Pendo Galukande, a Ugandan social entrepreneur creating opportunities through premium gifting — Lionesses of Africa

What inspired you to start your company?

We were inspired to start our business because of the youth that were falling through the cracks, mostly unable to get employment due to a lack of skills and experience.

Why should anyone use your service or product?

Our story. Rarely do three stay at home mothers manage to put together a self-sustaining enterprise to provide employment to youth in their community and succeed in it running for 15 years without donor support.  Our gifts are special because we incorporate handcrafting techniques in the finishings. The work is custom made and the craftsmanship is unmatched, and even when we produce hundreds of boxes or even thousands, we are able to maintain the high quality. 

Our clients come to us because we put a fresh spin to their brand and make their gifts look well thought through. So the recipients feel like they are not just a number but a person that is valued.

Tell us a little about your team

Dorothy is our manager and she is passionate about youth, especially women. She has a track record in insurance sales. Henry is our creative designer who also loves to sing. He puts together both digital and handcrafted work to provide the best quality pieces. Our consultants are mostly in design, sales and accounting, and some of them are previous employees who devote their time to a few SMEs about our size.

Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And do you come from an entrepreneurial background?

Yes and no. My father was a professor of linguistics at Makerere University and my mother was a playwright and English teacher at a college. However, they passed away when I was very little and I was adopted into an entrepreneurial family. I participated in labelling products when my adoptive mom bought babies clothes from London before they were taken to the shop. Many of the Uncles in our extended family were involved in one business or another. I was a pre-teen then and sometimes worked for them. At University, my sister bought me a camera and I started to take photographs and sell them. Eventually, I started distributing South African potato crisps at Makerere University where I was a student. My Uncle used to import them wholesale. The biggest entrepreneurial experience though came from my first job. I worked with an Irish doctor, Ian Clarke, who is very entrepreneurial. He founded two hospitals and was constantly innovating and finding ways to solve problems.