Securing the Family with a Simple Business Initiative

By Okech Francis

When Agnes Juan’s child got a repeated fracture on his leg, it cost her up to a whopping $2000 to get the problem fixed and close to eight months at an orthopedic center in neighboring Uganda.

Fracture had occurred for a second time on a spot on the leg which was curing, complicating matters and to ensure her child gets proper care that would ensure he walks well with the leg, Juan had to dig into her savings from a juice making business to foot the bills.

“I had my savings from my business and so it helped me a lot to treat the child,” the single mother of 3 told The Dawn in an interview in Juba.

Juan has been into the juice making business since 2014 and notes that it is a business that fetches income daily in the hot weather of Juba. She makes passion fruit, pineapple, avocado, and banana juice among others.

Operating from the market at Customs Market, Juan says juice making fetches her at least $100 on a daily basis with profits sometimes half of the money.

She employs six people and bases on the hundreds or thousands of people who enter the market everyday including fellow business people and consumers for her customer base.

“I have already built a permanent house for me and the children, I can give them very good health services and as well afford their school fees comfortably,” Juan said.

She is enterprising in business, a skill that many South Sudanese are trying to dig in but many times cut off by the dire economic situation in the country.

Despite the struggling economy, a peace agreement signed in 2018 and currently being implemented in the country has given must respite for people to work for their own livelihoods.

The government is advising local production by all South Sudanese in order to develop the economy and as well their personal lives.

The country has a huge arable land dubbed “the breadbasket of South Sudan” and can feed the whole East African region if well utilized.

World over Agriculture has been at the center of building the livelihoods of communities.

In China, for example, Agriculture has lifted hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty within a very short time.

While agriculture is pre-historic in China, nevertheless, its origin and development has produced enormous and irreversible impacts on the cultural and environmental changes in the country since then, and agriculture has been the foundation of Chinese civilization for thousands of years, according to Oxford Bibliographies.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) has also been at the center of helping the Chinese, always putting the people first.

According to China Daily,  the CPC has remained committed to its fundamental purpose of serving the people wholeheartedly, regarded the people’s expectation for a better life as its goal and relied on the people to build a moderately prosperous society.

It also said China has achieved moderate prosperity through the joint efforts of its hardworking people and the CPC leadership has provided the fundamental guarantee for realizing moderate prosperity.

Such collective work between the government and citizens of South Sudan is being advocated for by all including officials and the people themselves.

But still, like in the case of Juan, the peace the country is enjoying has created movement and therefore much more people accessing her juice-meaning a booming business in return.

“With this peace in the country right now, people can go to their farms and produce all these commodities we use,” Juan said.

“I sometimes buy my fruits from Gumbo but also some are brought from Yambio or Yei and other places,” she said.

“I ask everyone in the country, especially women and the youths who are still strong to work hard for their own livelihoods.”