Three women win K15,000 for their SMEs

THREE women have walked away with a total of K15,000 to boost their small businesses.
Lily Magazine last year conducted the Lily Homemade Micro-business competition which attracted 300 entries from small-to-medium enterprise owners nationwide.
From the 300 entries, three were chosen in the “edible, useful and wearable” categories.
Alma Napo, who won the “edible” category, impressed judges with the all-natural cough drop medicine she developed from raw, rich and organic honey, ginger and lemons grown in the Buang mountains of Morobe.
Napo won K10,500 with K4,500 from the PNG-Australia Partnership, K3,000 from MiBank and K3,000 from the Women’s MicroBank.
“I am honoured to receive this award,” Napo said.
She thanked the Lily Magezine, the PNG and Australian governments and sponsors.
Gracelyn Takiuwho who won the “useful” category is from Kavieng in New Ireland. She built a business around a range of beauty and skincare products made from the galip nut.
In third place was Alice Kolokolo from Port Moresby who won the “wearable” category.
She taught herself a new craft of clay earring making when she became a stay-at-home mum two years ago. She plans to open her first shop in Port Moresby’s Garden City SME Hub.
Takiu won K3,000 and Kolokolo won K2,000 both from the PNG-Australia Partnership.
Kolokolo said she was grateful for the training provided by Pacifund who helped them understand the basic principles of running a business and doing a business profile. “It was here that we got to register our businesses. There are many SME ideas, and I am sure if we have more support and corporation to host more of these competitions, we will be able to reach more entrepreneurs in the country helping to give them the right coaching and tools to better operate their own microbusiness similar to how we did ours,” Kolokolo said.