Mauritius: The desire to be financially independent


Date: October 9, 2019
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I am Shiny, live in Long Mountain, have two sisters and I am the eldest child in the family. My mother worked in a textile Industry and my father worked in the field and we were very happy. I went to Long Mountain Govt School and I did my secondary level of education in sounder Mundrakhun College. I studied up to the level of Form Four as my parents could not afford my school expenses. When my father lost his job, we faced a lot of difficulty and sometimes we did not have money to buy food. Unfortunately, When I was 15, my father passed away and my mother became the only breadwinner. Life was not that easy therefore, I started working in an industry at the age of 16. Both my mother and I worked to fulfill the wishes of my two little sisters. Fortunately, they have studied up to the tertiary level. I am very happy about their achievement even though I did not complete my education.

When I was working in the industry, a boy proposed me for marriage. At first I was very scared as I was thinking of whether my family will accept him or not. Eventually what I feared had happened. My family rejected him as he did not have an appropriate job. At the age of 18, my grand-mother brought a marriage proposal for me. The boy was a taxi driver. When he first came home he was accompanied by his parents. Both the families were happy with the proposal and I accepted. In 1999, I got married and I was very happy with my married life. After marriage I lived in an extended family. Two years later, I gave birth to my first son. I felt very happy when I carried him in my arms for the first time. It was the best experience of my life. After two years we started to build our house and in the year 2004 we shifted there. Moreover, in the same year I gave birth to my second son and in 2009 I gave birth to my third son.

After having our third baby, our responsibilities and expenses had increased. It was at this point in time that we had financial problem. As at that time I was a housewife, I had the desire to step into the world of work. One day my husband and I was talking about how to start a business on our own. We decided to open a snack in front of our house and eventually we succeeded. In 2010, we started working and in spite having no experience the business went on smoothly. However, in the long run the business was going down. Therefore we decided to merge a general retail with the snack.

I joined this training to learn how to improve our business and I expect to learn about preparing ‘special menus’ and delicacies.