19 Nov 2018

Ms Mmaomphile Omphile’s cosy business, Lushey Laundry in Nata makes one to knock at her door to enjoy the comfort and affordability of her laundry services.

Ms Omphile said she gave up her pre-school teaching job and ventured into what she loved most to provide, a laundry service. She washes clothes, dry, iron and fold.

First she simply offered cleaning services at her aunt’s dry clean and later she became an employee of Modiba Dry Clean, where she worked for five years.

Purposely knowing that she wanted to build her future business and hopefully change lives, Ms Omphile said she gained more experience in the laundry services.

She said while working at Modiba, she could tell that running a business was not easy and yet she could picture her business doing well in future.

In an interview, Ms Omphile said following the Youth Development Fund (YDF) funding, she managed to buy five big machines both washing and drying and other business needs.

“Being an early entrant into a market, my customers were so much in support and with that I have much holistic interaction with them,” she said. Lushey Laundry, which has been operating since 2004, has had its challenges such as high rentals and electricity bills but despite such challenges, she did not surrender.

A Nata based entrepreneur, who is determined to even influence the economic fortunes of the country, said she chose to be the first to open the business in Nata because she wanted to introduce something different to the market which was still growing as the village itself grows.

“I wanted to make people’s lives easy and better and surprisingly, many customers who are even far away from Nata are not limited to where I am operating,” she said.

To top it up, she said because of her fellow youth’s employment needs, she managed to employ one youth in her business and her intentions were not only to create employment for her, but also to stir up the spirit of an entrepreneur and ambition in her.

She noted that ‘the road to success requires focus and determination,’ and that she managed to move to her own business plot and build an office where she was now operating at. 

“Now I am able to eliminate the variable costs of the business and the location is more easily accessed,” she noted.

A youth fund beneficiary said everyone who wanted to follow suit and start the laundry business should love working as the job requires a lot of concentration to avoid misplacing clothes of customers. ENDS