03 Dec 2018

It has been 26 years of perseverance and patience for Mr Steward Silvester, 45, who repairs shoes to support his family.

Mr Silvester’s business is situated along Haskins Street, just a stone throw across Botswana Railways train station depot. Although he does not have a permanent structure where he operates, one can hardly miss him along the alley, seating next to a heap of shoes next to Style shop.

In an interview recently, it was easy to recognise that he is clearly not a stranger to people around him as passers-by constantly addressed him as ‘uncle.’ According to Mr Silvester, perseverance and patience had over the years been the centre piece for his business. Although he decided on repairing shoes as a way of putting food on the table, he had long started horning his skills around 1992 while at school.

Mr Silvester explained that he was that child at school who always had his hands full either repairing school shoes, football boots or patching yesteryear’s footballs at school. “It all started at my rented house in Block 7, I later moved to my current place of operation around 1998. Upon arriving here, I requested for a licence from Francistown City Council where they advised me to make an agreement with the shop owner I intended to operate next to,” he said.

For more than two decades now, Mr Silvester said repairing shoes had always been his only source of income, as he had never took any job before, apart from providing for himself using his hands.

Now married with five children, he said he managed to raise his children with money from repairing shoes. He said his services ranged from patching damaged shoes, replacing shoe soles and adjusting shoe sizes.

However, it is not just a sweet story of more than two decades doing business. According to Mr Silvester, he came a long way and along he came across a number of challenges. “I would say the biggest challenge I faced was the insurgence of Chinese shops in the city. Most shops started selling plastic shoes and pure leather shoes were scarce,” he said.

Before the Chinese shops, he said it was different. He explained that people would bring what he described as original shoes which were made from pure leather material. Therefore when working on an original shoe, he was sure the client would not complain paying for the services rendered. However, with the plastic shoe it is totally the opposite.

Mr Silvester further explained that at one time he had a client that brought a leather shoe for a sole replacement. After working on the shoe, he said the client came back after a good five years, the client was happy with the services rendered therefore working with original leather shoes was always easy for him.

Despite the challenges, Mr Silvester said he grew the resilience of bouncing back and finding better ground to operate his business. In such a business, where conditions change every time, he said one needed to grow a thick skin for any chance to survive.

He said the business of repairing shoes was not stable hence the need for one to exercise patience everyday hoping for a better day tomorrow. Mr Silvester revealed that it usually depended on the period of the month; he said mid-month business was slow as sometimes he got three or four customers per day. But as the month progressed towards month end he said it became much better.

He also mentioned that apart from delivering a good handy work, he also needed a good working relationship with customers, hence he earned the nickname ‘uncle.’ He said his trade was well-known across the country due to good relations he had developed with clients and his good craftwork.

Mr Silvester praised his business for making him what he was. He said it was through the business that he managed to get married, bought a plot in Chadibe and built his family a decent houseENDS