Irene Benizeth, a young graduate in logistics and transportation diploma from Tabata has experienced a life changing experience over the course of 4 months. Being unable to get a job right away she decided to take her chances with business. With the help of her mother she was given a small loan to start with poultry. It was not as easy for her to penetrate into the business because there were already people doing it from where she lives.
She did poultry farming for two years and it was quite challenging. She faced competition from her neighbour who did the same thing, she also had problems with a nearby neighbour who was complaining about the chickens making noise and the odor of the chickens was a nuisance to them. Through all these adversities she still did not give up.
A turning point came later on in 2024 when one of her relatives who was volunteering at an organization named Bridge for Change which happens to be one of Her Initiative’s host partners for the Going Beyond Project, they heard of the Digital Business Program and thought it would be a good idea for her to join and gain more knowledge and skills as a small entrepreneur.
As a way to keep herself busy she thought this was something good for her, upon joining she learned for six weeks but as she recalls, half way through the program she had already witnessed some changes within her behaviour and how she conducts herself as an entrepreneur, she started thinking about scaling and getting more customers and by the end of the program she started using her whatsapp for promoting her business, she started taking customer details such as names, phone numbers sometimes emails and locations if necessary. This created a loyalty between her and the customers and to her surprise they would rather walk a bit more distance to get chickens or eggs from her or in other cases wait when she did not have them eggs at the moment.
Months later she was nominated for the Seed Award Prize, and she did her applications and to her great surprise again, she was chosen as one of the winners for the Seed Award Prize. A second turning point of her life. Before the Seed Award she only had 13 chickens but now she has added 58 more into the roster which she believes is a major improvement. Irene previously would sell 1 to 2 treys of eggs per month which would total 16,000 tshs but now she sells 3 to 4 egg-trays in two weeks which tallies up to 64,000tshs, she also sells at least 2 chickens per week at 25,000 - 30,000 tshs depending on the total production cost she used on a specific month. She was recently visited by Her Initiative together with the DOT and Mastercard teams so they can get to know her experience throughout the program and to learn on what to do better for the program to become more beneficial to other small entrepreneurs.
Irene is a testament to what young women can achieve through taking on opportunities and that they are not only limited to what the society boxes them in, she is a story of what commitment and determination can do to any young woman who dares to take the first step.