The beauty of SAIC
Young people in Bulawayo have lauded the Safe and Inclusive Cities (SAIC 2.0), a brain child of Plan International, for imparting transformative skills and knowledge that have changed their mindsets on businesses. Patience Sithole, a Beauty Therapist is one among many who benefitted from the skills transfer as evidenced by how she was prompted into business soon after undergoing the process. For Sithole, who merely had a passion for the beauty industry but with little knowledge about its entire operations highlighted that she quickly opened her Beauty Spa which has so far been running smoothly with the help of the practical skills she learned from her mentors in the project. For Sithole, the knowledge about what made the whole beauty industry was limited but soon became fully operational following the set of skills and knowledge that were imparted to her. “I have opened a boutique in our home garage at the moment because I can’t manage to get the finances that to help rent a shop in town,” Sithole added. “I am now able to buy my products that help to execute my duties without any major challenges,” Sithole told The Lokshin Pulse. Despite the harsh economic challenges bedevilling the country, amidst fluctuating, chasing of rates in the parallel market to access foreign currency, Ms Sithole is now able to handle her finances well without having to run a loss due to misapplication of funds. “The other skill that l learnt is financial management, this skilled has helped me a lot because now I am able to budget perfectly and l can see whether l have made profit or not in a particular period,” she said. Regular power outages in the country have also not spared beauticians whose work relies heavily on reliable electricity. Power cuts in the country have affected many businesses including manufacturing firms, retail shops and many other service providers and has adversely affected the profit margins of businesses, more so for start-up and small businesses. Throughout the whole learning process, Sithole said she learnt to be patient and to trust the process. She urged other young people who might want to start their own business to take challenges as learning opportunities that will help them become better business owners in the future.
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