Success brews in bubbles

With no money to study and lack of a job, Southward emerges triumphant.

- Hein Kaiser

Reality bites but with a strong will and a measure of resilience it is possible to tame it. That's what Paige Southward, 22, from the West Rand is doing one day at a time, seven days a week.

She has a full-time job and on weekends her bubble tea mobile kiosk treks across Gauteng; event to event.

When Southward was 20, she realised she had to make a plan.

"I was unable to find work. My parents couldn't afford to send me to study, so I didn't really have any qualifications and nobody wanted to hire me." It's a harsh reality that many young South Africans face in today's tough economic climate.

But Southward kind of followed in her parent's footsteps.

A doughnut trailer, which her folks had as a side hustle for several years, also became the family's main source of income after her dad's company closed down during Covid.

"It's a full-time business for our family and, thankfully, it has sustained us until now," she says.

An unused trailer at her family home became the answer and she put the asset to work and converted it into a mobile kiosk.