First Person: The honey business owner creating a buzz in northern Uganda | UN News
Sam Aderubo started his company, Honey Pride, in Arua, northern Uganda, in order to make a positive impact on his community. With support from the UN, the business is taking off, providing work for hundreds of local beekeepers, many of whom are marginalized women and youth.
The young people we are interacting with, are beginning to realize that they have a big part to play in national development. So, while we want to make a profit, we also have a social aspect to what we do.
Overcoming the financial challenges
Finance has been one of our biggest challenges. Because of a lack of finance, much of the honey-making process have been done manually. However, the UN Capital Development Fund (UNCDF), has enabled us to get funding from the Uganda Development Bank, and improve part of our production process.
We are now using an electric honey press, and were able to acquire a filtering machine to improve the quality of our product. We are able to process about five tonnes of honey in a month, which is a very big jump in capacity, and I’m sure that we will be able to grow that to about 15 tonnes.
We’re very grateful for the support we received from UNCDF, because it also helped us to improve our business management, increase production, and improve the quality of our product.”
