakery for the start-up-kit, is given to Child Care Africa, creating education opportunities for children.
Matany Girls Vocational Institute
Matany Girls has great facilities and courses related to bakery, like catering, hospitality and tourism. Their goal was to introduce Bakery. Since BISS has developed a DIT certified training in baking and entrepreneurship, a collaboration was born naturally. They are aiming to introduce Carpentry and Agriculture as well in the course of 2025. The methodology used by Matany Girls and BISS Bakeries is similar: no unnecessarily long courses, but to the point, practical and impactful. The facilities are great: well designed, clean and spacious. We believe therefore to have found the right partner to run the program with.
The Course
In 8 weeks of intensive training, trainees learn baking pan and oven products, at least 8 and 16 different products of each respectively. They learn how to read and understand a recipe, how to cost their production, sales both in theory and practice. They learn hygiene, business development, saving and other bakery and business-related subjects. After the training, they will follow an 8-week internship in a commercial bakery. They will start from the yet to be launched BISS bakery. Depending on their interest (entrepreneurship or employment) they will then be connected to a relevant third party. Either another BISS bakery in Karamoja, another commercial bakery or another organization who has space for baking skills. The course of 4 months is DIT certified.
First training to launch in Q1 ‘25
In November and December, together with Matany Girls Vocational Institute we will be setting up a professional baking training area. Both electric as local means of energy will be used, as the starting point for many people won’t be an environment that has (reliable) electricity.
We then aim to start the first cohort of students early 2025. We will align the course with other already existing courses of Matany Girls.
The Bakery
50% of the course consists of an internship. The internship is designed in a way that someone practices all the activities that take place within a bakery: from storage, to baking, to packaging, to selling, to balancing the books. BISS is setting up a commercial bakery where all students get the chance to gain work experience. They will be working there until a new cohort of students finishes their training, whom then will take over. BISS is developing partnerships with bakeries in the regions, where part of the internships will take place from. Change of environment will teach a person a lot plus those performing well have a chance of an employment opportunity.