Monica Nabimanya
Unlike many university girls’ “the men give me always” ideology, to Nabagereka Yudaya, its hard work and toiling to earn a living. To be a first-born child of any couple is to immediately assume the position of leadership. It doesn’t matter whether your female and the rest are males, you will still be the elder they look up to and that has been the case with Nabagereka Yudaya.
Yudaya is a third year student of leisure and hospitality at MUBS Nakawa and a first-born in a family of seven; four sisters and two brothers. “I got orphaned when I was finalizing my high school so during my senior six vacation, I helped attend at my aunts’ baby-clothes shop as a way of earning some upkeep. It’s at this shop that I built a good relationship with many people,” she says before adding that is is the same people who bring her the big clientage has today.
Once she joined university, Yudaya decided to invest in female clothes and so she resigned from her aunt’s job and opened up her own store on one of the verandahs at Mini-Price building opposite Mukwano arcade located at the heart of Kampala.
“My first days at business were not good and I had to close early since I was a squatter on people’s verandahs,” She said. But with zeal and determination of success, she persevered so that she would increase her sales so as to rent a shop of her own.
“I started by dressing up in my own clothes and in this way I advertised them to my friends. My close friends became my first loyal clients and they too told friends so before I knew it, the sales were ballooning and business was doing quite good. This enabled me increase my capital and after four months into business, I was able to get my first rent fee.However, I had to pay three months upfront and therefore the shop was awfully empty at the start,” she recalls.
Yudaya added: “After two weeks of its opening, I was able to make enough sales to increase my stock and cover the empty spaces in my shop.”
With time, her business has grown and she started shopping overseas in China and Dubai. On a good day she makes between 300,000 and 500,000 Uganda shillings. A visit to her shop steers the spirit of hard work in her. Yudaya has paid all her tuition since first year plus her siblings’ school fees and school requirements.
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