11 Apr 2018

Diane Salepito, 43, of Gumare depicts the modern day Proverbs 31 woman.

Precisely in Proverbs 31:14-15 it expresses a phenomenal woman; ‘Like a ship laden with merchandise, she brings home food from far off.

She rises while it is still dark, and apportions food for her household, with a due share for her servants’.

The owner of Diane’s hair salon skipped many hurdles to be where she is today.

In her own words, the road was not easy at all.

It took a lot of sweat, most importantly, hard work, but the one thing that drove her to the height of her career is passion.

“My passion for plaiting started way back at Okavango Junior Secondary School while I was doing Form One. If I recall well it was in the year 1990. I used to plait my school mates for free, even though my stitch was rough around the edges, my elder sister, Kedibonye helped me to perfect my art,” she said.

After she finished her form 2, she progressed to Ngethu brigade in 1993 to do a certificate in Carpentry. But she still yearned for her talent, plaiting. Nevertheless, she decided to pursue it. She plaited her teachers and schoolmates hair for as little as P20, just to buy toiletries. Indeed, most of her clients were satisfied with her work.

Unbeknown to her, this was only the beginning. She decided to relocate to Selebi Phikwe in 1994 to stay with her sister.

That is where one Mrs Cookson took her under her wings and taught her advanced techniques in the beauty industry at that time being to; set, cut, tong and tint hair.

In 2001, she spread her wings in Francistown in one Unique Hair salon to do a six-month training course in beauty therapy as well as other techniques such as retouching, treatment, steaming. As the oldies say, home is where the heart lies. She decided to move to Maun in 2007 to be closer to home. She opened a salon at Boseja ward. Unfortunately it did not perform well. She was forced to close shop. As heartbroken as she was, she swallowed her pride, dusted herself and went back to Gumare to start on a clean slate.

In 2008, Two Sisters hair salon was born. “In 2008 I opened Two Sisters hair salon, since money was hard to come by I decided to do a little business on the side, selling fish.

The biggest mistake I did was focusing on this other business leaving the salon for my subordinates to run, a contributing factor to my down fall. Once again I decided to shut it down since I had no money for rent. P1 500 was too much for me to pay at the time,” Diane lamented.

Distraught, Diane took a break to introspect.

In the midst of her confusion, in 2015, she heard about the Department of Gender Affairs. She took a leap of faith and tried her luck. She filled all the necessary documents and decided to wait in faith.

In 2016, they came to assess her. Indeed in 2017, her prophecy came to pass; she was funded to an amount of P96 000.

With that amount, the savvy business woman bought stock including equipment to an amount of P80 000.

She decided to top up the remaining balance and renovated her place of operation, which was owned by YWCA.

After they learnt that she used a total of P20 000 to extend and renovate their one room for free, YWCA decided to let her operate for a year, rent free.

Diane hair salon is in the centre of the village just by the market place.

She has hired three employees to.

She echoed that her business is doing well and has loyal clients.

However, like any other business they have challenges like power cuts and water shortage without any backup.

Nonetheless, Diane always has plan B that includes fetching water from the village and borrowing a generator.

The salon offers different hairstyles and they keep abreast with trends in the hair industry. Theirs is a calm and dually clean business.

Diane encourages women to stand on their own feet and apply for empowerment programmes.

She also urged them to avoid using business consultants, but rather take the bull by the horns and be hands-on in doing business proposals on their own to avoid duplication. ENDS