Social Entrepreneur Spotlight: Mayamiko Jere Kasoka

Mayamiko Jere Kasoka is the founder of Thanzi La Bwino, a farming enterprise, and the founder and director of the Joy-Asher Foundation. 

Mayamiko, what was the inspiration behind your enterprise?

For my agricultural enterprise, Thanzi La Bwino, my main goal was to provide small-scale leguminous farmers with soft loans in exchange for crops after harvesting. Most leguminous farmers in Katenje village, in Kasungu, lacked farming inputs. During the farming season, most of them had no food in their homes. As the years passed, my passion has changed and I have started to focus on subsistence farming due to limited markets and capital.

For Joy-Asher Foundation, my main aim was to serve the underprivileged so that their children can access preschool education in Ntchentche village, Likuni, while making a little cash contribution. This was because a lot of children between the ages of 3 and 6 years were not going to school due to poverty. 

What challenges have you faced so far with regards to your work? 

In the early years of opening Joy-Asher Foundation, in 2018 and 2019, 60% of the parents were not paying their monthly contributions. As such, it took time to give our teachers their payments. We also were challenged to do capacity building for our teachers and to pay rent for our school premises. 

For Thanzi La Bwino Enterprise, it has been difficult to find stable markets for our crops. It has been challenging to continue providing soft loans for small-holder leguminous farmers, yet demand is still there. We are trying to procure a processing machine for our Thanzi porridge flour which is in the prototype stage. And we struggle with transportation, moving our crops to markets. 

How has your work with FTI impacted you and your enterprise? 

FTI has helped me to strategize everything that I am doing and intend to do. At first, I thought I was just a subsistence leguminous farmer, but joining FTI has opened my eyes to the fact that I can do much more than what I am doing now.

I never thought of registering my Agribusiness Enterprise, but FTI has helped me to realize that my business needs to be registered and FTI has helped my Foundation to move from a personalized business into one more focused on having policies and other administrative procedures in place. For example, we have child safeguarding policies, teacher policies, and we are moving forward and getting organized for outside funding due to FTI.

Being a part of the FTI DEStudio, I have been accepted to opportunities that I would not otherwise have been a part of. For example, in March, 2021, I was a part of the Women on the Rise Business Masterclass Series with Standard Bank where I have gained knowledge on basic financial management procedures, business resilience and networking. This has also helped me personally to change my values and have a clear focus for my enterprise.

Has COVID-19 impacted your work?

Covid-19 has impacted both enterprises, but the Joy-Asher Foundation especially. Before the pandemic, I was working with the Centre for Community and Youth Development which was helping with certain foundation funding needs such as payments for rent and teachers. During Covid-19, the Centre for Community and Youth Development had to close. As a result, my Foundation was affected and we had to depend solely on the monthly contributions from the parents of $1.35 per child (1000 Malawi Kwacha from 2018 to mid-2020). After reopening Schools in October, 2020, the monthly contributions at the Foundation went up to K2,500 equivalent to $3.21 per month per child. However, other parents still have challenges to pay this contribution. This forced us to move from the rented house where we were and to start conducting our learning outside.

Additionally, some children did not re-enroll when we re-opened. For some this is because their mothers cannot afford to pay the monthly contribution, and  for others it is because their mothers cannot afford to give their child a snack to eat during break time. Such situations are more common because many businesses which provided work before Covid have collapsed.

In what ways does your enterprise benefit your local community? Have people already benefited from your work? 

With the Joy-Asher Foundation, parents that are unable to make monthly contributions are given discounts. For example, instead of paying $3.21 they pay $1.35 per month. Some parents who are unable to make the contributions, their children learn for free, they are on Bursary.

Depending on the parents’ income, sometimes parents might make a contribution for one month and another month they do not manage due to poverty. In such situations, their children are still allowed to come and learn. We do not send them back home. Some children from needy homes do not pay examination fee (which is $0.64 or K500.00 Malawi Kwacha).

We also recruit marginalized groups. We do not deny women or youth due to physical disabilities or their situations. For example, we have three teachers, one teacher has a disability and another teacher had no home. He was living Lilongwe town where he was working as a chips seller and spent nights in a shop with no bathing facilities and no friends to talk to.

Through Thanzi La Bwino Enterprise, we provided soft loans to 61 leguminous farmers in 2018 to buy farm inputs in exchange for crops after harvest. We usually work with women and youths in our farm in Dowa. The women and youth we work with make 70% of the laborers.

We also managed to establish a women’s group in Katenje village where we focused on sustainable livelihoods. We bought a pig with the contributions we made, and shared the piglets in pairs. Some women are still keeping their pigs, and some sold their pigs with the aim of attaining financial freedom. There were 13 women in our club.

What are some goals you have for the future?

For Thanzi La Bwino Enterprise, we plan to grow to impact at least 1,000 small-holder women farmers in my community of Ntchentche village in Likuni, Dowa, and Kasungu. We are planning to produce “Thanzi Porridge Flour” from raw materials bought locally from women farmers in Lilongwe, Kasungu, Dowa, and Ntchisi Districts where gender based violence cases are high. This is a way of offering markets to small-holder women farmers. In the future, we hope to have our own transportation for the raw materials, and also have our solar powered storage warehouses.

Our goal is for Joy-Asher Foundation to have a full charity primary school. This is important because children sometimes do not attend school consistently because of exam fees. Others may not go to school because they cannot afford a school uniform.

We would like the Foundation to have a component where children and youths will learn skills development which will enhance their living standards as they grow and be able to pay for their Secondary School Education rather than relying on their parents only. These skills such as: tailoring and designing, carpentry, drumming, playing a piano, playing a guitar, soccer and art.

Do you have any advice for other aspiring or beginning entrepreneurs?

It is always difficult to start, but starting brings fulfilment in serving the population you want. And when you start, resilience is the key to destructives you meet on the way!