Ms. Amie Colley, a young entrepreneur from Somita Village, West Coast Region (WCR) has told Mansa Banko Online that market vendors, especially women in her community, used to make mockery of her for being an educated young woman and at the same time competing with them at the market as a vegetable vendor.
But today, thanks to her food processing training skills, she is serving as a role model and source of inspiration to them, as according to her, “most of them are now learning from her skills”.
She is the proprietress of Amie’s Food Processing and Commercialization. Her brand includes pepper sauce, Kaba Jam, Papaya Jam, Mango Jam, Tomato Paste, Gari, Garlic Syrup, Bitter cola and Ginger syrup, etc.
Further narrating her story, the young entrepreneur told this medium: “Before I started my full-time business as a food processor and a vegetable producer, I used to sell mangoes at the Brikama Market. I would then use the sales of the mangoes to further buy some vegetables and other condiments at the Brikama market to resell them at the Somita Market.”
At the Somita market, she explained that the market women bent on calling her different names to discourage her from pursuing her dreams. She was able to raise some amount of money through her petty business to support herself and other family needs.
Ms. Colley was supported by the National Agricultural Land and Water Management Development Project (Nema) to participate in a six-month from 8th May to 8th November, 2016 on Food Processing Training course at the Songhai Centre in Benin together with other nine (9) young Gambians.
After spending two (2) years in business, she’s currently pursuing a higher Diploma in Agriculture at the Gambia College. She was also contracted as a garden supervisor at the Nema Project sponsored gardens in Foni Brefet, West Coast Region.
In her Somita garden, Colley also grows garden egg, cassava and bitter tomatoes.
For her processing business, she uses a blender at home to process the fruits and vegetables for sale, as she would later package and label the items in order to attract more customers.
Colley is of the settled view that her processing skills had enabled her to have edge over her competitors, noting that those people who used to provoke her are now coming to learn from her skills.
Currently, her main challenge is having a processing house and adequate water supply so as to expand her business venture.