SUCCESS STORIES
MAMA SONGO
Many people struggle with the decision whether to stay in employment or move to self employment. Joyce Wacuka popularly known as Mama Songo has been married for 21 years ,a mother of 3 and a grandmother of 2 struggled with this decision too. After loosing her job during the Covid season she was not sure whether to look for a new job or grow her small business. Her breakthrough came when she attended a Womens Empowerment Training session by OCF in March this year where she learnt basic business skills and record keeping. One take away from this training for her was that it was possible to focus on growing her business and she has never looked back. From selling sweets only today she runs a retail shop in Mashimoni village where sells basic groceries and literally everything from chidrens shoes, household items and plastics among other items .
As a leader of a Womens Group she has attended 2 training sessions organized by OCF where she learnt basic business skills, marketing, record keeping, planning and budgeting and leading groups. She is very grateful for the training and proudly explained and showed us how she changed the display of her goods after the training. She learnt that how you display your items is a great marketing strategy. From haphazardly lumping her wares she has now categorized her wares and neatly arranges them by type for easy visibilty to attract her clients. Sweets , biscuits, chewing gum, shoes, plastics have been dispalyed in a very attractive way . She jokingly says “my items were allover but after the training I learnt that creative and organized display is a great marketing strategy”. She says her clients including children can reach for whatt hey want without any problem and her daily sales have incereased .
She laughts at herself and she shows us a disorganized account of her records before the training and says that it was difficult for her to follow these records. From the training she learnt proper record keeping and she shows us a new book where she keeps her records. Each page has a date , a column for money in and out, her debts , records for each sale, sales for the day and balance brought forward. What is really impressive is that fact that despite selling small items she separates each sale and the money is kept in different wallets and tins to help with her accounts each day . As we talk she reaches out for her right jumper pocket where she keeps money from selling sweets and keeps money for biscuits in the left pocket. The ease at which she separates this is amazing .
Another lesson she is grateful for is the planning and budgeting session where she learnt to do a proper budget. She took the lessons home and implored on her husband the need to start budgeting and separating their personal and business finances. They now plan for the whole month and buy stuff in bulk to avoid touching business money. She now has a daily subscription to track her mobile phone expanses unlike before when she would top up airtme when she needed and did not know how much airtime she uses per month .
She emphasizes that she has the idea, business, place and market but she lacks enough capital to grow her business and meet her client demands. The high cost of items also limit her expansion and would be grateful if she gets access to cheap business funding. She sees herself becoming a wholesaler if she gets the financial support to grow her business for she is resolute about staying in business. She looks forward to more business empowerment sessions by OCF to help her address the chalenges she faces as a small business. Listening to her story confirms the fact that education and learning has not happened until there is evidence of a new way doing things. She now keeps proper records , plans and budgets for all her expenses and separates her business and personal funds thanks to the OCF empowerment training sessions.