At an agricultural festival, she attended sometime in 2012, 21-year-old Domitila Silayo learnt about the amazing healing and medicinal qualities of Jatropha, a plant that is in abundance in her country, Tanzania.
According to her, ‘this plant is everywhere in my country and nobody is using it’. She took action to exploit the opportunities in the Jatropha plant by starting her own soap business. After doing some research into soap making, Domitila rented a single room and got her brother on board.
Today, her small business produces over 1,000 soaps every month and the profits are looking good. Image credit: flickr.com
The oil extracted from seeds of the Jatropha plant is used as the active ingredient in handmade soaps in many parts of East and Central Africa.
This plant extract has proven to be very powerful against skin diseases like ringworm, eczema and dandruff which happen to be very common in many parts of the African continent.
Domitila now has an additional full-time employee working with her in the business and plans to expand to serve clients in her country’s hospitality industry (especially hotels and hospitals).
A student of Marketing & Business Administration at the Mzumbe University in Morogoro (Tanzania), Domitila received a $12,500 award from the Anzisha Prize Competition in 2013 to support her young business venture. She shares her experience in the short video below…
Jatropha Soap – The Powerful soap recipe from a young Tanzanian girl
