KIU, Western Campus – Outgoing School of Nursing MP in the KIU Western Campus Guild Union Elias Ankunda has ventured into coffee trade for survival as he awaits his final exam results.

Ankunda, who was doing a Bachelor’s in Nursing Sciences, completed his final exams in May and as he waits for the final results, he decided to venture into the coffee business to make ends meet.

“I went into the lockdown with over 400,000 shillings savings from my upkeep and I used that money to buy raw coffee and sun-dry it,” Ankunda says.

“I added it to the coffee I had harvested from my garden and I got 10 sacks, which I took for milling at the factory and earned some money,” he adds.

He says he has a coffee garden in Rushenyi county, Ntungamo district, on a piece of land he inherited from his late father who died in 2009.

Ankunda, says the coffee business now dominates his daily routine and if he is not in the garden tending to his coffee plants, he is out and about looking for farmers who can sell him their coffee.

He decided to venture into the business after his academic plans were derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic which forced government to suspend education.

“I was supposed to complete my studies in December last year but I had to wait because of the lockdown and I have only recently done my final exams,” Ankunda explains.

It is in the same spirit that he advises his fellow students to start thinking about venturing into business because the employment world has become unpredictable.

“I would like to advise my fellow students that there is no bigger capital for you to go into personal business, start with the small money you have,” he says.

He also advises students to work harder so that by the time academics returns to normal, they have something to show for the time they spent in the lockdown and to avoid bad groups because they are detrimental to their personal development. 

Courtesy photo