‘You Must Have a Passion to Own Your Own Business’
‘You Must Have Passion to Own Your Own Business’
These are the words of ASSET’s Certificate III in Micro Business Operations program graduate, Zenoni Nyandwi.
Zenoni is Burundian.
He fled from Burundi to Malawi in 2011, escaping the political unrest and violence in his home country.
Before fleeing, he worked for a number of charitable organisations, particularly with orphans and malnourished children.
On arrival in Malawi, he was sent to Dzaleka Camp, the largest refugee camp in the country. Dzaleka was established by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in 1994 in response to a surge of forcibly displaced people fleeing genocide, violence and wars in Burundi, Rwanda and the D.R. Congo.
It is home to about 40,000 refugees and prior to becoming a camp was a political prison, housing around 6,000 inmates. Zenoni lived in Dzaleka from 2011 – 2018.
During his time in the camp, he had to find a way to help support his family outside of the little aid that was provided to refugees. This was where his drive for having his own business began as he started to source cooking oil from Mozambique to bring to Malawi.
In August of 2018, Zenoni and his family were able to come to Australia where they now reside in Waterford West.
When Zenoni arrived in Australia he went straight to work, gaining further experience by volunteering with not-for-profit organisations.
In 2020, Zenoni was referred to the Belong micro business program which was running in conjunction with Spring Up and Asset College.
He had expressed desires to start his own cleaning business so this was the perfect program to get him started.
Zenoni was a stand-out student in the program, attending every class and workshop and persisting with his studies. Because of this, he now holds a Certificate III in Micro Business Operations and has prepared a lot of the documentation he needed to start his cleaning business.
He also has a goal to have a business with creating and selling Cassava Flour and is currently sourcing suppliers and capital.
Zenoni says these are the main challenges of starting a small business.
‘There are many challenges to starting a small business. You need to have capital and you need to have the skills. COVID19 has also bought many challenges.’
He says, ‘You must have a passion to own your own business.’
And passion is certainly one of the attributes that Zenoni possesses.
The four pieces of advice that he would give to others who are thinking about starting their own small business are:
- You must have ambition
- Find out about the training opportunities available to you to help you start
- Ask for information from the experts
- Build your networks
Thank you to Zenoni for sharing his story.
If you are interested in studying a Certificate III in Micro Business Operations to give you the leg up to start your own business, chat to our team today.