An entrepreneurial spirit is alive and thriving across the country, thanks to opportunities created by measures to control spread of Covid-19.

Following the stay-at-home and the total lockdown orders, consumers turned to activities such as at-home fitness and home delivery for the business to stay affloat.

Emerance Mukabalisa was before the coronavirus pandemic working as a waitress in a restaurant in Nyamirambo outskirts. When the pandemic brought all the business to a standstill, a mother of two was for a short time on a standstill before venturing into the business of selling mobile airtime, hand sanitisers, and facemasks.

“As it is widely known, working as a waitress in the restaurant brings its own risks, though as someone who was not lucky enough to go the university, it was sustaining my needs and my children,” Ms Mukabalisa told Rwanda Today.

“After closing all the restuarants due to the covid-19, I was left with no choice but to look for something from which I can get something to feed my children.

With Rwf150, 000, I started selling telephone airtime and sanitisers and facemasks and it is really helping,” she narrates.

With many businesses shuttered down with the pandemic-related effects, some businesses have exploited the room that has been presented by the pandemic.

In some places, the hand sanitisers being discouraged in place of proper handwashing, the vendors of the facilities indicate that the business has picked up.

“With every business advised to have a handwashing facility on the entrance has seen the business of the handwashing facilities boom within this time,” Issac Ntakirutimana, a business owner at Gakinjiro Business center of Nyarugenge.  “The difference is a huge difference between the current handwashing business and the one of the prior-pandemic situation. If for instance in one month, I have been selling 20 handwashing facilities, that number has doubled up to over 40 facilities,” He added

According to the Ingunguru Gakinjiro Co-operative, with the new guidelines of mitigating the further spread of the Covid-19, the demand for the handwashing facilities has skyrocketed.

“As within the covid-19 mitigation guidelines, the demand has increased because, in the span of a period where we were selling 10 handwashing facilities, we are getting an order of over 500 facilities a week,” Issac Harerimana, manager at the Ingunguru Gakinjiro Cooperative.