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All right, 26 minutes to eight o'clock here on pal business. And we are in the second hour and definitely into our small business Tuesday feature this evening. And tonight on our small business Tuesday, we're joined by Linda Eshibambu.
The founder and CEO of Made for You, now from humble beginnings and earning a monthly salary of just 70 rand as a domestic worker. To becoming a successful entrepreneur, Lindewehr's journey is truly inspiring and tonight she joins us in studio to tell us all about her business. Lindewehr, welcome to Power Business. Thank you very much.
Now, I guess let's start at the beginning. Talk to us about your upbringing. Who exactly is Lindue?
Hallelujah is the young girl from Soshangubai Group in Soshangubai, it's in north of Pretoria. I come from a family of seven, four boys, three girls. My mom was basically a single parent, she was a single parent, so she took care of us. I was closest to my younger brother, Kennedy, and coming from Soshangubai, where you are being raised by a single parent who's not ending that match.
Me and my little brother started selling vegetables in the township, just to assist my mum, you know, to make more money and to assist with familiar things that we needed.
And how has that sort of upbringing shaped who you are today? You know, before we get into made for you, talk to us about, you know, those steps that you took growing up and how that really shaped you. You know what, to be honest with you, there were a lot of negative impacts.
When you come from that kind of background and I always say this and anyone who's hate me speak will tell you they've hate me say this. When you come from that kind of background and you're a young girl and you're growing up in social guvé, it's a township. There was electricity, there was water. However, if your family is poor and you're not paying your municipal account, your electricity will be cut off.
So now most of the time when I grew up, my household did not have electricity. We sell in vegetables. You are growing up with your peers and you're going to the same grades with your peers and your peers that are giving you labels. So they start calling you names like one of our couldy-veging, the child to, you know, the family sell vegetables, the one gohabo, there's no electricity. So there is a lot of labels that are negative that people put on you and therefore you become, you become
Someone who has low self esteem, you look down on yourself, you start thinking that everybody else is better than you. So for a large part of my life growing up, I felt like everybody else was better, everybody else deserved better. You know, there was some kind of force that perhaps chooses who makes it and who doesn't. Until I think I got to metric. And funny enough, this one day I didn't go to school, I was not feeling well.
Like enough, we had a TV, we had electricity at the time. And a guy called Antonio Robinson, somebody who's tall white, they were doing some commercial thing about motivation. And he said one thing to me, he said one thing. He said, your current situation, your current situation, your current circumstances does not have to determine who you become in the future. And that was it for me.
Yeah, that is very point, I can imagine. And that, as you say, has stuck with you. And fast forward then, you know, how did you experience it as a domestic worker shape your perspective on opportunities and challenges in the sector? Let me take you back as to how I went into the sector in the first place. So, fast forward, I did my metric in Redoume des High School in Social Group L. And when I finished my metric, I knew that my mother could not afford to take me to tertiary.
and I so much wanted to further my studies you know I felt like the only way out of poverty for poor child is education and I really wanted that and unfortunately there were no resources there were you know those those years there were no
NASFAS and basilies and things like that. So I was quite discouraged when I did my metric, but I did it and I passed. And the following year, I had a choice to either sit at home and wallow in my sorrows or choose to do something with my life. So I started looking for employment. And at the time, I mean, I was not computer literate. I wasn't as eloquent as I am with English now. I wasn't confident. So there wasn't much for me in terms of career choices.
And my auntie who stays in my middle, they said to me, listen, they are looking for a cleaner. She was working for the CSI, Aaron Silverton. And they're looking for a cleaner and I think you should come. And I went and they said, oh my God, she's so young. She can't be a cleaner. But one of her colleagues said, a white lady said, no, but I'm looking for a young girl who can take care of my two kids and clean the house and do house chores and whatever, basically become a domestic worker.
