JANE Namunji embodies the saying ‘when life gives you lemons, make lemonade’.
When the 28-year-old lost her mother in 2005 to pneumonia, and her father a year later, her life turned topsy-turvy.
She was only 15 then, and doing her tenth grade.
“That changed a lot of things in life. Things just became somewhat hard for me,” says Jane, who is fifth-born in a family of eight.
“Growing up, we were okay but everything changed when we lost our parents. It was almost like the hardest moment of our lives, but I will not exaggerate it because at least we had a roof over our heads. But it’s just never easy to lose your parents.
“I would say from the time my mother died, school fees became a challenge because my father was in and out of hospital - I think my mother's death may have depressed him or something,” says Jane.
Luckily for her, the Forum for African Women Educationalists of Zambia was on hand to take up her school needs and ensure that she completed her education in 2007.
When her parents died, Jane and her other siblings were left in the care of their other older sister, before others were taken in by their father’s relatives.
“I was the only one that was not adopted by a father figure,” she says. “Now that I am older, I realised how difficult it was for my sister to take care of us with the little money that our parents left.”
Jane graduated from high school in 2007, scoring 17 points. But instead of going to college or university, she decided to look for a job to support her own livelihood.
Her first job was as a sales lady in a boutique in Dambwa Central market, where she earned K150 as her monthly salary.
“I remember the salary so well because at that time, it seemed like a lot of money because I didn’t have to think of rent and I had not held that much money before, I had just completed school,” she says.
Jane would later work for Debonairs, where she earned a more decent salary.
And at only 18 years old, Jane then decided to move out of the family house, with only a blanket and a few belongings, to rent a one room in 217 Township.
“To supplement my income, I also started selling clothes,” she says. But she wasn’t to last at the fast food restaurant.
Because of her love for art, she quit her job at Debonairs to join a Canadian couple - Marylin and Bob Gregory - at the Livingstone Performing Arts Foundation in 2009.
“While there, with the encouragement of my bosses, I decided to go to school. I applied and was eventually accepted to study Law at the Zambia Open University. But I was overwhelmed with the fees and also time to study, that’s how I ended up doing just one term,” she says. “But after two years, the organisation closed and Bob and Marylin told me to do something with my life.”
Bob and Marylin paid four months rentals for Jane and left her some money to sustain herself.
Jane still had plans of returning to university, but because she could not afford the fees, she decided to abandon the idea.
Instead, she enrolled at Livingstone Institute of Business and Engineering Studies (LIBES) to study accountancy with the Zambia Institute of Chartered Accountants (ZICA).
“My school was really slow,” she says. “As I was about to finish my Technician [first level of ZICA], I fell pregnant, forcing me to completely stop school in 2012.
“My pregnancy was not an easy one, I was literally sick throughout and I was still taking care of myself. And when the child was born, it didn’t make things any easier either.”
When her child grew a bit older, Jane got a job as a bookkeeper for Blue Ray Night Club.
“I cannot explain the kind of luck I have when it comes to getting jobs,” she says.
After working for the night club for three years, Jane quit and got a bigger job at Vilole Images Productions (VIP).
It was while there that she decided to even complete the ZICA Technician course at LIBES.
But she now had to juggle life as a wife and mother. And she was expecting her second child.
Being home on maternity leave led Jane to discover a new talent in handicraft, something she used to love doing in her free time.
And as fate would have it, a few months after returning to work, Jane and others were laid off in 2019 because the company she worked for went bust.
It was then that she decided never to look for employment again.
“That is how I decided to go full-time into crafting and jewelry,” she says.
Jane officially registered her business in 2019 and used Facebook to advertise her products.
Her business is called Legendary Creations.
As her business grew, she attracted attention beyond her own country.
“I get most of my supplies from Tanzania because we don’t have them here. I have been receiving invitations in Nigeria, Tanzania, Malawi and even Namibia to train women on how to do this,” she says.
Supported by her husband, Namunji Namunji, Jane makes jewelry, bracelets, necklaces from beads among other African themed crafts.
She supplies her crafts on both retail and wholesale to several clients in Livingstone and other parts of the country.
She says her main desire is to create products that will not only dominate the Zambian market, but also sell the Zambian talent to the rest of the world.
She also hopes to create a platform in the near future for different artists to network, and a training ground for upcoming artists.
