Down a little side-street in Kamuli town you can find a small office and shop. Inside are two computers and people busy working. The lady who owns the shop offers her services to type up the reports, letters or dissertations of her customers. Then they are allowed to come in and work at the machines to edit and correct and change the work to what they really want before printing it off. Or they can start from scratch themselves. The computers are busy every moment of the day.
The lady learnt her skills at the Uganda Development Services Business Centre. The significance of this is that from 2001 UDS brought the first computers to Kamuli and has trained the whole town! Not far away is a printing shop, then another, and then another, and the people running them all came through UDS training.
Afrinspire has been the main supplier of computers to UDS. Kamuli is just one example of what has been achieved across so much of East Africa.
We are still launching new centres. The ones in the first quarter of 2019 are in Isingero in Southern Uganda and in Gitega, Burundi. At the same time we are equipping schools in the north of Zambia.
It costs us £45 to place a computer in the heart of Africa. We have so far placed 3,200 and they go to places where computers have not been before. Our network of trained technicians support this expansion. Businesses and schools in the UK have provided the computers which are cleaned, reloaded and have a new lease of life in Africa.