And I wasn't sure exactly. And I said, what do they do? And my auntie said, no, you know, those years never get a kitchen girl. So you're going to work as a kitchen girl. Okay? By the time we're kitchen girl, you cook in an iron and take care of two kids. And I said, and someone pays me for that.
someone pays me to do what I'm doing every day at my mother's house and I don't get paid for it. She said, not only do they pay you going to stay in their house, they're going to buy you toiletries, you're going to eat their food. And I said, show me where to sign our sign. And that's how I got into that space, right? Now,
Going into that space, I was naive. I was young. I had dreams. I had ambitions. I felt like somehow, some way, when you pray for an opportunity and one is presented to you, you must take it. You cannot say, I'm not going to be this. You know, God, I want an opportunity, but it needs to be covered in roses. For me, when I looked at that opportunity, I said, this is what God has presented. And therefore I'm going to accept it. And I'm going to run with it and going in.
What was very challenging? Like I say, I come from a household where half of the time there was no electricity, we were using paraffin and whatnot, and I walk into a place, a nice beautiful
townhouse and they had microwaves. And for goodness sake, that was the first time I see a microwave. And I need to clean it. And then there's vacuum cleaners and there's things like that that I did not know, but my medium expected me to know them. Like the perception is that any woman can cook and clean an iron and can clean a microwave and whatever. And we disregard where people come from. And that was one of the things that I've identified as young as I was, I just asked myself,
Because if I clean this mic, I'm going to break it. But yet I did not even have the confidence to say to my employer, I cannot clean this thing. Because I mean, for me, I don't want to lose the job, right? So those were the challenges that I've seen more over, you know, anywhere that April and you walk around and you go to the malls and I was young and people look at you sideways and I'm like, what's wrong? And you realize, oh, this is a career or this is a work that is so marginalized that people look down on.
And I remember one day I had to rush to my military to my auntie's house and I was late and I was rushing into a bus and I still had my apron on. And you know, you could hear people, you know, behind gossiping, he kitchen gale, you know, I don't mean any so. She's so young. Why is she doing this? And that's when I sort of got the reality of, oh, this is how people perceive this kind of work. And that's, I think for me, that's where the Janie started in regards to domestic work.
And I'm curious, you know, given that context, that background, you know, then what inspired your transition then from being a domestic worker to starting your own business, given those challenges that you outlined and, you know, sort of perceptions or issues that you wanted to change there.
You know, I think one thing we need to recognize and understand that it needs to take one of us to change the sector. It was not going to take a teacher or a mind-waker or a pharma-waker or a doctor to change the sector. It needed to take someone who has walked a mile in a shoe of a domestic worker. So I fast forward to me having worked as a domestic worker, having a good employer who said to me, you young, save money, go to school. What do you want to study? And at the time, I want to study.
any career that has to do with money. So at the time it's like people say study bikoma account or be an accountant or be a banker. They never told me the money is not mine but you know I thought if you study that you'll make money and she helped me to save money and I remember one day she had a conversation with me she said
I'm not going to give you an increase, but I'm going to get some of my friends to hire you on weekends to babysit because you're so good with the babies and the kids and what. I mean, I've got little siblings, right? So I was all in. I'm young. I'm energetic. So she did that. And she said, I'm going to monitor how you save your money so that you can go to school. So I worked in a couple of years later. I enrolled at TUT at the time. It was called T&W as Cohelu in Harangkua. And
I mean, I studied auditing there. I studied auditing because my results could not qualify me for a become account to anything like that. So I went for auditing and even a tatiary, my objective, my mindset was always about finding solutions. I was never about there's a problem, therefore let's all cry. So people who went with me to tatiary will tell you I was in the SRC, I was General Secretary, I became a finance officer and there's some
solutions that I came up with within the institution. And based on those solutions, I was recruited by F&B, which is a bank that really looked at me. And so someone who deserved an opportunity. So when I went into banking at the time, the bank was still very wide. I mean, it was after
Nelson Mandela, Amanda, you know, everything nice, long off to freedom, right? So when you went into that, the bank was now trying to transition and it was trying to, to be, you know, diluted with Kalanya. And so when I went in, everybody, this is Linda from Soshangouve and she's from the township. And all the medams that were looking for domestic workers.
