Varel Stany; starting small yet aiming big

Twenty three yrs of age, Varel Stany Ngayita is a 3rd year student at the of University Marien Ngouabi doing African Literature.

He has been doing a chicken and fish bbq business since 2017, within the public university premises so as to supplement his living allowance as well as cater for his school fees.

Initially his parents would buy him clothes and medicine, but now he is able to sort out himself due to the entrepreneurship training he received from CFIP with the support from Children’s Mission Africa. Two weeks ago, he started experiencing severe back back pains and he managed to take care of all the costs of treatment including getting an X-ray done and the medication. He feels more independent because of the business, he has been able to grow tremendously due to the continuous training he has been able to get.

His clients are mainly his fellow students, who have been able to grow with him since he first opened his spot. He can attribute the growth of the business to the quality of his chicken and fish including his customer relations skills that he got from the CFIP trainings. He has clients who come from very far out of school to buy his grilled chicken and fish which made him open another spot so as to cater for them.

Previously his main challenge was that everything in the business was dépendant on him alone. He had tried to buy things in bulk so that when he has class, he does not have to go to the market but that did not work even though his classes are on alternate days. After the the CFIP trainings he has been able to provide employment to a young man who does his market errands as well as opens the business when his classes coincide with the time he has to running his business.

“Customer relations is something that I did not learn however after the CFIP training, I was able to implement the skills and now I can boast that I have managed to grow my customer base by about 30%.” Boasted Varel. From the training, he also learnt the importance of starting things on time. He would open his business at 4:00PM, sometimes later, but now he starts on time. At exactly 2:00PM he has set out his business and is ready to start selling. He sells till 10:00PM.

In the next few years, he would like to open a restaurant where his clients can come and sit down and even have a drink. He looks forward to expanding his menu to include other things. He sees himself as an entrepreneur in the long run and he does not plan to stop what he is doing

He would like to receive further training from CFIP, including financial support so as to grow his business to a major restaurant to serve university students.

“When I learnt, I didn’t need to have big money to start my business, I started my cosmetics business immediately!”

“With my income, I pay my children’s school fees, health issues and my personal needs.”

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Varel Stany; starting small yet aiming big