It is only natural to disgust garbage but her hatred for trash is way beyond the normal one. She doesn’t want to see trash anywhere, if she did, she never leaves without cleaning. She considers herself as environmental advocate and finds it hard to let manmade reasons destroy the environment. That is why she decided to join the field that correlates with her deep desire.
Bethelhem Deju was born in Jigjiga. She is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Kabaw Trading Plc. She followed her primary education in St. Joseph School and came to Addis Ababa with family in search of a better education. Then, she continued her education in Eweqet Le Hibret School as well as Addis Ketema School.
After completing her secondary education with great result, she joined Bahir Dar University and earned her BA degree in Chemical Engineering.
Though the field was mainly dominated by male students and considered as if it is a field that doesn’t have better future salary wise, the fact that she enjoyed the field, she was able to accomplish it with great score.
Bethelhem served as a President of Student Council as well as involved in several clubs that advocates women rights and empowerment. As she was interested in environment conservation, joining chemical engineering field was her priority. The fact that she admires activities that involve beautification and cleaning places aggravated her love for the field.
Finding a decent job in her field after graduation was not an easy task. However, leaving no room for complain, she had to come up with a way of generating income to support herself. Then, she decided to start tutorial, and posted a placard read: “We tutor children’ in different areas including where private schools were located.
By that time, she was able to earn about 2000 Birr per month by giving tutorial classes for ten children. Though what she earned from the tutorial wasn’t bad, her father was not happy about it for the reason he was aspiring to see her running her own business.
After a while, she saw a vacancy on a newspaper that was posted by Batu Tannery plc. However, the position was intended specifically for male applicants though it was not mentioned on the newspaper due to some error. So, she decided to go ahead, however it was not as such easy. As the company second guessed her due to her gender, she tried her best to prove that she deserved the position and fortunately she did. It is worth mentioning that her active involvement in the campus on different positions paid off.
After joining the leather company, she was offered to assist the managerial activities nonetheless she wanted to see how leather production technology operates and insisted on working in that field. Even more, she decided to join the department that usually operated by men due to its difficulty.
However, many have been unhappy that she joined the toughest department where the first phase of leather production takes place. Therefore, she was requested to submit a report of the first week, but what she brought to the able within one month was a 42 pages report. Her boss was thrilled when he saw the report and immediately offered her to work on company’s Research and Development Department and she accepted the position.
While working in her position for about two years, Bethelhem got married and got pregnant with her first child. However, her doctor let her know that she had to stay away from chemicals for the sake of her and her child. So, she had to accept the position that she hesitated when her boss offered her when she first joind the company. Then, she started working as Commercial Manager with higher salary and other bonuses and served for over 15 years.
Bethelhem strived to bring new ideas and add values to the company tirelessly. One of her efforts was she managed to attend Master of Commerce from Indira Gandhi University, India in long distance term.
Throughout her stay, there is always a question that bothered her as she was not quite sure whether she was living her dream. Having this thought in her mind, she fortunately attended motivational speech and was asked to utter her dream. She replied that her dream was to create a generation that strives to make villages clean and green.
While she started campaigning under the theme “If I am able to create a clean environment; I can contribute my part”, she met a participant as well as entrepreneur named Asnake Fikadu who came up with new technology that avoids bad odor using inputs made of plants. The fact that the product was produced domestically, she become eager to know more and decided to take his phone number and called him and hold thorough discussion.
As a chemical engineer, she conducted a research so as to come up with a way to enlarge the expiry date of the product longer without losing its prominence and applicability. Betelhem also conducted laboratory test as well as added value and got approval from the Ethiopian Standards Agency. She registered the ownership by Asnake Fikadu in 2015 and registered all the samples and other necessary things.
By covering the entire expense and paying the necessary respect to Asnake, she started Kabaw Trading Plc which works on avoiding bad odor. Moreover, she began producing inputs needed to avoid bad smell. Later, she started producing soap used to get rid of both bad smell and for cleaning purposes like clothes, mirror, and other materials.
She uses trees, leaves, and other raw materials for the production of medicine as well as to get rid of bad odor. On the other hand, the input and chemicals she used to produce liquid soap for cleaning of clothes and other materials were imported from abroad.
Kabaw Trading which was started operating with 50,000 Birr capital around Furi, at the outskirt of Addis Ababa, has now reached capital of 800 thousand Birr. The company has a plan to increase its capital to two million Birr and to create more job opportunities for fellow citizens. Activities are underway to facilitate loan from the Ethiopian Development Bank to purchase production machines. Request was made to Development Bank to support job creation activity.
Bethelhem said that the society needs to be cognizant of environmental protection and efforts need to be made so as to change the society’s attitude in terms of appreciating and purchasing local products and developing trust. Accordingly, serving the society and producing quality products with affordable price sourced be a priority principle of any company for it is fundamental to build trust on the product.
That is why she is striving to discharge her corporate social responsibility in a way of promoting the products. So far, she has freely providing products to different governmental and non-governmental organizations like Tikur Anbessa and Zewditu hospitals, Mary Joy Ethiopia, child daycare and others organizations.
Bethelhem further stated that currently the products are gaining acceptance from the consumers. Providing products to the consumer with affordable and fair price is equally crucial apart from maximizing profit. Creating and facilitating a system of waste disposal activity and recycling wastes has a paramount importance, she added.
She advised women with different business ideas to believe in themselves so as to figure out their potential and live up to their dreams. Once they started believing in themselves, they can easily realize their dreams. She also advised women to have confidence and build trust in their potential for change.
BY BETELHEM BEDLU
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 13 JULY 2023
