03 Nov 2014

While some youths are often seen roaming the streets, looking for hard-to-come-by jobs, 32-year-old Ms Keamogetse Dipalo from Sekondomboro in the Okavango Sub-district is  lucky to be running a promising mobile kitchen in the Shakawe area.

After doing odd jobs for people and earning low wages that could not meet her needs and those of her family, Ms Dipalo said in interview that she eventually sought and got help from the now familiar Youth Development Fund (YDF). 

With the P95 381.94 she got from the youth programme she says she used P55 000 to buy a mobile kitchen fully equipped with a stove, sink, a gas bottle, shelves and a spare wheel. 

However, she said the road to securing the sponsorship was not a rosy one as she had to struggle through the delicate funding processes after her cousin had told her about YDF’s interventions in January 2013.

“I did not waste time trying my luck, particularly because I had a passion and experience for culinary arts,” she says, adding that land and equipment issues complicated her funding application the most.

Once after she had found a rental space at Mohembo just across the Okavango River, she submitted her proposal at the Gumare Youth Office only to be rejected because the rental was high.

She did not give up, and in February 2014, after passing an interview with YDF, she was assured funding but on condition that she looked for another rental space in Shakawe as the one in Mohembo was expensive at P3 500 per month.

Also, she says that, because Mohembo was a small settlement, the funders argued that it meant a low market for her business.

Ms Dipalo says she couldn’t get a business plot in Shakawe as there is a shortage of land in the village; that was when she was advised to opt for a ‘kitchen on wheels’, an idea she really liked.

“They helped me to get quotations for the mobile kitchen and I immediately changed my budget and cash flows,’’ she says.

She says she also bought different kitchen and restaurant utensils and a variety of food stock to start her business.

Named ‘Water Lilly Mobile Take Away’, she says the name was inspired by the abundance of the water lily plant in the area and the fact that it was also a staple food for the local people.

The food seller says she started operating this month (October) but she has already come across some challenges such as the current fuel crisis in Shakawe. 

Ms Dipalo says, because she doesn’t have her own car, she has to do with hiring a car to pull her kitchen to and from the market. She remembers with lament how one day her driver did not show up to fetch the kitchen and all the food she had prepared for the day went to waste.

She also says she has already paid forward for chickens at Kefano Poultry but now all the chickens are dead due to the recent outbreak of Newcastle disease in the region. Ms Dipalo says her business is growing everyday as people notice her unique kitchen and like the delicious taste of her recipes.

She continues to show gratitude towards youth officers in her region for their splendid support and courage they give to youth. She also urges youth not to sit on their hands but stand up and knock on every government office for help about various programmes.

She is happy she has a source of livelihood after leaving school at Form Four level due to teenage pregnancy; she never got the chance to go back and finish her education even though she was one of the brightest in her class.

The confident lady says, with the savings she accumulated during the past years when she worked at Bimbos, LAHA supermarket and Hawk Guest House respectively, she sponsored herself to attend a food production course at Career Dreams Centre at Maun in 2010.  ENDS