Rosemiriam Dagg Coffee Shop

Sister Flora and Students

Sister Flora Cooking

Wow, its hard to believe its been almost two months since my last blog post! A lot has happened here, but the biggest news of all is that we opened the Rosemiriam Dagg Coffee Shop! As I am writing this, it is opening day! So far we’ve made one sale- a sister came in and bought some peanuts! :) We didn’t anticipate a big turnout for today though, because we still have to get some advertisements around town and put up our sign by the road. But it was defiantly a long road to get here! 

The girls doing dishes at the outdoor sink

We first had the idea about a year ago, when I first got to Musoma. But nothing ever happened with it because we were busy with other projects and didn’t have any capital to start out with. Fast forward to the beginning of February, this year- I figured if we could get an oven, we could do a lot with that and start small. I decided to start a fundraiser for the oven and so many of you generously gave to it and we were able to not only get the oven, but also new dishes, supplies and ingredients to start the shop with. 

Ready to open!

Hopefully later this week we will get our signs up and start a good flow of customers. Word of mouth is also a big deal here and as the sisters and people in the community tell people that we are here and we are open (and we have good treats and good tea) I think we will get a steady rise in customers over time. We are also on a fairly busy road from town out to the lake, so there are many fishermen and ladies who work at the market, as well as students going back and forth to school who might want to come in and buy some pipi (candy) or sodas on their way home. 

The case on opening day. 

By the time I am done in Tanzania, I hope this coffee shop will have enough profit to support, not only itself but the entire Rosemiriam Dagg Center. The items that are sewn here are sold in a gift shop but the only customers it seems to get is when we get visitors from the states. We also make school sweaters that seem to sell pretty well, but that’s only at the beginning of the year, when school starts (school is jan-dec because there really isn’t a ‘summer’ here). 

Our tables are set!

If you don’t remember, Rosemiriam Dagg is a sort of technical training school for young people who have no where else to go. The goals of the center is to teach them to be independent, successful members of society. Mainly we teach them how to sew, so they can become seamstresses in their villages when they go back home. We are also trying to teach them personal finance and how to take care of their own households. Currently all of the students are deaf or mentally impaired, and were therefore, discarded by their families and unable to attend school. Along with trying to create an income generating project for the center, I hope the coffee shop will also give the students some knowledge on customer service, and cooking, baking, making tea, etc. 

Menu (front and back)

The view out our front door.

Although I’ve been a waitress, a snack bar attendant, and worked in many different retail settings, I don’t have any experience running a business by myself. If you have any insight on how to do things better than common knowledge please reach out, I could use all the help I can get! I especially don’t have experience in advertising or marketing. If you’d like to know more about our coffee shop or have questions, please let me know! Thanks so much Friends.