came to Lindy way because Lindy was from the township. So the assumption is that she knows an unemployed woman in the township, right? And also their approach was the same was to say as long as she's a woman, she's got boobs, she can clean and it doesn't work like that. So I assisted my colleagues. I assisted my colleagues until such time that I even went on and worked, you know, in Johannesburg, another corporate and it was the same thing.
that suggested to me that there is more to this thing than just me having been a domestic worker. So when I speak to domestic workers, I always tell them, and clean us. I mean, I was doing a talk last week for Skilling SA, and we're talking to clean us, and I always say to them, where you are is where you need to be, because it's a preparation for your next. When I became a domestic worker, little did I know I'll become an award-winning entrepreneur.
in the same sector. So when I went and went into corporate, it was the same request. And one day I sat and said, let me start doing proper research around this space because when I got domestic workers from my colleagues, they come back and say, oh, she left. She didn't say goodbye.
Oh, she stole my whatnot. Oh, she was beating the child. Oh, she's not. You know, there were always issues and I felt like, but when I was a domestic worker, I appreciated it. But yet I still liked the skills and I did not have the confidence to come out and say, I cannot use a washing machine. I cannot use. I'm not exposed to these things. And when I did research, the first thing that that popped for me was the skills to say, how do we make sure that we empower domestic workers?
The same manner we empower teachers, and nannies, and nesters, and bankers, because when someone has been socialized and someone has been taken through a process of training, of upskilling, of grooming, when they go into that space, they know what is expected of them, and therefore they will behave professionally. But when you don't prepare me and you take me from Soshangouve and put me there, and I mess up your microwave, I'm going to live and I'm not going to say goodbye, because I know Jorge Nalinge, I care.
So, those were things that came out when I started researching and I went to the Department of Labor and I said, I met Prof Feldman. And I said, Prof, what is happening? I mean, at the time I'm working for corporate. I'm doing well, Nana. I made it out of poverty. I'm under to me. I made it out.
And now I'm excited, but yet this thing for me was like, I need to see what is it that we can do. When I was doing the research, it wasn't about me opening the business. It was about maybe one can impact, maybe one can go to labor and just give them a suggestion. So when I went, I made prof and profics explaining to me how the sector wakes and
And I said, but there's a need for skills development. There's a need for protection of the domestic workers themselves and the employers. Because as much as some of us know and accept it, there are employers that are exploited by domestic workers. There are employers now that have lost so much because of domestic workers that they didn't know. You know, someone came with a fake ideal or passport and whatever. And those are things that came out in 2008, a register made for you in a different name.
And I started waking. I started seeing what I can do. People said, no, but register an NGO. And I said, no, man, I come from poverty. I want money. I think I like this capitalist thing. So in 2008, I registered. In 2008, between 2008 and 2010, it was more about researching and understanding the sector. Because also coming from a banking background,
I understood that there were agencies that were linked to banks and when they needed a tailor, they would phone and the person comes, she's prepared, well-mannered, groomed. Why is this thing not happening in the domestic worker space? And we started becoming very active in 2010, July. And that was intentional. The World Cup was June, so we thought, okay, let's just let that happen. And we come out in 2010 and I resigned in 2010, we started working and recruiting.
I mean, also that was a mess because when we were recruiting, we were like, anyone who's unemployed, you can come, you can come, we can help you, we take you from township, take you to their suburb. But it was a mess, there was no structure, there were no systems and so forth. So there was also, for me, a lot of learning of how to then run a business. Fortunately, I was incubated by Shandukha Blekhamprelas because I understood that, listen, you come from corporate and
You studied something else you don't know. What is it to be an entrepreneur? Because entrepreneurship also for me, I interpreted it as like how I got exposed to it when I was selling vegetables. I thought to become an entrepreneur is when nobody wants to hire you.
