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Mango Tree

Mango Tree's mission is to work side-by-side with educators and communities to:

• Create innovative products and services that enhance the quality of education in Africa.
• Promote educational best practices from around the world that meet the needs of African educators.
• Operate as a socially and environmentally responsible company, with a triple bottom line helping profits, people and the planet.

Organization Description

Based in Kampala, Uganda, we operate as a private, limited company. Our office and production facility are located in the Ntinda/Naayla area of Kampala. Our staff of over 30 collaborates with the Board of Directors and scores of clients.

Mango Tree's Impact

Our products and services have touched many lives in Uganda and around the world. Here are some indicators of our impact and reach:

• We've supplied educational products to over 25% of Ugandans government primary schools.
• Over 12,000 teachers have been trained to use our products.
• More than 875,000 Ugandan children are using our educational tools in their classrooms.
• Our Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) education products are being used in a variety of African countries including Nigeria, Lesotho, Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Ethiopia.
• We are consulting with educators in Bangladesh to assist them in developing toys and games from locally available resources.
• Our dental health products have been reproduced in Spanish and French for children in Latin America and Francophone Africa.

Future Plans

We are excited about several new developments. Below are some of our projects in early stages:

• forming a non-profit side to support improvements in basic literacy and numeracy through improved teaching methodologies.
• creating tools for the deaf and visually impaired.
• deepening our materials that raise awareness / impart critical health knowledge about HIV/AIDS and adherence to anti-retroviral treatment.
• establishing an in-house training department that will improve our ability to impact up-take of our products in the field.

A Brief History of Mango Tree

Mango Tree was founded in January 2000 by Craig Esbeck, an American primary school teacher. Craig was a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) in eastern Uganda from 1997-99. As a PCV he worked as an outreach tutor at a primary teacher college to build the capacity of village teachers. After experiencing first-hand the issues facing rural educators, Craig decided to stay in Uganda and look for new ways to contribute.

Craig decided to start a business that would help rural schools make teaching more fun and effective. He established his business in the village where he had been a PCV. By creating local employment, making an important social impact, and using environmentally-friendly materials, Craig hoped to provide a positive model for other private companies. He named the business "Mango Tree" after Uganda's traditional classroom: the shade beneath a large mango tree.

Mango Tree's first products were Draughts, Ludo, and Snakes and Ladders, games made on Craig's kitchen table. The time was right for this business as the Uganda Ministry of Education and Sports was promoting the use participatory classroom instruction. This was a departure from the typical lecture-only system inherited from colonial times and teachers were finding it challenging to make the shift. Mango Tree's product focus was on games, educational toys, and other participatory, learner-centred teaching tools.

In 2001, Mango Tree opened a Kampala office. The business grew to twelve employees. The company did workshops that demonstrated the use of their interactive tools and showed teachers how to make these tools for themselves. Mango Tree's work caught the eye of development agencies since the technique came from the grassroots and was replicable.

In 2002, Mango Tree landed its first contract with USAID. Due to the success of this contract, other USAID-funded contracts followed which focused on rural education in the northern conflict areas.

To address this new business, Mango Tree opened a second workshop in Kampala. Employment jumped to 25 staff. Mango Tree worked non-stop to ramp up production and meet program management demands.

During this time, Mango Tree began working with subcontractors. Many of these subcontractor groups supported disadvantaged people, such as the NEED Foundation (an employment training organisation for the disabled) and Roses of Mbuya (a group of HIV+ women tailors). These groups benefited by raising employment, and by accessing capital needed to build their own capacities through the purchase of sewing machines and other equipment.

In May 2004, Mango Tree became a private limited company. Most of the shareholders were Ugandan employees of the company. Today more than 95% of Mango Tree's shares are owned by Ugandans and Ugandan residents.

Since the beginning of 2005, Mango Tree has designed and developed many new products for the health and education sectors. We have increased the number of products offered to more than 200. Currently, Mango Tree is creating new educational tools for health workers and community volunteers to raise awareness on HIV/AIDS issues.

Mango Tree is contributing to improved educational service delivery in Tanzania, Rwanda, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and other countries by providing a new model, one that reaches across the division of rich and poor to provide low-literacy audiences with quality educational tools and training.

Our most recent development is the launch, in 2007, of a non-profit organization that can work more directly with donor agencies in reforming education and communication efforts in regions of need.

Partner Organisations

We build strong relationships with partner organizations for the long-term. In seeking quality products and reliable services from our subcontractors, we help build their capacities. Over the years we have developed contractual relationships with over twenty different organizations, both non-profit and for-profit. At times as many as two hundred people may be employed in the manufacture of Mango Tree's products. Whenever possible, we try to give business to partners that employ marginalized groups or individuals. Some of our many business partners include:

Roses of Mbuya

The Roses of Mbuya sewing workshop trains and employs HIV positive women to make a range of clothing for women, men and children, as well as household items. Since 2002 they have made educational products for Mango Tree. The Roses are part of REACH OUT - Mbuya Parish HIV/AIDS Initiative, an innovative response by the local parish church to meet the health needs of its many community members being challenged by AIDS. They currently serve over 800 clients using a holistic model that provides medical care, nutritional support, income generation and spiritual guidance. Learn more about this amazing organization at www.reachoutmbuya.org.

