Give them the world whilst they’re still at home – a story about persevering as women in business to #breakthebias

During the lead up to and on the week of International Women’s Day 2022, we’ll be sharing some incredible stories from women in the BLP community, from all over the Pacific Islands,  who are #breakingthebias and leading by example as successful women in business.

Today’s feature is on two incredible women from PNG, Shallene Amos and Emma Nasinom who co-run Lae About Tours.

Sha Amos

Shallene Amos co-runs Lae About Tours with Emma Nasinom, a guided boat tour company offering both the local community and outside visitors the opportunity to explore Lae and its outer islands from the seat of a boat.

Inspired to join her cousin, Emma, who initially started the business as a hobby in 2016, Shallene came on in 2018 to support Emma in fulfilling the dream of giving friends and family and the community of Lae the opportunity to see other parts of their own country that they had never seen before. 

LaeAbout Boat Tour

While their main business is providing guided boat tours, they also offer other custom tours such as land-based tours. Additionally, COVID has forced them to pivot to other areas such as offering service contracts for boat ferrying of employees from the village to the local ports. Where pre-COVID they had actually started growing to do 3-4 tours a weekend, these numbers have significantly reduced.

Shallene and Emma’s aim in this business has been both profit-oriented and community-oriented. Not only did they want to offer their fellow community members the chance for local tourism but they also hoped to create income-generating opportunities for them.

Shallene shared, “Our business is still a work in progress…with the help of family and friends and savings we were able to purchase a boat…we were also able to engage local privately owned boats from fellow villagers as well… so we extended that sort of windfall of employment to other villages that we were a part of, engaging their boats to help with tours.. I feel that is a really big success factor that we were able to not keep the money for ourselves but to engage other people as well to help with our tours.”

Shallene reflects that getting the business formally registered and knowing how to set up systems and who to go to for what within Lae (and PNG more broadly) has not been easy. While step-by-step guides exist, these tend to be very generic and do not really help with the specific context they face. COVID-19 has also not helped.

To help overcome some of these barriers, and through the support of the BLP subsidy, at the end of 2019, Lae About Tours was able to engage Tok Stret, a BLP approved Business Advisory Support Provider (BASP) for about five months. Shallene emphasized that their support was invaluable. With a subsidy provided by BLP of $1,410 NZD Tok Stret helped them to conduct a business diagnostic, put together a business plan, set a budget and forecast, develop a marketing plan, and develop an overall plan with week-on-week tasks of what to do, what offices they needed to visit to formalise their business and set a plan to pursue investor or donor funding. 

Shallene couldn’t express enough how helpful the subsidy and services they received were.

“Initially I was a bit sceptical about the sort of services we were going to receive, but after our experience with Tok Stret and how hands-on they were and how simple they kept the message and the energy and focus and drive they had, it’s really changed my perception of the services that we would get through the BASPs. We are all the more better for it.” 

Because of their experience with Tok Stret, Shallene shared that they would definitely be willing to pay for other business services as well as her perception of these types of services has definitely changed.

“Anyone vetted by BLP we would be willing to pay for their services because really, it’s invaluable for us to keep us going. It’s definitely an investment we would be willing to pay for.”

Both Emma and Shallene are single moms and while home and work responsibilities can place pressure on their time, they have both embraced these realities and have found a way to make the family time fit into work with the company. 

What we have done is incorporated our own children who are in their teens now to helping with the business. So they get to go on tours and we get them involved… Our reasoning behind them getting involved is we can’t all go overseas and meet other people so when we do have people that come with their different history and experience and cultures and life stories, the kids are able to meet them and have a greater appreciation of different people…in a way we are able to give them the world whilst they’re still at home.”

When asked about whether gender was a constraint for her or Emma in starting or running Lae About Tours, Shallene responded that it didn’t seem to have any bearing. However, as we talked, she highlighted that not only was she a single mom, but she also had a full-time job as an IT manager for a local company which has forced her to do most of the work for Lae About Tours in the evenings. Shallene remarked that in spite of this time constraint, she feels that she has been lucky to have the family she has. 

“I must say that here in PNG the family unit is a really core fundamental support system for everybody here. So we’ve been blessed to have a very close and tight knit family – for my case I have a close and tight knit family…My parents have helped me a lot to raise my son. I guess I was very privileged in that aspect because not a lot of women get that support from their family. So I guess in my case, I’ve just been very fortunate to have the family that I have. In raising my son and enabling me to do a lot of work professionally with my full time job.”

While there have been other trials and tribulations that Shallene has faced as a woman and a business owner, she chooses to see these challenges one by one allowing her to address each issue as it comes. This attitude has meant that any challenges with the business have also been approached in this manner where she tackles each problem head-on, and one by one, so as not to be overwhelmed. She feels it is this approach that has really led to her success and perseverance.

Shallene expressed her overwhelming gratitude to the “BLP programme and the New Zealand government for their foresight and assistance in helping SMEs in PNG in continuing their journey through these uncertain times. Everyone’s story is different, but the services and assistance that we received are sincerely appreciated.”