BUBANZA, December 6th (ABP) – ‘You just have to get into it, any trade can be profitable’, those are the words of Vanessa Dusabe, a cobbler from Shari hill, in the commune of Bubanza (north-west Burundi), according to local sources.
Dusabe, aged 25, is married with two children and took up the cobbler’s trade in 2022. She told ABP that she was interested in that trade because, she says, it was thanks to that trade that her cobbler husband managed to provide for almost all the needs of their small family. And it was her husband who taught her. She says that at present, her daily income varies between 5,000 and 15,000 BIF, which enables her to be self-sufficient with regard to some of her expenses that her husband would have to bear.
Nevertheless, Dusabe deplores the fact that some of her customers do not trust her, suspecting that she is incapable of practising the trade properly. She is also misunderstood by those around her, because her job is unusual for a woman. Her dream is to send her sons to university, and even to doctoral studies. She also dreams of buying a plot of land and building a house for her small family. Dusabe calls on other women and girls never to underestimate the profession, to realise that there is no longer a profession for men only, without forgetting that spouses must complement each other, she adds.