David Nsekamabanga comes from the Gitega area near Nyamirambo, which is a ten minute drive from the Kimisagara Centre. He was born to Manasi Kambanda and Mukakunsi Constansia 32 years ago. When David was 14, he lost both parents and 2 brothers to the genocide. His mother was abused and did not survive the trauma, and his father was shot, and later succumbed to cancer. He and his elder brother assumed responsibility for their sisters. One sister got married, and the other lives in the village home Kicukiro, with their relatives.

He and his brother have moved from place to place in search of work. His brother has recently decided to move back to their village to live with their sister, who has 4 children.
With an interrupted education, David dropped out at Primary 4 level; he can read but has difficulty writing. Doing sums with money is not a problem as money is too important to loose he says.  David tears up when he describes his life before he came to the centre. He found house-help jobs that provided food, shelter and clothes, but nothing else. After years of moving from place to place, he decided to settle in Nyamirambo, where he lives with friends. It is not very comfortable, but it provides some stability. To make some money he quit his house help job and began to take on petty jobs such as carrying shopping for people to their homes. He made about 1000 Rwandan franc (RWF) equivalent to (USD 1.60) a day. His network of friends and acquaintances expanded and he managed to land himself a job at an informal theatre. These theatres charge an entrance fee of between 50 to 100 Rwf  and screen movies from all over the world including India and China. Sometimes, simultaneous translation is provided in Kinyarwanda. At other times, the theatre owner will re-dub the movie in Kinyarwanda prior to screening. He was not very happy at this job either. It paid very little.

He met a female friend one day who told him about the Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT) training offered at the Kimisagara One Stop Youth Centre. While he had some ICT skills through his email account and facebook, he always had a keen interest in computers. The thought of acquiring more computer skills attracted him to the centre, where he ended up enrolling for the DOT programme. He learnt business ideas, planning, management and other related things. While in training, he observed that a number of his age-mates bottled the water from municipal taps and sold these for drinking without boiling, and they seemed to make some money. He also observed that people coming to the theatre bought water. This made him think – he could sell clean chilled water and fresh fruit juice (pineapple, passion, mango – depending on the fruit available).

He negotiated with the cinema owner to sell his juices at the cinema, which would add value to the cinema goers’ experience. The owner accepted, and does not charge him rent. The next challenge was to find a way to cool his juices. He found a friend who had an unused fridge. He has entered into partnership with this friend, who provides sugar and the fridge, while he provides the juices – which involves purchasing the fruit and making the juice. He has employed a young boy who helps him make the juice. This involves washing the fruit, peeling it, extracting the pulp, and squeezing the juice using a small gunny sack. The extract is then mixed with boiled water and sugar. David has been collecting used water bottles. He washes these, and bottles the juices in them and sells these to the customers at the cinema.

On the first day, he sold 15 bottles at 50 RWF ; on the second day he sold 20 bottles. Today is his 25th day in business, and he is selling 50 bottles at RWF 100. His profit per bottle is 30 frw. His initial investment was 5000 RWF. After 25 days he is making a profit 750 RWF a day. The total profit is coming to 2000 RWF , but his partner as the owner of the fridge and contributor of the sugar takes the larger share.

Given the competition, he cannot raise the price of his product. He found it easy to start off this business as he had good contacts with the local leaders and people. Expansion into other areas would need him to cultivate relations in those areas first. He earns almost as much as he did when he was involved in petty trade, but by far prefers this business and the level of effort is manageable.