Daraja maintenance teams spent the last month building Daraja’s first-ever school store, and it officially opened last week! Transition Program students are running and operating the school store entirely on their own, and they are loving the experience so far. The aim of the Transition Program is to teach Daraja grads life skills before they officially leave Daraja and head off into the “real world.”  The program teaches them (small) business skills, bookkeeping, money management, economics, customer service, marketing, and much more. It’s a unique opportunity in that, while the girls may have learned some of these skills in high school class, they now get to actually put those skills to the test.

The store being built

The store being built

“I like bookkeeping,” explained Faith, “because it’s more real. I learned it in high school, and now I’m doing it practically so that’s the interesting bit about working here.” The Transition girls still have class each day, but they’ve devised a schedule whereby they’re divided into groups of six. Each group works in the shop for one full week – early in the morning and after lunch, leaving time for class in between.

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Cate and Schola stock supplies

When asked how sales were, Leila exclaimed excitedly, “Good! We’re making a lot of profit!” (This profit gets channeled directly in to the Program, which makes it a more personal task for the students.) The girls think the store is doing so well in part because it is unique in this area, because it’s “self-service.” Between Nanyuki and Daraja (a distance of 25 km) there are a handful of small shops, but this is the only one where on-campus shoppers can actually walk in the store and select the items they want, as opposed to just making purchases at a window. “It’s more interesting compared to the rest of the stores around here,” said Faith.

Girls shop for merchandise in town

Girls shop for merchandise in town

The girls were even in charge of stocking the store. First, they created a survey and then they went out into the local community and asked what people would want from a store. After analyzing their findings, the students headed to town last week where they studied similarly sized shops, learning about their products and prices. Then, they made their bulk purchases and returned to stock the store with a wide array of useful things, including rice and milk, juice and chewing gum, Daraja t-shirts and candy, and much more. It’s been an especially useful task for students who hope to leave Daraja and start their own small business, like Cate, who dreams of becoming an entrepreneur after leaving campus. Stay tuned for more updates from these young businesswomen!