A Muslim Mentor for Micro-businesses

The Everyday Entrepreneur

At 4am every morning, Mdm Norliza starts preparing noodles and kueh for sale at her friend’s shop to supplement her household income. By 7am, she leaves home for her full-time job as an administrator in an employment agency.

It is late by the time she heads home.

“I felt that my children were being neglected and I wanted a change that allows me to spend time with the children and at the same time still earn an income,” says Mdm Norliza, a mother of six.

The last straw came when her fourth child required special medical attention. She tried finding part-time jobs on the papers but was instead drawn to an article on the Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP)’s Micro Business Programme.

A micro-business, also known as a micro-enterprise, is a small business that is often unregistered and have no other employees other than the owners themselves. They are also usually low-capital start-ups.

Attracted by the idea of starting her own business by making use of her culinary skills and catering experience, Mdm Norliza enrolled in the 32-week programme.

Micro Business Mentor

The AMP Micro Business Programme, which was introduced in 2005, seeks to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit within the members of the Muslim community by equipping them with skills and providing them grants to start their own micro-business. Participants of the programme are from disadvantaged families with a household income of $3,500 and below.

“We hope to promote the development of an entrepreneurial community by giving them new skills and hence empowering them to be economically self sufficient instead of relying on financial support from social agencies,” says Mdm Fauziah Rahman, AMP Senior Executive Officer in Training & Education.

During the course, participants like Mdm Norliza go through specific skills training sessions and workshops on how to run and manage a micro-business. Skills taught include trade skills such as making wedding crafts, sewing, reflexology and catering, IT skills such as creating an email and a blog for the business and as well as basic business management skills.

It is also a place to meet people with similar backgrounds to share ideas and even form partnerships.

“I met a lot of individuals with skills and experiences that I did not have and who have already started their own home-based business. They were there to learn how to market their products,” says Mdm Norliza.

Each semester, AMP accepts up to 60 participants. Each one carefully selected based on needs, attitude and aptitude.

“I became friends to many other participants and we shared as well as exchanged information about each other’s product. We were taught to diversify our services through alternatives channels too, like using Internet and brochures. I use a blog to take orders for my business now,” says Mdm Norliza.

There, the 36-year-old graduate received a $1,000 grant from AMP to set up a catering micro-business with two other participants, Roslindah and Sharifah. The shared business capitalises on each of their strengths. For example, Mdm Roslindah specialises in making traditional Malay kuehs. And applying what they learnt from the programme, they created their own website with social networking site, Multiply.com to get their catering orders. Most of their orders come from their blog.

Besides getting grants to start up a micro-business, Mdm Norliza also received the WSQ Food Hygiene Course certification, the basic food hygiene course conducted by the National Environment Agency.

With the certification as well as her daily food catering experiences, Mdm Norliza had her wish came true: She was awarded a school canteen stall that allows her to spend more time with her children while earning an income.

“Now, as long as I work hard and manage my time well, I can take care of my children and earn enough to get by too,” said Mdm Norliza.

Small but Sufficient Solution

Through their micro-businesses, owners like Mdm Norliza, many of whom are mothers, are able to remain economically self-reliant while having the flexibility to care for their children.

The micro-business economy offers great potential for economic development due to low risk and low capital. Hence, it is one of the most powerful tools for sustainable development especially for the developing countries. With sufficient support and financing, the micro-business sector, besides contributing to economic growth, could create many new employment opportunities, particularly for the poor or single mothers.

“I know a lot of individuals out there who faces problem like me and I hope they can come forward and try to learn and benefited from this course as much as they could. I strongly encourage anyone who wants to moves ahead to enroll themselves in this course as it will definitely be a stepping stone for them,” says Mdm Norliza.

She added: “As for my partner and myself, we still pursue our interest by attending classes to upgrade our services and ourselves!”

Contact details:

Tel: 6416 3974

Email: fauziah@amp.org.sg

For more information:

http://www.amp.org.sg/amp07/web/view/?id=ART00045-2007&pgno=2

Tags: Microbusiness

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 9th, 2009 at 9:47 am and is filed under Feature Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.