Once an office secretary, Muluemebet Gebresilassie was able to make a big step forward to be owner of the first beauty and spa service in the country, which is a rare and exemplary achievement in the lives of many Ethiopian women.
At a time when many people wish to engage in a type of work that can be handled from home, Mulumbet has set the trend when she launched her beauty Salon and Spa more than 25 years ago. Even though, beauty salon is common in the country, the spa still was not known in the country by the time she ventured the business. While a beauty salon merely focuses on hair protection, a Beauty salon and Spa widens the scope of the business to skin care protection and massage.
Muluemebet went to the USA more than three decades ago and obtained an opportunity for training on beauty salon and spa. Instead of staying as an employee abroad, she decided to become owner of beauty and spa institute as well as training center at home.
She recalls that she has passed through many challenges in launching the spa business in the country. Of this, lack of awareness about beauty and spa service as well as government’s lack of attention were the major obstacles to her forward progress at the moment.
Before she started training within the country, she aggressively worked on awareness creation through various alternatives as the business is new to the country. One of these alternatives is using women association. It has played basic role by simply providing training for women gathering them in a specific place.
Beside this, although she attempted to communicate with Ministry of Education and Germany cooperation (which works on beauty and spa training) that to help her, it does not take special attention on the issue rather it takes time. After she know this, her inspiration was raising as bring on taking to the training center began by herself without any hesitation that to achieve her young interest, according to her.
She also added that interest, vision, hardworking, commitment and resistance challenges are the main secret of her successes for reaching this level, she stressed.
The training center was provided by rent when 13 years ago with a trainee of 43 students and currently the number would rise to more than 1500 students. The duration of the training is eight months. Among the trainees, 95 percent of them are women that ensuring women empowerment and to avoid stereotype, she added. After completed the training, many trainees are employed in her Enterprise and some of them are Shifted to other institutes in a simple manner. Currently, the whole trainees are engaged in different beauty and spa enterprise after they completed their training, while 100 workers are engaged in her institute that the number started from three at the beginning, she added.
According to Muluemebet, her institute is paying more than 4,000-birr monthly salary for employees, excluding cleaners. On the other hand, the system of customer handling and workers as seen as friends including paying incentive, that someone who works more are an activity that taken by the institute and become effective, she underlined.
Keeping high standard of the beauty salon and spa institute as well as expanding the training center to other parts of the country are the next plan of Muluemebet, according to her. However, government should support this type of activities and encourage women empowerment, it has playing indisputable role to ensure decreasing unemployment within the country. She also happy to work with government and others who invested on beauty and spa for ensuring mutual benefit, she believes.Enterprises like the one owned by Muluemebet are vital economic institutions for the socioeconomic development of a country. When the number of such effective enterprises increases, a country’s economy is also likely to flourish and stand on a firm ground. Hence the government should also further encourage citizens to engage more on establishment of such enterprises which create jobs, transfer skills and raise the government’s revenue.
In addition to people at home, there is a need to attract many of the country’s citizens abroad so that they can establish and run enterprises like that of Muluemebet. She is one of the hundred thousand of Ethiopians who left the country due to political instability and her success practically prove that changing one’s livelihood is possible through work at home apart from the multifaceted benefits the Diaspora’s economic involvement bring in for the country and its people.
The Ethiopian Herald May 2/2020
BY MESERET BEHAILU
