29 May 2022

Having acne, uneven toned skin and big body than most her peers led Ms Rosemary Ushe to develop low self-esteem.

“Ï read so many magazines and watched lifestyle television shows especially those that had to do with skin care. I wanted to know why my skin was breaking out,”  she said in an interview on Saturday.

As a result, she started taking chances by giving herself facial beat, a feat she extended to her church mates especially during special events such as weddings and parties among others.

Noticing Ms Ushe’s passion, her cousin advised her to enroll with one of the beauty schools in South Africa.

She did not look back and in 2009 she started a four-year Somatology course.  

The course is similar to human body science.

“But my interest was to understand the skin and its episodes. I wanted to learn something that could change life.”

After graduating, Ms Ushe joined the cruise ship in Miami, Florida where she toured the world as a beauty therapist. She did facials, massages and pedicures among other beauty enhancing activities.

It was in the 11 years in the cruise ship when she realised that technology was key in her field.

With the COVID 19 outbreak, most of the ships stopped operations, so she returned home.

Having been beaten by beauty bug, staying home was not an option as she started contemplating her next move.

When restrictions were eased last year, she started knocking on doors and in March, Marang gave her space to practice her craft.

Seeing the public’s response towards her work she applied for Youth Development Fund in August and received approval in January this year.

With the P100 000 fund she knew that the journey had just begun.

Today 33-year old Ms Ushe is the director of Ayudar Health and Wellness Spar Retreat.

She is winding up her services to relocate her business to Tati Plots and Ayudar on June 11.  

Ms Ushe was upbeat about her business, hence going all out to market it.

“Ï have no doubt about the business doing well given the positive response I ma receiving. My clients are amazed by how I do things. I apply experience acquired from abroad.”

The youthful entrepreneur revealed that she had ordered all the digital equipment for her new beauty spa with intention of giving her patrons something new.

She said about 800 guests had visited her establishment and would like to see Batswana being advanced in beauty therapy.

Ms Ushe encouraged Batswana to open spa retreat business where people could relax and be treated according to their needs.

 “I have employed five young adult females,” she said, adding they appreciated the way she was working with them.

She said while some of the products she was using were produced locally, she would like to see her business being self-supportive by producing its own products and supplying other companies locally and internationally.

The budding entrepreneur said her desire was assist young adults and advised them to pursue any business they had passion on.

Her plan is to open beauty school in the near future to empower others and generate employment.

Ministry of Youth, Gender, Sports and Culture district coordinator in Francistown Ms Tiny Tamasiga-Gontse said Youth Development Fund was an economic programme geared at assisting youth with business starter-ups.

She said they assisted youth between the ages of 18 and 35 with funding to start up their business and due to the advent of COVID-19, some of their business had to close down due to low income.

“When things normalised from COVID attack, we started mentoring them again and advised them to participate in fairs like this one as a way of benchmarking and networking,” she said.

Ms Tamasiga-Gontse said youth entrepreneurs had an opportunity to realign with the President’s Reset Agenda, objectives of Business Botswana and be able to identify relevant projects to undertake.
She said MYSC provided resources, training, finances, training and availed platforms to showcase products. Ends