Milagrosa Bembele

Milagrosa Bembele


Date: March 22, 2016
  • SHARE:

I am Milagrosa Bembele from xai-xai and I am an entrepreneur classified as a vendor. I had my first contact with Gender Links when they asked me to tell my story for the first time, and since then I attended all other phase.

I sell shoes. I started the business by buying a sack of shoe pairs and I use to do the selling before by knocking door to door to distribute and market my shoes so that people could have access to it and see it and also buy them. in order to maintain my business and have a store house of my own for my products and where I could also sell my products and so that I could stay I built an house made of reeds. I started selling on my own and I managed to make like a 1000Mzn but then it grew to 1500Mzn now I’ve hired a lady who helps me in selling the shoes and I pay her 500Mzn. Right now I am managing to sustain my house by adding a door and windows to the house in order to protect my assets. I joined a part against crime in my community region and I am an activist who riots against crime.

Now I’ve been given an opportunity to be interviewed by journalists and they took pictures and it even went to the Portugal ambassador then they asked for the community to send a plan of action to what they intend to do to make a change in that region and I did my plan and they said its only left to be reviewed and confirmed with BCI.

But I would love to owe my own business and store .I’ve been able to feed myself without the help of my husband who is working at south Africa and sends me a little of his earning but I believe I have managed to stand still on my own. The programme helped to be able to run the business and to think business wise.

I would love to be a business woman in the nearly future, my father used to be a sewer but me, I cannot sew but I can cut cloths but I rather continue my business by purchasing so that I can sell cloths.

I am staying with my husband who’s working in south Africa and my two sons .my husband is a miner and he also said he wanted to start a business but due to the strikes in the RSA mines he is having difficulty capitalizing money for it.

Before my brother in law and my husband family use to bad mouth me to my husband and he would change his moods and starts shouting. I started doing business by selling chickens but then people were not paying for the chickens when they take it so it did not work out so I stop.my husband did not borrow me money so that I could pursue my business enterprise because he thought as a woman i would not be able to manage the money to generate more money.

I would love to elevate in my business so that I can prove it to my husband that even a women can do business as well and accurate as a man.

I am so grateful to this programme because it opened my mind in a business side as well as in the social side, now I have earned respect in my neighbourhood and among the family because I am doing my business that is visible and I am taking care of my family independently.

Thank you Gender Links for the opportunity that gave me and my colleagues, to become a better person by overcoming the obstacles of life.