The Jack Ma Foundation has just announced 50 outstanding African entrepreneurs who applied to the foundation’s charitable initiative Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH), which annually spotlights, trains, supports and gives African entrepreneurs grant funding totaling to 1.5 million USD, coupled with publicity and networking across Africa. One of these entrepreneurs is Helen Habteslasie Keleta.
Helen Keleta is the Founder and CEO of East Africa Hafeshawi Medical Center, a well-established health centre that was started in January 2018 in a convenient and highly accessible location in Kampala, Uganda. She is a mother of four, and an Eritrean Refugee living in Kampala since 2016. By profession she is an engineer and up until 2016 has been working with different family construction companies. After she came to Uganda she started living among the refugees in Kampala and noticed there is a language barrier amongst them and Ugandans. Especially when it came to health, this language barrier made it worse because ‘right patient-right information-right care-at the right time’ works well in life. This idea triggered Helen to invest in the medical care industry by getting different native professional doctors and nurses.
Helen established her business with a 5 bed capacity medical centre and expanded up to 25 bed capacity and opened two branches in different areas in order to reach all the refugees to reduce transport costs. At this time the company was exposed to international laboratory systems. Helen is good at interacting with different communities and loves to do what is asked of her to under her capital limit. Helen’s and her company vision is: To be the healthcare ‘’Provider of Choice’’ in terms of giving safe, quality, affordable high level health service and health awareness in East Africa. The company’s mission is to continually put the “care” and to provide respect, comprehensive, trusted, compassionate and integrated healthcare services that exceeds costumer’s expectations. Today, the business employs 40 people.
Capital spoke to founder Helen Keleta to learn more about her very unique entrepreneurial journey, her mission to make a positive difference to the lives of those in need of good, affordable healthcare, and her nomination for the ABH 2023. Excerpts;
Capital: Can you tell us about East Africa Medical center, its background and its focus?
Helen Habteslasie Keleta: First, my name is Helen Habteslasie Keleta, CEO, East Africa Medical Centre. I am an Eritrean Refugee living in Kampala, Uganda since 2016 and a mother of four children.
The refugee society in Uganda faces a major problem which is language barrier. And when it comes to health services, it becomes worst. Even though professionals can find out the result of a sickness through different investigations, which requires paying a lot of money, getting the right treatment, follow-ups and the right prescription is a challenge. Most of the refugee have financial problems and are unable to cover their transportation, consultation fee, examination and medication fee. Furthermore, the lack of communication is another big hurdle for them.
After finding out the main problem, I embarked on a business journey to establish the East Africa Hafeshawi Medical Centre. Launched with only 5 bed capacity, the medical center has now reached 25 bed capacity with two more branches inside Kampala. The medical center has created 40 jobs opportunities for Eritrean, Ugandan and Somalians doctors and nurses and serves refugees and local Ugandans.
- East Africa Hafeshawi Medical Centre is a well-established health centre started in January – 2018 in a convenient and highly accessible location in Kampala.
- Delivers information from government health centres and gives them a space to use it freely like vaccination and health awareness.
- Provides different types of health education and awareness through social media and through different religious institutions.
- The company has its own marketing department and reaches out to refugees by distributing fliers at places where they can be found.
- Leads the society to interact with Ugandans through blood donation and some other activities like environmental hygiene.
- The company expanded and opened different departments and increased the number of beds in order to avoid multiple referrals.
- Opened two branches to minimize transport cost and reach more number of clients and solve their problems.
- Exposure to international laboratory systems in order to get highly qualified professionals and meet the right standard. This increases the trust and revenue of the company.
Capital: What prompted you to participate in the Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) 2023 edition?
Helen: I applied for ABH to promote my company and all the milestones I have been able to achieve throughout my journey as a refugee, get recognized and also connected to fund raisers. ”If ABH Lift ME Up, I can Lift up Others”. Getting this chance opens incredible opportunities and also positively inspires other refugees, especially women and mothers like me. And as a woman and mother of four, it will minimize my effort and time cost.
Capital: What attributes do you reckon have led to your shortlisting?
Helen: I have a forward-looking vision and the mission is excellent. This has been supported by great milestones showing great leadership in my community through various activities. This has been articulated well in my application.
The company is tackling a huge crisis with refugee language barrier and lack of communication. I am able to impact 15, 000 lives positively in such a short period of time and I was applauded by ABH judges for that.
My unique and inspiring story as a refugee has also made me uniquely qualified to understand the challenges that refuges face on their healthcare and ways of addressing them. The fact that my endeavour is associated to UN SDGs and with a sustainable business model has also significantly contributed to my shortlisting.
Capital: What does it mean to be among the top 50 finalists in a competition that is open to thousands of entrepreneurs from across Africa?
Helen: It was really unexpected for me! It inspires and encourages me to work hard more than ever. That is very uplifting. I have learnt that no idea is small in this world. Even small ideas can be bigger given time and consistency.
Capital: Does the government support you in any way?
Helen: Not at the moment.
Capital: What does the future hold for East Africa Medical Centre and how would you give back to your country?
Helen: On top of everything, our vision is to be the ‘’Provider of Choice’’ in terms of giving safe, quality, affordable, high level health care services and health awareness in East Africa. And our company’s mission is to continually put the ‘’care’’ and to provide respect, comprehensive, trusted, compassionate and integrated healthcare services that exceeds our costumer’s expectations.
We respect individuals by demonstrating a high regard for the value, needs and dignity of every patient, their family, associates and physicians. We value service over self-interest and always stay accountable to those we serve. We also provide service and care with continued respect for the holistic needs of individuals in our community by giving free medical camps, first aid services at events, vaccinations, health education and awareness, plus sponsoring artists and football teams to indicate that ‘Health is our priority’’.
Our future plan is to
- Expand and open up more branches to reach more beneficiaries and to grow the company
- Expand our pharmacy
- Work with Insurance companies to attract regular clients
- Offer additional medical services like imaging (x-ray, MRI and city scan), ambulance services and home care services among others
- Comply with the ISO standards and management system
- Open a nursing school with the cooperation of some universities
- Upgrade to a hospital level
Capital: Any advice to other women who would want to advance and succeed in your career path?
Helen: I would love to say that women need to follow their passion and always try to create ideas and think big. Women don’t have to be afraid of starting a business with any amount of money (small or big).
Capital: What do you say is the contribution of competitions like Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) to fostering the entrepreneurship ecosystem in Africa?
Helen: It is impressive and motivating to have such opportunities which significantly contributes to the entrepreneurship ecosystem of Africa. Africa’s Business Heroes (ABH) competition opens an opportunity and guides to introduce African companies to the world. I am personally thankful to ABH and the opportunity it is providing to African entrepreneurs.
Capital: Anything else you would like to say?
Helen: I would love to thank APO Group and ABH for facilitating this exposure to my company. I would like to say that we Africans can make a difference to Africa, let’s just work hard and cooperate with each other.
