A Catalyst for Care - Joy Niwomujuni: 2023 Uganda Business Competition Winner

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“We birthed this dream 10 years ago. We believe that we are going far and that we are going to change the nation.” — Joy Niwomujuni, Co-Founder of Jubilee Health Services Ltd.

Early in life, Joy Niwomujuni had a dream: to start a healthcare clinic in her community that would help diagnose and treat preventable diseases. The type of clinic that would have saved her mother’s life.

Today, Joy leads Jubilee Health Services Ltd. in the Kampala suburb of Kyanja, bringing hope and healthcare to the local community — including thousands of primary and secondary students each year.

With her radiant smile and business acumen, she is also the 2023 winner of the Sinapis Uganda Business Competition.

Joy’s journey to becoming an entrepreneur hasn’t been an easy one. Her father died when she was 11. Then, when she was 14, her mother died of a preventable illness causing her older brother to leave school in order to care for Joy and her siblings. Life taught Joy how to persevere — and persevere she did. First earning a bachelor’s degree in nursing and then a master’s in public health, Joy continued to pursue her dream.

Joy and her husband, James, founded Jubilee Health Services Ltd. in 2013. The company initially offered mobile care and developed partnerships with several NGOs. Then in 2015, the team realized they could meet an important need for area youth by offering annual school physicals. By providing the service in the schools, Jubilee Health created a process that was convenient for both families and the schools, while assuring that students were adequately examined.

Another turning point for Jubilee Health came in 2019 when Joy attended a retreat and heard Sinapis’ Uganda Country Director, Juliet Kasiita, speak. Joy realized she needed to “up her game” when it came to running her business.

Over the next two years, Joy enrolled first in Sinapis’ 9-week Aspire course and then in our 4-month Entrepreneur Academy. She says the business instruction she received in each, as well as the coaching leading up to the Business Competition, were transformational:

“If I was going to pay a consultant to help me think through my business, I don’t know how much money I would have paid, but Sinapis did it all for me. I felt like I had acquired a Ph.D. in business management and growth, and it is already indeed impacting my business.”

Last year, Jubilee Health worked with 5,359 students in four schools in the Kampala area. Next year they aim to serve twice that number across nine schools. With the UGX 37M (10,000 USD) prize money from the competition, Jubilee Health plans to invest in a patient management system to further its data analysis capacity. Joy and James also hope to commit funds to marketing their company’s services to additional schools in the region.

Before taking courses with Sinapis, Joy used to ask herself, “How can I influence the community through my profession and also bring Christ to them?” Today, as her company has grown, she gives talks on healthcare that connect people to the Word of God. She and her team pray together at the start of each workday, and she views the Lord as a partner and a stakeholder in her business. “We stand by our faith, and everyone who comes in touch with us — we tell them what we believe in,” she says. And Joy continues to dream. She longs for Jubilee Health Care Services to impact Uganda at a national level.

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Interested in learning more about Sinapis? Classes are launching soon! We offer training, advisory services, and ongoing community to equip entrepreneurs in emerging market economies to grow successful businesses that can create economic, social, and spiritual impact.

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