Selloane Raleting, the former student of the National University of Lesotho (NUL) got an email. It was from Oxford Univeristy Press! They had seen her entreprenuership story as covered on this very page, NUL Research and Innovations, and guess what! They wanted to include her story in a Grade 7 entreprenuership book they were developing.
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Her is how the story unfolded.
“Back in 2017, I was approached by the NUL Innovation Hub because of the work I was doing in the developent of skin products,” she introduced. “I told them my story and it appeared on their page, NUL Research and Innovations.” To her surprise, the story went viral, way beyond her expectations.
Of course she thought only the people in Lesotho were reading the story.
She was wrong.
This page, yes, this very page, has readers in over 60 different countries! Yep! Over 60. Ever heard of a country called Uzbekistan? Well, we have readers there as well.
So it is not a surprise then that some people at the Oxford Univeristy Press, one of the oldest publishers in the world, were paying attention. So they decided to contact her because they found that her story was more than just inspiring. It was also teaching.
She made aggreements with them and her story is now covered in the book and children will benefit.
That was not the only thing the mighty Oxford Univeristy Press did for this hardworking lady. They got her in contact with the curriculum developent offices in Lesotho and she later became one of the people who assisted some Lesotho primary school teachers in how they could apply principles of enterpreneurship in teaching primary school pupils.
It was one of the most interesting experiences she would never forget.
She won’t forget how inspired the teachers were as they went through what entreprenuership really was, “we showed teachers that entreprenueship was not always about things that were too far away from us as most people thought.”
Rather, they emphasised that entreprenuership was about using things around us to solve everyday problems that people faced. “In fact we demostrated, with real experiments where teachers took part, that the young ones could use almost anything around them and turn those into products that could be sold for income.”
The teachers were highly appreciative.
There is a huge lesson from what she said.
The real reason we are yet to become an entreprenuerial nation is because we are yet to fully appreciate what enrtreprenuership is—and, more important, what it is not. It is not about the things we don’t have but about the things we have. It is not about the money we don’t have but about the inginuity we all have. It is not always about building “great” things such as self-driving cars (although that is cool) but about doing “small” things such as cultivating fruit trees.
True entreprenuership doesn’t always need a whole complex package of theories to learn before beginning. It just needs getting things started and then taking great lessons along the way.
That’s the true spirit of entreprenuership that Selloane was sharing with the teachers from her years of experience.
Even as she was sharing these insights, Selloane was herself transforming and being transformed by her own businesses. You will recall she started in the area of soap. She later got immersed into perfumes. You are probably aware of what she called SOR perfumes.
As she got deeper into skin related products, she realised a need to take some courses in the area of beauty. First she attended one course here in Lesotho where she learned about skincare in general—how to take care of skin from what products to use for what kind of skin and so on.
Later she would cross two borders into Botswana to learn more about skincare products development.
With these experiences, she was well armed to enter into quite a range of skin products.
Consider what’s now in her catalogue:
A skin corrector cream that, among other things, helps make your skin look young. Marula oil that helps with dry skin, and stretch marks. Goat milk soap that helps with preventing acne and that supports a good army of microorganisms on your skin. Glow soap, which, among others, reduces dark sports and inflammation and, of course, a wide range of perfumes that will surely keep you fresh all day long.
“Ingredients in my products are natural and organic, leading to good results in a short space of time,” she concluded.
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