So therefore you have to just do something for yourself. I did not understand it as a calling as something that really you can do and be good at. So, you know, Shanduka assisted me with that transition. And that's when we started putting things in place. And we started introducing the screening process to say, first of all, when you come into our database, we need to make sure that your ID is authentic, your passport is authentic, your work permit, your addresses. You don't have any criminal.
cases and you know, so we are very vigorous when it comes to screaming because we understand the sensitivity of household and I mean everybody knows now on social media there were times where we were bombarded with horror stories about domestic workers. You know, I once saw a video of somebody beating up a small child, I couldn't even share that video.
And it affected me so much because when I went to the sector was to make sure that we put structure and the biggest thing becoming safety for both parties in the domestic worker sector. So yeah, so when we then started sitting down and saying how can we improve the sector? How can we influence legislature? How can we influence change?
And not one sided, not all, you know, protect the employees, protect the employees and the employers, because both parties need to benefit from their relationship. You know, we then started having proper relationships with the Department of Labor, CCMA, your services, CTAS,
that have assisted us to train domestic workers. You know, workshops that they would say, Linda, please, let's have these women in one sitting where we talk about rights and responsibilities. Please come talk to them about your own story. So throughout the years, it has been more about building it and putting it structure and making sure that we've got the right partners on board. Of course, with lack of funding and lack of partnership,
Because I always say to people, and I've said this lastly, when I was selected to be part of the top 10 of the SMM ego businesses, right? I've said, when I went into that presentation, I did not even think I'll be on the top 10.
simply because the domestic worker sector is not an attractive sector. It's not a sector where everybody is flocking in their wanting to be part of that business. They see it as a problem. They see it as a sector that's marginalized, that there's lots of exploitation. The legislature is there, but there is no enforcement by government. So I did not think that actually I'll be part of that top 10.
And when all mutual SMME go recognize what I do and applaud it to me and actually wanting to fund me with the app that we are launching, I got very excited because that gives us some kind of competitive edge and a way in which we can compete fairly
a way in which we can have proper structures. I mean, with the existence right now of the SMME goal, the old mutual SMME goal portal, I mean, that's an amazing initiative by old mutual because as small businesses that have no funding, no investors, you are able to sort of run your business, your business professionally, you're able to have your quotations professionally done, invoices done and whatever.
Because most of us, a small business, are propelled by passion. You know, most of us, it's a calling, it's a purpose-driven business. And therefore, some of the things fall off the tracks. So with that kind of platform, at least you're able to say, okay, I can do my inverses correctly, I can do my codes correctly, I can run my finances correctly. And I mean, they also have an inbuilt payment gateway that you can use and accept.
cut payment, when you go outside and look for those kind of services as a small business in a domestic wearcast space, they're going to cost you an amine leg, which you don't have. And as you mentioned, they can become overlooked because as you are driven by your passion, you see these other things as sort of things that you can overlook and continue being driven by passion.
But I want to know from you, you know, what are the services then made for your office and how do they cater for the needs of both employers and employees? Okay, made for you. I mean, essentially it's a recruitment agency. We do recruitment, we do screening, vetting, we do placement, we do training of domestic workers.
So when we recruit, like I said, and I mentioned this, is that when we recruit, the biggest thing for us is to sort of make sure that we go through the screening process of making sure that the candidates that are sitting in our database are clean candidates. And secondly, then you'd have employers that have already employed Osmata from Lesotho, but they are not really sure that she really Osmata, you know, she might be Osmata or something.
So those employers also are welcome to come to us and say, listen, can you please screen this person and make sure her wig payment is valid? Or if her wig payment is expired, please help her to renew it. Make sure that you vet her, check her criminal check, check her references and so forth. So that is one value proposition that we pride ourselves in to make sure that there is safety and peace of mind for you and your family.
