I am a young mother of a two year old boy and also a student taking my bachelor’s degree in counseling psychology. I am the third child in a family of five. I grew up in Kisumu Town until my family’s tragedy in 1999. My father had passed away and my mother lost her job immediately after; therefore we had to move to the countryside because we lost our house too. We stayed in Gem for almost five years. I’ve however spent most of my teenage years in Naivasha Town after my mother managed to get a job that could at least put food on the table, although it was barely enough to cater for all of us. My mother has raised us by herself ever since.

Growing up in a single family has been very challenging especially since we all depended on her income for our basic needs. As a young girl growing up, I have experienced many challenges that come with life. These challenges however have made me view life differently and molded me to whom I am today. My mother’s everyday hustle has also given me so much strength to deal with life as it comes. Now at 22, I can be able to build my own life and help my single mother raise my two younger siblings still in school. My main motivation for doing what I do is my son. I want to give him the life I have never had but only wished for. We went to bed without food, lacked most of the basic needs, yet despite all these, our mother managed to take us to school and our hard work gave us a few of what we needed. My goal of living independently and supporting my family has however not been achieved because despite everything, life has never proven to be easy.

I am a lady with a lot of passion for life, full of creativity, and who takes advantage of every situation to come up with a new business idea that would cater for my every needs. I love writing as a hobby; I write every chance I get. Reading is my second hobby and I know it goes hand in hand with writing. Besides reading and writing, I do my own small business of cooking and selling mandazis to students within my residential area and to nearby shops. My secret dream is to start my own restaurant, have a nanny agency and to publish my own book. I know I can achieve all my dreams with hard work and determination. It all begins from where I have started; building my own empire with only a few coins.

When I decided to get into business, I had one motive in mind; to be self-dependent. I knew that all it required was passion and dedication. I chose my business based on the market gap that I identified within the Moi University Community. Many students live within the nearby residential areas, living their daily lives as it comes. As a student myself, I personally understand how hard it is to try and budget your own savings to pay up all the expenses every month. A good percentage of students prefer other substitutes of breakfast to bread. Bread is quite expensive and with the rising Kenyan economy, it now sells at USD 0.56. To students and common citizens, this is expensive.

I currently operate my business within my rented apartment. It basically involves cooking and selling mandazis to customers and nearby shops. Mandazis are the best substitutes to bread because, aside from their nutritious advantages, they are cheap and fully satisfying. My main reason for working at home is to save capital for renting a kiosk. My homemade mandazis are mostly preferred due to both their quality and quantity. My ingredients add more taste to the mandazis and I sell them at pocket friendly prices. I work four days a week; Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, cooking mandazis in the evening and using the next day to supply them to customers and shops. This has however not been an easy task because I have no means of transport for delivery.

Within a single day, I am obliged to prepare at least 300 mandazis due to the numerous phone orders I get from my customers. Each mandazi costs USD 0.06, although I supply them in packets where one packet has a total of 12 mandazis. To shop owners, I sell each packet at USD 0.56 but to the rest, I charge the normal price of USD 0.68. this therefore means that I get a total of at least USD 16.80 within a single day, with a profit of about USD 2.24 after deducting all my expenses.. in a single month, I make USD 268.75 in total and USD 35.83 in profit.

My advantage over my competitors is the fact that I have permanent promising customers especially shop owners who keep adding every single day due to my product's quality. My son and I entirely depend on selling mandazis as our only source of income to pay our bills and meals. The remaining money I use to stock up supplies.

Despite all these, I face a major challenge of slow delivery particularly because I deliver the mandazis on my own to customers. This is time consuming, hectic and quite slow due to my lack of transport. I always wake up at 6am to supply my mandazis and finish by around 10am. I am however positive about my hard work and I know that through my small business, I will be able to save enough money to start a computer business within Moi University. This is my long term goal.

I need a loan to help me hire at least two people to help me in my business. My plan is to cook everyday, so when my loan request is approved, I will use the money to hire one person to help me cook and a boda-boda operator to help with the deliveries.

I will pay them a monthly salary of USD 15.68 and USD 17.92 respectively, as startup. With continued growth of my business, I know that I will have enough money to open up a kiosk, hire more staff and buy a bicycle for deliveries.