A little education pays off

By EHEYUC SESERU
Sising Dungun has struggled through life like most rural mothers trying to make ends meet.
What little she managed to scrape together on an informal market table in her Intsi village in Umi-Atzera today was back to square one tomorrow.
So life went on, even it meant a lot of sweat spent under the hot sun to produce as much peanuts, coffee and cocoa as possible in her garden for her market table.
Though Dungun did marketing, she did not know how to manage her finance to derive maximum benefits until a personal viability training opportunity came her way in 2015.
“After attending the training, my mind was broadened and I understood life better,” she said.
“So I had to work harder and put a little more effort to be successful.”
Dungun learnt what basic financial management and budgeting were about.
Intsi village burned seven years ago and had been recovering with initiated programmes to develop the community.
The villagers established the Markham Hewagi Cooperative Society which had enabled Dungun to attend the training and it was the driving force behind her self-reliance.
She did well and raised enough money for a permanent three-bedroom house.
She was able to put together a budget, her expenses and income, and moved a little of the profit aside into a bank account. That grew from a few kina to K10,000 which helped her purchase building material for her house. Logs were cut, dragged and carted from the forest and timber sawn – which cost Dungun K500.
Fellow village women helped her carry the timber to the building site. Dungan’s horizon just broadened, so much so that she said she could do anything and that all it took was a positive mind.
She challenged other young people and single women to save now to build a better.