YOUTH MARKET Success story #1 RJF RASTA EMPIRE. Meet Joy Fono, a young Solomon Islander Entrepreneur part Malaita and Guadalcanal Province. Joy started off her business as a curious observant youth, seeing her brother in-law sewing reggae bags as a past time activity. This caught her attention and she decided to start making reggae bags for her own pocket money. “it was in 2011 during the Festival of Pacific Arts that I tried sewing the bags and I saw at that time that many young people are interested in the reggae bags so I decided to make more, it falls in the local fashion trend and my products were sold.” Joy said. Even though there were high demands for Joy’s reggae bags, she decided to move her little business up another level and introduced other reggae products. “I thought if I do other stuff, young people will be more interested, so my sister and I came up with the idea to make jewels that had reggae colours,” said the young entrepreneur. Miss. Fono’s family owns a butcher shop at Point Cruz so she has a venue to sell her products in public. Her products range from reggae colour beaded jewelleries, T-shirts, dresses, bags and even shoes. With all the reggae products attracting reggae fans in Honiara, Joy and her older siblings decided to give a name to their business “RJF RASTA EMPIRE.” “RJF is the initials of my siblings, R is for my big sister, J is for me and F is my younger brother Frank. And the Rasta Empire comes in coz we have a collection of reggae stuff.” Joy uses her profit to get more kits to make more jewellery for her growing customers. In March 2014, Joy brought her products in an event called the Youth Market. This Youth event provides a venue for Youth to sell their goods, services and products and helps youth entrepreneurs to build networks. “Since we joined the Youth Market, we also started our Facebook page and people begin to know more about RJF Rasta Empire Business,” said the 24 year old. “The Youth Market has made the business more popular, I am glad to be a member of the Youth Market.” Joy Fono left school to help out in her family’s Butchery shop. In 2012, she started her business of making reggae colour products for reggae fans in Honiara. In March 2013, Joy joined the Youth Market and brought her business out to the youthful crowd. She is still one of the main stallholders at the Youth Market along with her older sister Rachel. “If you have talents that can help you make money, don’t be afraid to bring it out. We young people have fresh minds and we have lots of things to experiment and do, so just do it,” said Miss Fono.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 07:29:03 +0000
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