{"id":14974,"date":"2022-05-25T08:12:37","date_gmt":"2022-05-25T08:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/heavenly-touch-wins-competition"},"modified":"2022-05-25T08:57:24","modified_gmt":"2022-05-25T08:57:24","slug":"heavenly-touch-wins-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/heavenly-touch-wins-competition","title":{"rendered":"Heavenly touch\u2019 wins competition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. <\/strong><\/span>NO doubt it was always going to be a fierce competition!<br \/>\nMore than 750 of Lesotho\u2019s young bright minds wrestled for MMB Kickstart Competition funding and guess who made it to the finishing line \u2013 the National University of Lesotho (NUL) Chemistry and Biology graduate \u2019Mathekiso Ramositli with her \u201cHeavenly Touch\u201d Soap.<\/p>\n<p>She was the only lady among the six who won!<br \/>\n\u201cThere is always a crowd at the starting line,\u201d they say, \u201cbut those who make good a promise, and reach the finishing line, comprise a far smaller group.<br \/>\nSo listen to the story of Ramositli and find out how she did it. She is soft-spoken, but don\u2019t take her for granted, apparently she possesses the heart of a lion.<\/p>\n<p>She \u201cspeaks softly, but carries a big stick\u201d as one famous US President would put it. That\u2019s what many of her competitors learned the hard way during the competition.<\/p>\n<p>What is it about Ramositli\u2019s project that caught the attention of the judges?<br \/>\n\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she responded in a modest tone, \u201cmaybe they liked the fact that mine was not just an idea, I have been working on this project for quite some time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201d<br \/>\nShe could be right. In Sesotho, they say, \u201cMoketa ho tsosoa o itekang,\u201d meaning you only get help if you are already doing something.<\/p>\n<p>Are you listening our beloved young folks out there? Yes, start doing something now!<br \/>\nHere, then, is today\u2019s lesson: Nothing succeeds like success!<br \/>\nIt is not too long ago when Ramositli story of hard work, persistence and discovery was covered in this page.<\/p>\n<p>Just to recap, Ramositli was one of those countless brown-enveloped graduates who criss-cross Lesotho searching for almost non-existent jobs. At one point she got fed up and called it a quit. But what would she do?<br \/>\n\u201cI remembered that I was a Chemistry and Biology graduate from the National University of Lesotho,\u201d she recollected.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI saw many, many uneducated people starting their own businesses and I wondered: if the uneducated could do it, how much more so, for me, a Chemistry and Biology Degreed graduate?\u201d<br \/>\nThat was brilliant!<br \/>\nNothing has misled today\u2019s youths than Lesotho\u2019s age-old belief that if you are educated, you have to be either sitting in an office with bowtie or criss-crossing the entire world from Cape to Cairo in Per diem trips.<\/p>\n<p>Where that culture comes from is a matter of academic debate, but that it is with us, with disastrous consequences, is not up for argument. So Ramositli used her very little income she obtained from piece-jobs to start experimenting with soaps, reawakening the chemist in her.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, she had a facewash product and she called it \u201cHeavenly Touch. \u201d<br \/>\nIt would later prove to be very \u201cheavenly. \u201d<br \/>\nBut pay attention to what happened next.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI started selling right away,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn the process, a number of my customers kept informing me what changes I had to make.<br \/>\nShe listened. Another lesson, our beloved youths, never be wiser than your customers, they know what they want, you don\u2019t. Pride is before a crash, so says the Bible.<\/p>\n<p>With little resources in possession, she had only two assets that would carry her forward: the willingness to start small, with what she had, and persistence, persistence, and persistence.<\/p>\n<p>At one point, \u201cI was making and selling just 10 bottles a week. \u201d<br \/>\nThat is what starting small means, you will learn a lot if you do. \u201cI would take all the money made from profits and reinvest it in my business.<br \/>\nAt times she would get discouraged, that is, until she laid her hands on a local weekly called thepost newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>She found that the paper covered on a weekly basis, the struggles of NUL students and graduates alike, youth like her, with similar passion and struggles in trying to make changes.<\/p>\n<p>She became a regular reader and was constantly inspired by what she read and resolved to keep moving, after all, she was now part of a bigger picture, a larger group of people trying to make a difference in the neglected area of entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n<p>At one point, she went back to the NUL, where things happen, to have her soap tested. \u201cI am yet to receive the official results but I learned that my soap meets the most important criterion,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, she read about Maluti Mountain Brewery\u2019s Kickstart Competition, an amazing initiative meant to help Lesotho\u2019s youth to start businesses, with real money, not just moral support.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not only that I received money which I am going to use to buy soap-making equipment,\u201d she confided, \u201cI have also learned a lot about business from the Kickstart trainers.<br \/>\nMore importantly, she said she learned the value of targeting the right customers and knowing their needs.<\/p>\n<p>Apparently, she came out wiser than before!<br \/>\nWhat\u2019s in her parting words?<br \/>\n\u201cI am always amazed at how my customers keep coming back to me for more soap. Now that I plan a mini-factory, thanks to Kickstart, I hope to have a wider reach.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\">Lesotho<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Lesotho. NO doubt it was always going to be a fierce competition! More than 750 of Lesotho\u2019s young bright minds wrestled for MMB Kickstart Competition funding and guess who made it to the finishing line \u2013 the National University of Lesotho (NUL) Chemistry and Biology graduate \u2019Mathekiso Ramositli with her \u201cHeavenly Touch\u201d Soap. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":14973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,8,16],"tags":[233,246,245],"class_list":["post-14974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-files","category-homepage-english","category-twitter","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-lesotho","tag-lesotho"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Heavenly touch\u2019 wins competition - Lesotho<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"NO doubt it was always going to be a fierce competition!More than 750 of Lesotho\u2019s young bright minds wrestled for MMB ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/heavenly-touch-wins-competition\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Heavenly touch\u2019 wins competition\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"NO doubt it was always going to be a fierce competition!More than 750 of Lesotho\u2019s young bright minds wrestled for MMB ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/heavenly-touch-wins-competition\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesotho\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-05-25T08:12:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-05-25T08:57:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/05\/postQueueImg_10-628def61761c0.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"397\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"285\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/heavenly-touch-wins-competition#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/heavenly-touch-wins-competition\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Heavenly touch\u2019 wins competition\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-05-25T08:12:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-05-25T08:57:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/heavenly-touch-wins-competition\"},\"wordCount\":867,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/heavenly-touch-wins-competition#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/sites\/62\/2022\/05\/postQueueImg_10-628def61761c0.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Lesotho\",\"Lesotho\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"files\",\"homepage-english\",\"twitter\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/heavenly-touch-wins-competition#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/heavenly-touch-wins-competition\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/lesotho\/all-news\/heavenly-touch-wins-competition\",\"name\":\"Heavenly touch\u2019 wins competition - 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