INSPIRATION: Zimbabwean making it BIG in Australia,starts a Thriving business

Charmaine Kuwana

HER name is Charmaine Kuwana, born and raised in Zimbabwe, and she is the founder and C.E.O of a small Australian-based business enterprise specialising in cosmetic chemical products.

Kuwana is currently based in Perth, Australia, and hers is a story of misfortune and opportunity. She has tales of grief on one side, and stories of victory over adversity on the other.

She left Zimbabwe as a teenager to pursue studies in the UK, graduating and getting married almost at the same time.

Realising that her first child was responding not so well to all sorts of lotions and other skin products, Charmaine and her husband did not know what to do next. They sought expert help with little success.

She had a casual chat with a chemist, and that encounter informed her that her son needed nourishment from a significant amount of natural ingredients. She took matters into her own hands and started making her own cream.

With the global financial crisis badly hitting the UK, Charmaine and her husband migrated to Australia in 2009, hoping for a better future.

An assault case by a mental patient at her work place resulted in Charmaine having to stop work because of the injuries sustained and, before long, she was struggling with family bills and other expenses.

Charmaine is a mental health nurse by profession, but she found herself struggling so much that she ended up telling herself to take charge of her own sanity. She just wanted to find purpose in life.

With the advice and help of a couple of friends, she embarked on the production of a multi-purpose body crème.

She increased production and gave the product freely to friends and colleagues, asking for feedback. She was encouraged by the feedback she got, and when her first product was purchased online, she knew she could expand this idea into a viable business enterprise.

She realised that through this product she could still pursue her passion to help people which had been derailed by the unfortunate hospital incident.

She named her product ZORA, meaning “apply to skin” in her native Shona language.

“ZORA is my saviour from the depressive thoughts of hopelessness and helplessness,” she says.

She hopes to make inroads into the Australian market; as well as to export her products back to Africa, starting with her home country Zimbabwe.

Source-Newzimbabwe