A Lineage To Be held

Today Raphael highlights the shallow but inspiring life of 25yr old Joy who is not only a young girl with dreams but the bread winner of her siblings. An orphan and business lady this is the real copycat if strength of a woman.

Joy lost her parents in the deadly 2007 post election polls and has since taken the mantle as the family head. Her dad was a business man in the local fresh farm produce market and her mom was a house wife. She grieved her parents and when she was strong enough to move on she went to the market where she usually visited her dad in company of her mom. She opened the stall and just sat there not knowing what exactly to do or how to even operate. As a sharp minded girl it took her only two days to realize that sitting at the stall wasn't going to answer all her worries. Where was she to get fresh supplies? How was she to pay tax? What about the neighboring business people? Who amongst them was her dads friend and who wasn't? Actually she says she was deeply interested in who wasn't his dads friend than who was. What about the mysterious customers who seemed to not even notice her presence? By end of that week, all the stock was due for replacement and she had not sold a penny. She bought food and other essentials from the condolences cheque....

Joy took to her social media for help. She signed up for online business courses and entrepreneurship programs. She hit harder by visiting local women groups just to learn and not to be member. In the next one month her stall was closed but she was flying through the business world getting acquitted with the who's who of the market. She was back at her stall a new woman. A stronger lady. A bold entrepreneur. Though her condolence cheque was still lumpsome, Joy had met and joined several money lending Saccos that operated within the market and around town. She was also aware of the supply routine of many of the products being sold in the market from what time they set of from owners farm to what time they arrive at the market and when exactly they are offloaded and to whose stall they are packed for sale. She was also are how to pay taxes and to whom and at what intervals. The only missing puzzle was friends and foes of her business and she figured that could be tackled by her sensitive nature.

The neXt month was a piece of cake. through one of her marketing lessons she had learnt the secret of display and how powerful a tool it was as an advertisement technique to customers who would unsuspectingly be wooed over to your stall just because they were attracted to that huge Yam you placed at the top instead of at the bottom while you packed your Yams for display in the morning. She understood how a multicolored umbrella shade would do miracles for her business as a competing aspect against other traders for those afternoon customers who have had a hard day and the last thing they want to miss is that umbrella shed at that new girl's stall with huge Yams.

By end of that moth, Joy had several improvements made at her stall from actual sales and it was then that she cooled her heels. She now concentrates on widening her customer base and is proud she has her family mantle under control. From the business alone, she gets to pay the bills and cater for her siblings. It is Joy who does the selling and overall management of the stall but she hopes her siblings grow interested in business as well. All she has to do is to wire profit to her bank account on a weekly basis. I asked her if she ever gets an urge to secretly keep something small for herself but she frowned off that question with the phrase, "My advice to any young girl out there who wants to venture into a business is; GET CAPITAL EVEN IF IT IS FROM A MONEY LENDER AND HIT HARD! YOU WILL SMILE LATER."