And we also do training. So our training is mainly your housekeeping, cleaning and hygiene. So your normal cleaning of the rooms, cleaning of the bathrooms and the kitchens, your cooking and your baking. We do first 18 CPR. We do your personnel care. We do your laundry and care for garments. So everything domestic workers, everything housekeepers, we do offer those training. And that training, I mean, we offer it in two ways.
People are able to come and join us in a group training. But as an employer, you're able to say, I want to invest in Osmata 2. Please come to my house with one facilitator. If you check, we did a show on... Now, it's no longer on show, it's on 161 on Saturday, six o'clock, called our auntie, where we then talk about the trainings that we can come to your house and really
make sure that it's on the job training because that person needs to be trained maybe according to the specification of your own household. So we spend about seven days with them, taking them through each room, drafting a work schedule for them, you know, giving them employment contracts, making sure that we structure that that employment. So it happens in that way either a person joins a group
if there's a group that we're training in how to train, meet, train, whatever they can join and be part of the seven day or they can say please come to the household and train you and we are going to be expanding and growing in terms of training because there are new qualifications that are being introduced like your commercial cleaner and your laundry waker and your garden waker so we will be expanding on that.
And one of the things that we also do that is very important that most employers overlook is compliance. So most employers hire domestic workers, they don't give them contracts, they don't have work schedules, they don't, that in itself is lack of structure.
And let me tell you now, if the domestic worker does something wrong and goes to CCMA and the commissioner finds out that the domestic worker had no contract, she did not, she was not registered for UIF, she did not have COYDA. I mean, we fought so much for COYDA. COYDA is now there for domestic workers and most employers
Sometimes because of lack of knowledge or not understanding the processes that they need to follow or maybe being busy, they're not able to comply. So made for you provides that HR savings to say, I've already employed somebody. So I need to be structured. Please make sure you give a contract, a formal contract based on my specifications, a work schedule. Let's register here for you. Let's get a monthly pay slip.
And so we also have an amazing HR system where all employees can access it anytime and check past pay slip, current pay slips, leave days, administer those things so that we make sure that, I mean, it's not huge numbers, the domestic worker sector employs so many people in South Africa.
But I feel like each employer that can take responsibility and say, ladies, start with me. You might think you're one, but that one is a million minus one. So then it's a million minus two. And you also will then feel very, very important because they also feel honored and they feel appreciated if they've got a contract and they've got a UI reference number. So they know that they're protected. Should anything happen? And we've seen these cases during COVID.
And I guess it goes both ways, you know, protect the employer and protect the employees that balance their needs to be struck in that sector. But very quickly from you, I just want to know, you know, what can we expect from made for you in the next five years? What have you got planned? I heard there was apps in the work. There was apps in the works. We don't want to say much about it because the last time we spoke about the app, we woke up and there was an app in the market.
We wake up and we'll be launching. Yeah, so that's one of the things. But another important aspect in terms of our growth is the training that we feel that needs to grow nationally and make. We make sure that more women can be trained and be employable through the sector. And thirdly, I mean, we're looking at
Just making sure that we empower other women through our Made For You franchise, because you've got other women that are sitting in Defeaking and Rustin Bacon and Free State who feel like they want to run a similar business, but they don't understand the legalities that come in the structure that comes with it. So we are saying you don't have to start from scratch, you can just come join us and we plug you in and you become a Made For You franchise. So we're looking at making sure that 2025
We launch our app, we make sure that we train our 10 franchises, and hopefully we open our training academy. Gosh, lots to look forward to. But we're going to leave it there on that note. A lovely conversation. Thank you so much, Elindeue, for being in studio with us this evening. Thank you. Thank you so much, Merci, for having me.
All right. That was Lindu Aishibam, who found out made for you, talking to us for Small Business Tuesday.
