Visiting the small Northern Cape town of Prieska, I came across a woman who was stuck for many years in the field of teaching, couldn’t take it any longer and decided to start a business from scratch.
She resigned from teaching, found an old property which had been the original stables in the town and began to build accommodation for a bed & breakfast establishment. This entrepreneur has an artistic flair and she used it to good effect with attractive interior and exterior decorations. She went to great lengths to make her place rustic and authentic, even finding doors and sliding wooden windows from a old house being demolished in Swellendam.
Now after eight years, this entrepreneur who had to leave teaching, where she was a maths teacher, is running a successful bread breakfast. You wouldn’t believe it but just the meals that she prepares for breakfast and the Dinners she provides for guests who don’t want to go to a restaurant in town more than covers what she was earning as a teacher.
This business woman’s stor is about grit, determination and the will to succeed. But more than this she found an escape route out of a horrorful, dreadful system that was bearing heavy on her, crushing her spirit.
You can only imagine how difficult it is to start something from scratch in a small town where apart from agriculture, economic activity is low. But she was able to identify an opportunity, learn new skills and use her passion and artistic flair to create something of value from nothing.
No one deserves to be treated in the way she has been by the education system but she can be proud that she has not an ounce of bitterness in her bones. She was able to break away, move on and leave the tragedy of the past behind.
It is people like this, hardy, hard-working, honest people who one can admire in a time when some people are only too eager to give nothing but take all. Such people as this entrepreneur are the creators, the developers and the builders who provide the energy for growth.
