Supporting small business creation

My name is Hassanatu Bha, I’m 20 years old and I’m from Guinea, West Africa. I came here in Australia in 2017, almost four years now. And back home I was a student I used to study in college back home we study French. So when I came here I was, again, I went to high school in ISC to learn English. Because English is like my fourth language. So I had to go there and I did manage to stay here. But around that time, I was still trying to figure out what I’m going to do. Since a very young age. I’ve always wanted to do business. I had an idea of doing hair products. So I did a lot of researches online on YouTube specially like and as I was watching, like, how people are doing things, what they do it, how they do it so I had so much so many informations so yeah, after I did all my researches, I came up with the idea to start doing my business. The name is NatuNaturals and it’s a haircare products. For at the moment I only have two which is the hair serum and hair cream. My aim to actually make the haircare product is because I’ve used so many products that have a lot of chemicals in it especially sulfites so, and I’ve seen like how it was damaging my own hair. So I was like stop, I’m not gonna create something that’s gonna damage other people’s hair. So my product I wanted them to be 100% natural and organic. Because back home, we actually use shea butter a lot on the skin. It is known to be very, very great to like, make the skin shiny to moisturise the skin and also the hair. The hair makes it moisturised the hair makes it longer has a lot of benefit. My future goals I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I want everything to be like 100% eco-friendly like my packaging, I don’t want anything to do with anything that will be bad for the environment as well. And I’m also looking at like how I can the product can impact people’s life. How it’s gonna make them feel because honestly, like, I love having my own hair like my own Afro hair. I love it. I go everywhere when it’s whenever I have it. So I want people with any type of hair, curly, straight, Afro short, long, bald everything. I want them to use my products and feel very very like confidence. I needed a support. I needed people telling me teaching me more about what it’s like to have a business to do a business in Australia because I had some knowledge but I had to learn so much. So I was happy that my family member my uncle told me about SSI Ignite was very, very happy and grateful that was years ago like two years ago when I had another business idea that didn’t go through but yeah, I’m happy. I’ve found Ignite. They’ve been helping me a lot. Before Ignite. I was thinking I was gonna sell my product on Shopify. But then my facilitator, Tatiana told me that sell handmade products, homemade products. Etsy is the best site to start for just a start that like there you can have people like people will know about you about your product. And then when you have reviews there that you start selling there, you can then take it somewhere else. Y’all have to do things step by step, which is great. Like I was I all I wanted to do, can we do this Tatiana or can we do this Tatiana. Oh, relax, take you time. Yes, step by step. It’s because you’re in Australia, like you have to follow the laws and I was okay. Yes. I don’t want anything to do with anything like that illegal or anything. And Ignite has been also helping me with starting to sell on the market, but with COVID again. Now I have the Etsy store and the store is really beautiful like the way its all designed and love it.

[Music] IgniteaAbility was founded to support people living with a disability who want to start their own small business so we work as a facilitator to take people through that journey and connect them with the network that will give them the best chances of having a strong business. We work on a one-on-one basis so that we are able to actually sit with our entrepreneurs on their terms and recognise any challenges and strengths. For the last 30 years the employment rates for people with disability which are around 50 percent haven’t shifted and that’s partly got to do with a whole series of interrelated barriers to employing people with disability, but what happens is that they are either not being employed or they’re becoming what we call a necessity entrepreneur just because they want to take control of their lives and build a business around whatever their impairment effects are as opposed to being told that they’ve got to fit into the workplace of others foreign.[Music] When Bridget was growing up she always loved to color in a page that would be all very carefully colored in the page came alive and Bridget was just fascinated so we knew that that was an interest of Bridget’s. And so that was the point where we realised that not only was it a passion for her, that she obviously had talent. We heard about the IgniteAbility through a careers advisor at Sydney Uni. We contacted them because we thought they might be able to help us and as I said it was perfect timing to get advice from them and then very soon after they suggested doing the Educate program and that was really useful for us.So the educate program was a workshop developed for people with disability to learn about business and the basics of business in terms of what they need. I was invited to be a co-facilitator because they really need people with disability to also co-design and develop to make it relevant. And for people with disability the Educate program is something that can really help you understand what your idea is and what you can do to convert that into a business or if it should stay a hobby, and it really makes it clear for you with these experts that are there in all these different fields, many of them people with disabilities. And it has a good outcome that you know for sure that what you thought could have been an idea or a business idea is actually something that should or should not be, and that’s what you gives you clarity.The one thing I learned is the experience that’s how they knew mainly because of my disabilities that’s why I started my business and I had always wanted to be an artist so just filled in place I guess by starting a business and joining Ignite. Everything I had kind of lost hope in I got hope back to believe in again. I can work my own hours, my own time and in a way I’m still participating which feels amazing.If someone has completed the Educate program and they’ve been inspired to start their own business or they want to explore further they refer into IgniteAbility where they match with a facilitator like myself who will work one-on-one with the individual to connect them to a network of experts in different areas so we want to make sure that a few areas are really strong in their business – marketing, financial management, understanding what you need to do with your compliance insurance – everyone will have different understandings, different strengths and challenges and some people might come with 90% of that understanding and we work to connect and build a network to support to get those challenges met. It is a free service.Looking back over the last couple of years the development of Bridget Kelly Art has been sort of very natural and easy and as opportunities have come up we’ve responded to them. But when I look back on it there probably really wasn’t any clear direction and IgniteAbility has really given us that direction and given us the tools that we needed really to make Bridget Kelly Art successful [Music]