The Need Foundation

The NEED (New Era for the Disabled) Foundation is a self-help organization that works with disabled people in Uganda. The NEED Foundation has a tailoring workshop, craft center, and restaurant. These projects have helped their disabled clients to acquire jobs and improve their general standard of living. The NEED Foundation is further described at www.needfoundation.org

Kiwatule Women's Group

A group of women tailors in one of Kampala's impoverished neighborhoods has organized themselves into a contractor group that sews grain sack charts for us.

KATS Creations

The founder of this business, Abubaker Katamba, first worked with Mango Tree when he was hired on a part-time basis to paint puzzles. From there, he was directly employed by Mango Tree as a graphic artist. His enterprising nature, problem-solving skills and talent for product design saw Abubaker rise to Production Manager at Mango Tree. Now Abubaker has established his own business, making an innovative line of products for Mango Tree and other clients. One area of specialization he is focusing on is adaptive educational materials for children with visual impairment.

Shaban Musisi

When Mango Tree began making alphabet letters and numbers from recycled flip-flops Shaban was the only person in Busolwe village that had the upper body strength to make them in the quantities we needed. Using a simple cobbler's knife, Shaban could hand cut many sets each day. Walking using his hands and pushing himself in a locally made wheelchair gave him the power and endurance to do the work with ease.

From the money he made at Mango Tree, he built a house, financed a marriage, started a small business for his wife and bought a deluxe wheelchair to improve his mobility.

Later, when our production needs grew and we built a simple machine for punching out the letters and numbers, we asked Shaban to come to Kampala and continue production. Now KATS Creation has purchased the punching machine from us and Shaban will work with Abubaker to provide us with this popular educational product.

GLADJO Designer

John Hasahya and his wife Gladys oversee a group of tailors in Busolwe village who sew products for Mango Tree from their homes. The original Mango Tree workshop was established in Busolwe in 2000 and at one time grew to a staff of 20 tailors and artists when we had a large USAID contract. Long-term sustainability was a problem, however, and we reluctantly closed our Busolwe workshop in 2006.

This did not stop John and Gladys. They quickly organized some of the existing tailors, signed up some new ones and approached Mango Tree for a tailoring contract. They are now one of our most reliable and consistent subcontractors providing village tailors with work that supplements their income.

Awards and Recognition

Our company has been honored with awards, fellowships, media coverage and select memberships. Some of these include:

• Ashoka Fellowship - for launching unique and innovative initiatives spearheaded by a social entrepreneur, 2002.
• ChangeMakers Innovation Award - for leveraging the power of the community to solve a wide variety of social issues, 2005.

Print articles:

• The New Vision, December 2000.
• Cedar Rapids Gazette (USA).
• Sisterhood Agenda article (USA) 2007.

Membership

• Enterprise Uganda - participating member.
• Business Uganda Development Services - grant recipient.
• African Management Systems Corporation - participating member.

Client Testimonials about Mango Tree

Many clients return to Mango Tree time and again for high quality products and services. Here are some remarks from our customers:

• I am bowled over by the freshness and lateral thinking of your products. I have, as you can imagine in doing this project, seen many recycled things, and yours really stand out in their originality. (From Ruth Thomson, curator for the Eden Project that receives 1.4 million visitors in the United Kingdom.)
• The Early Childhood Development tools are the first of their kind in our education system (locally produced teaching/learning aids made from local materials) and they are inspiring.
• I love this kit! It really helps teachers see that ECD should be highly interactive and fun.
• Mango Tree's Primary School Kit is appropriate for the Ugandan situation in that the materials are made from no- or low-cost materials, and can be appropriately used in any classroom situation, whether under trees or in a proper classroom. This kit is an eye opener for teachers to use locally available materials to deliver content in a play-way method.
• I think Mango Tree's products are a great first step toward a child-centered school environment! Pupils love them!

Employee Profiles

The achievements of Mango Tree draw from the energy, talents, skills and knowledge of an unusually diverse group of employees. We introduce some of them below, and encourage you to spend time with them if you can!

Craig Esbeck, Founder

Craig was a teacher in Iowa and Minnesota before coming to Uganda in 1997 to work as a Peace Corps Volunteer. In Uganda he worked as an outreach tutor for Mukuju Primary Teacher College for two years before deciding to start Mango Tree Educational Enterprises. Craig has a bachelor's degree from the School for International Training and a master's degree from Holy Names College in Oakland, California. He is the founder and served as Managing Director of Mango Tree until April 2007. He now resides in Jinja with his family where he continues to work with Mango Tree as a consultant and field worker.

Guustaaf VAN DE MHEEN, Executive Director

Guustaaf joined Mango Tree in October 2008. He has had various jobs into international marketing and sales in the Netherlands. He has done his masters in Food & Agribusiness. Within his function of Executive Director he oversees Production, Finance, Marketing and the Research and Design.

