04/02/2017
Dona’s Banana Business
Dona Yarapea, a 36 year old enterprising woman from Erave in SHP. She is married with two children. She is a PML SME loan client from the informal economy who buys and resells banana at Waigani Market.
Dona’s enterprise started in 2012 with just a K50 from her elder sister. She started with buying cucumber from Gordons Market and reselling at Waigani Market. Later in the same year, she moved from buying and reselling cucumbers to vegetables. In 2013, she opened her first savings account with PML. “Taim mi opim pes seving akaount wantaim PML, mi save traim bes long savim K50 – K100 olgeta wik”. Dona says, she opened her first bank account with PML and tries her very best to do a weekly savings of K50 – K100 consistently.
But life became more difficult, as she needed more money to support her two children’s education whilst meeting daily family needs. She wasn’t earning enough from her vegetables sales and her husband was unemployed and occasionally drove private taxi cabs. Thus, in the same year (2013) she further moved from selling vegetable to selling banana. She spends around K500 weekly to buy baskets of banana and resell. She realizes that, from the Bananas she earns good revenue per week and so she increased her banana sales. She also increased her weekly savings from K250 – K300.
In 2014, she took her first loan called Fast Track Dinau (savings based) of K1000 to pay for her children's education. She repaid the loan the same year. In 2015, with increased saving, she was able to take her second loan. This one was an SME Loan to purchase her first car. With this car she had created her husband’s employment and increased her income. She repaid the loan the same year, and took a third loan(SME) to purchase her second car. Both cars operate as taxi cab and at times are on hire. She continues to sell bananas at main Waigani market while her husband minds the cars. Her husband is very supportive.
Dona says, she has big plans, but her dream is to see her two children get college or university education so that, they do not have to start life the hard way like her. She says, with her faith in God, hard work and consistent savings of small-small amount of money, has paid her off. Dona appreciates PML, and encourage women like her to open savings account with PML and use it to their benefit.