SANFROSSA MANYINDA writes
A WOMAN of Kanyama compound says she has been able to look after her family through selling of used plastic cooking oil containers.
Mary Muchindu, 52, said that she has been selling used cooking oil plastic containers at Lusaka’s Soweto market for 25 years now.
Ms Muchindu said through her business, she had been able to send her children to school and put food on the table for her jobless husband and offspring.
She told Sun in an interview that she had never rested or had a break since the time she started her business in 1994 because she had always been the one providing for everything in the house.
“I order used containers from the people that exchange brooms with containers from the households. We order the containers at K1. 50, K2 and K4 respectively depending with the size of the container and we sell at K2.50, K3, K5 meaning that we only make a profit of K1,” she said.
She however explained that business had not been easy especially in the rainy season but had never thought of giving up because it was her only source of income.
The mother of six and grandmother of four said that if business was okay and without rains, she took home about K600 a week.
Ms. Muchindu however complained that it is sometimes difficult to pay school fees for all the children specially that most of them were now in secondary schools.
She said that at times her children had been chased out of school for not paying the needed fees.
“May I take this opportunity to encourage my fellow women who feel that providing in a home should only be done by a man to get rid of that mentality,
“Sometimes, people laugh at me and say all sorts of things because I am the one taking care of the needs in the house but I do not mind their comments because my husband and I know how we live,” she said.
