If I can do it you can too

The National Weekender

By ISAAC LIRI
AFTER working in the public service in the Eastern Highlands for decades, 63-year-old Tau Boga finally made up her mind to venture into business to support herself and her family.
Today the mother of five and grandmother of nine can be described as a successful small businesswoman residing and operating in Faniufa, Goroka.
Owning a trade store, poultry, piggery and real estate in her block in Faniufa, Boga pinpointed a women’s association in the Eastern Highlands known as Sister Helpim Sister as her driving factor into business.
Boga, who hails from the Obura-Wonenara district described the Sister Helpim Sister as an association that was established four years ago to help guide women in rural and urban areas to set up various types of business that will help support their livelihood as women in the communities of the Eastern Highlands.
Boga joined Sister Helpim Sister two years ago but the association itself was established four years ago when former Eastern Highlands Governor Julie Soso was in office. Since then the association has grown having 33 registered companies with Investment Promotion Authority under its umbrella.
Boga is a leader of one of those registered companies known as the Ramu Women’s Group which comprises of businesses from Obura-Wonenara and Kainantu.
The Ramu Women’s Group is specialised in one area of business which is poultry, however there are other business groups also that exist under Sister Helpim Sister and specialise in stockfeed, real estate or transportation.
All these businesses that operate under Sister Helpim Sister have a market structure connected to each other which helps support each other to prosper earning profits to be sustainable.
She gave an example of Ramu Women’s Group where they do poultry and supply chicken to businesses in the Eastern Highlands under Sister Helpim Sister.
“Under Ramu Women’s Group, the demand for chicken is high in the province so we supply all our farmers with chicken and gradually one day we can expand out from Eastern Highlands,” she said.
“Sister Helpim Sister is a business channel that makes me stand strong in operating my small business and then eventually to walk through the corridors of being a small-medium enterprise operator.
“With Sister Helpim Sister as the foundation for my business, I can go to the bank to get a loan, the banks are already aware of the Sister Helpim Sister and they are working to strengthen our business networks as well.
“But the sad thing is that there is not a lot of awareness done about the Sister Helpim Sister association and what good it can do to transform and empower lives of women in the province.
“Sister Helpim Sister is an association that can help women who sell buai on the streets, mothers that sew and sell clothes to develop their informal business to become formal, but there are a lot of women in the province that do not know that there is an association that exists.
As a team leader of a company under Sister Helpim Sister, Boga does her part in ensuring people in his Obura-Wonenara district are aware of the association and the benefits.
“I have the network so when I go back to my district in the villages, wards and LLGs, I tell them to come and get chicken because there is a way to make money.
“So they get the chicken and look after them and then bring them to sell but to a market that is recognised by Sister Helpim Sister.
“I tell them that they don’t have to sit down at the market all the time and waste their time, the market network will ensure that a customer or business is already available to purchase the chickens,” she added.
Boga has a good reputation in her Taroa-Gasup LLG in the Obura-Wonenara district because of her work as a women’s representative.
In her career working in the LLG, she saw that funding was a major constraint where people have to wait for funds for a long period of time, but then with the Sister Helpim Sister in place they can become self-sufficient or somewhat creative in local sustainable business.
Today as an active member of Sister Helpim Sister, Boga wants to inspire and encourage women to join.
“Being a member of the women’s group I cannot just talk and see others do their business. I have to lead by example and when other women see me that I can do it, they will know that they can do it as well.
“Sister Helpim Sister helps empower me to put food on the table for my family and I have cash in my pocket, it’s a matter of survival, who is going to help me if I don’t want to help myself and its simple as that.

  • The author is a freelance journalist.