AMSALU, 32

ADDIS  IT an d  Entrepreneurship  2012

"The entrepreneurship course at Alchemy World has definitely motivated me and enabled me to think bigger and to plan ahead. The way I have learned to think has helped me increase the number of machines in the factory."

Enterprising Ethiopia  with Alchemy World                  Addis Ababa & London                    facebook.com/enterprisingethiopia                   twitter.com/EntEthiopia

My name is Amsalu, I am 32 years old and I finished the IT and Entrepreneurship course with Alchemy World in Addis Ababa in the summer of 2012.

I have a small shoe factory called Z Shoe & Leather Products. And for three years I have been teaching as a part time instructor at the Leather Products Institute in Kality in Addis Abeba.

The entrepreneurship course at Alchemy World has definitely motivated me and enabled me to think bigger and to plan ahead. The way I have learned to think has helped me increase the number of machines in the factory. The new compressor has for instance helped us to make full shoes and to improve the finish. So the value of the products increases. It also helps us increase the number of shoes we can produce in one day. We have also been able to increase the range and variety of products.

We are now six staff, one who manages sale in the show room and five, including me, in the production. For now I get an average salary, which can sustain our lives. But in the future I hope to increase the production and our salaries.

Our capacity is big; we can produce up to 36 pairs of good quality sandals, or 12 pairs of full shoes and 12 pairs of sandals in one day. But our production facility is very small and we are limited by the size of the place.

I also learned IT with Alchemy World and I use especially the Internet to investigate different shoe designs and to make research on the Internet about new techniques and machines. So both in relation to product quality and research of new products and development has the training with Alchemy World been very helpful.

For the future I will continue to focus on what we are already making: leather sandals, leather shoes and leather belts for these are our core competencies. But the plan is to increase the size of the factory and the manpower.

Amsalu, tel. 0911313930, amsalukif@gmail.com

READ  OUR  OTHER  STORIES  FROM  Addis