It Can be done but you have to do it first

Rahel Husein is an entrepreneur who engages in refinery of sunflower discards from local relatively advanced refineries. She and so are a significant number of other women entrepreneurs in Singida, refines a dense oil paste leftover (ugido in Kiswahili) from local refineries. The local refineries can not fully refine all of the sunflower seeds to produce clear oil. Therefore a sunflower case and the oil paste are meant to be discards from the process. While the sunflower case is being sold to livestock keepers, the dense oil paste is sold to local women for furher processing. And then the women refine the paste to produce a clear sunflower cooking oil ready for sale. Typically the process involves mixing of 40 liters of the oil paste with 140 liters of water. The mixture is then skillfully boiled with constant stirring for four to five hours. The mixture is then skillfully filtered to produce clear oil sunflower. The final result is 20 liters of refined sunflower cooking oil. The process is a signature achievement that has been developed for several decades; not everyone can successfully produce clear sunflower oil. This is indeed, locally discovered way of refining sunflower leftovers that would otherwise be lost.

Ms. Rahel is 34 years old and she has five children. Two of her children attend primary school education; the remaining three are under the school age. Ms. Rahel has been a member of JUWAKI since year 2003; JUWAKI is a local women’s grassroots entrepreneurial civil society that has partnered with AGEN and AGEN-USA Inc. in the AEIF project since year 2011. Before she joined JUWAKI, Rahel didn’t own any business. Sadly, she handled all of her first loan to her husband believing that she couldn’t engage in any business. However, following continuous interaction with other JUWAKI entrepreneurs and frequent visits from AGEN and AGEN-USA Inc. volunteers, Rahel took a loan and successfully engaged in ugido refinery to produce sunflower oil for sale. She used her loan worthy Tanzanian shillings 100,000 to buy 5 buckets (each 20 liters) of ugido and produced 50 liters of processed sunflower oil (two buckets and a half). She earned a net profit of Tanzanian shillings 30,000 from the first production and a sum of Tanzanian shillings 120,000 only within the first moth of production. She then repaid her loan as she continued to expand her small business. The income earned from the business has been used to meet all necessary expenses of a relatively large household of 7; equally importantly, the income earned has enabled Rahel to meet all school expenses of her children attending school.

After successfully repayment of the first loan, Rahel qualified for a loan which is double the amount she received earlier i.e. Tanzanian shillings 200,000. With that amount, Rahel can buy 10 to 15 (20 liters) buckets of Ugido weekly for refinery. That is to say that Rahel currently makes a profit three times of the original profit i.e. Tanzanian shillings 360,000. Like any other entrepreneur, Rahel has started to diversify her business and engage in poultry of local breeds of chicken. The free range local breeds can easily survive at the locality, are capable of laying eggs, produce chicks and raise them with minimal supervision from the owners. Besides, these are double or triple the price of exotic breeds such as broilers. However, Rahel has used the income earned to build a structure for a better and safer poultry business.

Rahel see more opportunities in her business because she, like many other small entrepreneurs, has not fully address the demand of the local market. A room for business expansion largely remains.

Rahel greatly thanks AGEN, AGEN-USA Inc. and the American people for a support that has truly transformed her life.