Meet the 32 Year Old Sonia Kande Making Big in Her
Catering Business
The road to
your dreams isn’t always easy to navigate, sometimes dotted with mountains to
climb, obstacles to overcome and hard mind-numbing times that will make you
feel like quitting, but one thing you have to understand is that being good in
business is the most fascinating kind of art.
Making money
is art, working hard is art, good business is the best art, reaching your dream
is a greatest art that won’t happen in one day but true perseverance is failing
19 times and succeeding the 20th.
So failure and after long perseverance is much
grander than never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure but
one thing you have to understand is its normal to develop success from failures,
discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success so
don’t give up because success is walking from failure to failure with no loss
of enthusiasm.
"Success
is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that
counts." Sonia kaande Mwila
32 year old
Sonia kaande Mwila is a young business lady by profession who already obtains a
diploma in IT and in business administration, she is a very open minded person
who believes that the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let
the food fight what you desire for in life, she says “Am into the catering
business this is something I developed interest since childhood this is a
passion that grow at the age of 17 when I just completed high school in
2004,before I could officially start this as a business I first thought of
working so hard on my education to help me grow my talent being a girl who
loved education I made sure that I went on to study information technology(IT)
at Evelyn hone college and then proceeded on to study the same course at the
university of Zambia(ridgeway campus)for another 2 years upon completion of the
course I left the county briefly in 2010 and perused another qualification in
business administration at the International career institute in Perth Western
Australia and later came back in 2013,this is where I had to do another short
course in food production were I wanted to learn more about food safety and
food nutrition which helped started my business in 2017.
I officially
started my catering business in July 2016 and starting this business was a
biggest decision as it was a way to overcome frustration of not being able to
get formal employment. I remember there was a time I gained courage and I
decided to say if no one was going to employ me I was going to create opportunities
for myself and become my own boss and so that is exactly what I did.
I just had
the drive and passion to start the catering business because I knew at the time
if I had to venture into any sort of business it would be food business itself
this were all were my passion was. Being a firm believer in God and my
Christian faith I took proverbs 16:3 and ran with it, I committed my plans and
works to God so he could establish my plans and that’s exactly what he did.
The best thing about the catering industry and
business is that it is able to bring out a creative side of yourself that you
would even have probably never imagined for yourself, it did that to me and for
that am truly grateful I started this business because the benefits are that am
able to do what I love which is making great food for people to enjoy and make
an income out of it at the same time, the catering business can be a very
profitable business if you remain focused, hardworking and professional as well
as have excellent management skills like any other business it also has its own
share of times when the business becomes quite slow but that does not
discourage me from continuing to peruse this path because I love what I do and
I do it whole heartedly
This
business comes with huge demand specially that people love to eat good food. The
challenges that I have faced in the field is trying to establish the business
in far off towns because we get so many requests to cater for towns as far as
western province, eastern province etc. However at the moment, we only have capacity
to offer our services to Copperbelt province and Lusaka province but I’m working
harder than ever now. I’m putting on much greater efforts the same as I always
have.
I just get
up every day and try to do a little better than the day before, and that is to
run a great catering business with great food and great service. That’s my
philosophy and before I could speak about my future plan I will start by
quoting Jeremiah 29:11 “for I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper
you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future “that said. I have so
many plans for the future and I know God will prosper each one of them as he
has promised me in his word! One of the plans being that I see myself owning a major
catering school in the near future and also be able to regularly offer free
meals and free nutrition advise to underprivileged children in the society, by
the Grace of God.
My
encouragement to other girls and women out there is that always learn to be
persistent in life and to never give up on your dreams. Starting out on this
journey can be hard people do not believe it at times when you tell them you
want to venture into business, you can start from anywhere but get yourself
somewhere.
“I started out this business with only a few
medium sized pots from my own humble kitchen, a few utensils here and there.
And bit by bit got to grow the business to where it is now and still growing,
because I believed in it and so I persevered. Every little profit I made for
almost 2 years when I just started out, I invested back into the business,
until such a time when I began to break-even. That is when I started enjoying
the fruits of my sweat. If you want to make it big in life hard work,
determination and discipline is key.
And you have
to know that each one of us was born with something unique in them out there
that they can offer to the world as well as themselves. Something that can
drive you to create a legacy for yourself and those that you will leave behind when
you are no more. Look deep inside you and find that thing! The thing which you
love to do the most, it can be anything.
Is it
designing? Is it something to do with the beauty industry? Is it cooking? Is it
art? Anything! there should be something inside you that you know, when you do
that particular thing, you find so much satisfaction in doing it and you do it
diligently. Find that thing and nature it, in a world were formal employment
opportunities are very scarce nowadays, you will be amazed at the kind of
income your talent can pull in for you. You will reap good results of your hard
work, like any other business, you may obviously face challenges here and there
as well as hard times, but above everything else keep your head high up above
the ground, and put God first in everything you do and you will surely succeed.
Source:
Girl
Empowerment Alliance for Change (Facebook)
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