Miss Kebareng Ralekwa (33) from Temba Hammanskraal is the owner and founder of Hands of gold mobile spa and she recently opened a hair and nail salon in Nokaneng called Glam-up Hair and Nail Salon.
Miss Ralekwa said she was inspired to start her own business because of a lack of job opportunities for the youth.
“As a young woman, I thought I should start something to help create job opportunities for other young women too in Hammanskraal”
She lost her job in 2014 at Absa bank and went on to work for a butchery to equip her skills in the job market while trying to raise capital to fund her business.
She moved on to work for a bookkeeping firm and then got a job in a Spa as a receptionist where she was trained for beauty treatments. She was then offered a job in Eastern Cape where she worked for a year. Then she got another job at a spa in Tzaneen where she worked until the company was liquidated.
She said that was when she felt the need to use her mind and hands as she was already tired of applying for jobs without positive results.
“I decided to start something though it came with pressure, I was willing to put all the effort into making it a success.“
In January 2018 she opened her beauty mobile salon in Temba. She travels everywhere within Gauteng to offer her services such as massages, foot and hands care, facials, nails, and makeup. She said she has been receiving a lot of support from the community which made her realize the importance of sharing the benefits of creating employment for yourself if you could not get any from anywhere.
She said Running a business is stressful. Because her services are mobile, she needs transport to get to clients. Sometimes she runs at a loss but still happy because this business for her is not only about money, the passion, and love for healing people make her love what she does and she is happy.
“I enjoy it and I am glad because my business created two job opportunities for young ladies,” she said.
The challenge she had was starting her business with R90, with no funding or a car. She said when she looks back she is happy that she saw that she can actually do a lot of things on her own.
“I have learned that patience is a virtue and that when u want something don’t look back. I hope other young women will learn from me to be independent and use their minds and hands.
“To give back to the community, I adopted a few families in Seabe and Nokaneng that I buy food for, and I sometimes offer free massages to elderly people,” she said.
