Africa-Press – Cape verde. Yarin Almeida, 30, lives in São Vicente and has a degree in Social Work. About three years ago, she decided to venture into the area of natural cosmetics, creating her own product brand, Natuyara’s. She is an advocate of the decentralization of fairs in the neighborhoods of Mindelo.
Yarin Almeida says that he graduated in Social Work, but never got a good placement in the job market, doing only temporary and short-term work on projects and other jobs in the informal sector.Tired of this, she decided, one day, to take another direction in life: she opened her own business in the area of natural cosmetics, giving vent to the fact that she always liked to “create” and “invent” new things, and she has no regrets.
“When I received my first orders, I realized that the money I was going to receive in four days of production was higher than what I earned monthly working in a store, so I said: ‘I want to work for myself, I don’t want to work for anyone else’” .
natural cosmetics
Basically, Yarin produces natural soap, exfoliants for the skin and face, but also solid shampoo for hair. At the moment it has a line of 23 different soaps, all produced mainly with natural and local products from Santo Antão, São Nicolau, Boa Vista and Fogo, namely clay, aloe, coffee, among others. And, when it matters, it uses products from Africa, Portugal and Brazil.
Living on your own doesn’t mean, however, that you don’t have difficulties on a daily basis, especially those imposed by the limitations of the market, although it guarantees that the acceptance and evaluation of your customers for Natuyara’s products have been good. In addition, there was the covid-19 that imposed restrictions on everyone, particularly affecting self-employed professionals, as is your case, as an artisan.
Decentralize
And it was also like this, with the gradual return of life, that Yarin realized that one of the solutions is to resume old practices, creating new ones, thinking about the quality of what is sold. She is therefore an advocate of the “decentralization” of fairs in different parts of Mindelo, instead of being all located in the same place, as in the past.
“Now, after the pandemic, I felt that sales dropped a lot in the places where my products are exposed, so I decided, together with my colleague, not to wait for events, namely fairs, which is where we always manage to make a lot of sales, and be ourselves to develop activities in order to dynamize this sector”.
The proposal, as our interviewee says, was very well accepted, both by the local authorities and by the population, and has been in progress since last February. Thus, every end of the month, in Praça Dom Luís, a craft and other arts fair is held, with the participation of several other artisans who also use this space to exhibit and sell their products.
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