Jeanel Drake, Assistant Director for Product Development & Project Management

Jeanel, a U.S. citizen came to Mango Tree in 2007 to lead the talented Research and Design team. She brings graphic design, photography and development experience from her previous work in Niger and Kansas, USA.

Abdul Kagga, Human Resources & Operations Manager

Abdul joined Mango Tree in 2001 as sales manager. Before that he had worked both as a secondary school teacher and as a language and technical facilitator for Peace Corps/Uganda. Abdul has a postgraduate diploma in education from the Islamic University in Mbale. Abdul now manages Mango Tree's HR department and he also assists the finance department with some duties.

Stephen Wandera, Operations Manager

Stephen is part of the early history of Mango Tree because he was the first graphic artist to make Mango Tree products in 2000 during his school holiday and he is one of the founders. He returned to work at Mango Tree in 2003 and served as the Studio Supervisor. In 2006 he became the Office Manager, a position he held up to September 2009. Currently he is the Operations Manager for Mango Tree. He holds a diploma in Education from Kyambogo University, a Diploma in International Computer Engineering fron New Horizons Computer Learning Center and a Cisco Certificate in Computers & Networking from the Faculty of Computing and Information Technology, Makerere University. He is a sociable, hardworking person with good customer service and relationship skills.

Kawooya George William, Marketing Manager

George joined Mango Tree as a Marketing Manager in March 2008. He has many years of experience in technical management in health services, accident prevention and bank loans. Before joining Mango Tree, George worked with the former Uganda Commercial Bank as a banking officer, FINCA Uganda as a accounts relationship officer, Crane Health Services as head of marketing and Mukono Community Health Initiative as a finance officer. He holds a Bachelors degree in Business Administration from Makerere University and is currently pursuing an MBA in Information Systems from Sakkim Manipal University.

Angella Namaganda Mutabuza, Sales Representative

Angella joined Mango Tree in 2008 as a Sales Representative. She was previously working with FIT Uganda Ltd under a program called Access to Markets funded by CORDAID as a Junior Consultant. Concurrently, she worked with Infopoint Uganda Ltd a Tourism Advertising Company as Head of Sales. Angella holds a BA in Mass Communication with Upper Second class degree from Makerere University (MUK). She’s currently pursing a Masters Degree in Business Administration (Marketing) at MUK.

Fred Emolu, Accountant

Fred joined Mango Tree in 2008 as an Assistant Accountant. He holds Diploma in Accounting and Finance from YMCA and he is currently persuing CPA course at MTAC.

Nathan Walosi, Production Assistant

Nathan is part of Mango Tree's production management team. He has worked for Mango Tree since 2002. He is among the founders of this company and is also a graduate of Makerere University Business School.

Monica Kansiime, R&D team member and administrative assistant

Goretti Nabakijje Muwanika, Graphic Artist

Goretti is a graphic artist in the Research and Design department. She has worked with Mango Tree since 2003. She has a bachelor's degree in Industrial and Fine Arts from the Margaret Trowel School of Industrial and Fine Arts, Makerere University.

Nakugoba Charles, Production Manager

Charles Nakugoba joined Mango Tree in July-2007 as the Production Manager. He possesses a bacherlor's degree in Industrial Engineering and Management (BIEM) from the Deparment of Mechanical & Production Engineering, Faculty of Engineering Kyambogo University- Uganda. Before Joining MangoTree he worked with Uganda Tea Corporation (UTC), Kasaku Lugazi Tea estate as assistant Production engineer. Also taught Maths & Physics in several secondary schools for four years.

Carol Nassuna, Accounts Assistant

Carol Nassuna joined Mango Tree in June 2010 as an Accounts Assistant. Before that, she   had worked with Johns Hopkins University (HCP) and a Microfinance Organization. Carol has a degree in Business Administration from Makerere University.

Board of Directors

Mango Tree's Board of Directors meets quarterly to chart the long-range course for the company. The current Board, all volunteers, consists of seven members, including men and women, Ugandans and foreigners, employees and outside contributors.

Getting Involved

Mango Tree is always open to new relationships, support and improved resources.

Donating money and materials

Many people have given donations of money or materials, including to our developing non-profit sister organization. Interested parties should contact our Executive Director.

Volunteering

Over the years, loads of volunteers, both foreign and Ugandan, have generously given their time and creative energies to support our socially responsible mission. Some stay with us for as little as one week, others for as long as one year or two. Another option is to contribute remotely, away from Kampala or Uganda. A few serve on our Board of Directors. Potential volunteers should contact our Human Resources Manager, Abdul Kagga at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Business partners

Clients, subcontractors, vendors and other partners keep investing in their relationships with Mango Tree. We work hard to build fair, nurturing partnerships that help our partners grow and improve. Interested organizations should contact our Executive Director.

Employment

People often approach us about working for Mango Tree. Interested candidates should consult our website, or contact our Human Resources Manager.