26 Apr 2016

Hailing from a small settlement of New Xanagas in the Ghanzi District, Ms Lesedi Jack has always believed in her entrepreneural instincts.

She groomed her business acumen for seven years while working at Spar outlet and thereafter at a butchery in Charleshill for three years. 

This is where Ms Jack acquired her business skills. 

In 2015, Ms Jack started a general dealer and butchery, a gap she identified in her village and had always dreamt of providing such services to her community. 

A year later, her business is doing well. 

With only an assistant to help her run the general dealer, Ms Jack said the shop made good profit, therefore she was able to reward her assistant well and pay her instalment for a Youth Development Fund loan. 

Her instalment is P800 monthly, but Ms Jack paid P2 500 each month as a way of recovering the loan quickly.  

She explained that her business’s success was a result of the mentoring she acquired from LEA. 

Armed with only an O Level certificate and a customer care service short course to her name, Ms Jack shop made between P800 and close to P1 300 in a good day, while on a monthly basis she banked about P15 000. 

She said she was saving for her own property. She said nothing would please her more than doing away with rental that even though was less than P500 monthly, she believed having something of her own would give her pride and determination to work harder. 

Ms Jack is now focusing on getting her own vehicle. She said transportwas an integral part of any business as sometime one needed to collect and deliver goods.

 She said she bought stock twice a month noting that it was very expensive for her as she hired transport and paid close to P1000 and P11 000 to go to Charleshill and Ghanzi respectively. 

She said she had never been deterred by this challenge as she knew it was part of the business. She was also grateful that her settlement was one of those with less statistics of crime, thus giving their micro business to grow. 

The 30-year-old mother of two children who planned to train for business management in future, said with the P1 100 she got as a manager of the shop, she  was able to provide for her children. 

Although at times she was unable to cover all the monthly expenses, she said it was far much better than getting nothing. 

Her advice to the youth who wished to venture into business was to go for something that they were passionate about. 

She explained that she chose fresh produce business because she had a vast experience in it and knew she could make it a success especially that she chose an appropriate place where demand was high. 

She indicated that she would never have started that kind of business in a township like Ghanzi as she knew she was going fail because there were big outlets which would have been in competition with her. 

In New Xanagas, there are only three businesses of such a kind, two tuck-shops and her general dealer and fresh produce. 

Therefore she got more customers as she had a variety of goods that people want compared to the tuck-shops which are always limited in stock. ENDS