Oreneile Cebani is geared up to change the babysitting game in Botswana.
Mummycare Babysitters is a babysitting company that offers 24/7 babysitting service, where professional and vetted babysitters are dispersed of to children’s homestead to look after the children while the parents are out, for any reason, emergency, work, dates, travel. A business that was birthed from Oreneile Cebani’s life story and today is bridging the gap our communities left unattended. The company also provide reliable house helpers, offer old age care, post-natal care and palliative care.
Oreneile Cebani – Founder & CEO, MummyCare Babysitters
“I fell pregnant at 19 and had my baby at 20, as a freshman at the University, I soon realised there is no real solution for my babysitting needs, and I had to take my child to my mother so I can finish school, I saw a gap in the market as there is no 24/7 service for individuals like me, who have to go study with others at the library at night, or a young mothers need to hang out with friends sometimes,” she told the Launchit Blog.
According to a publication by Psychology today on Child Neglect, the publication notes that child neglect is defined as any confirmed or suspected egregious act or omission by a parent or other caregiver that deprives a child of basic age-appropriate needs and thereby results, or has reasonable potential to result, in physical or psychological harm. Younger children are neglected most, and more girls suffer from neglect than boys.
Child neglect encompasses abandonment; lack of appropriate supervision; failure to attend to necessary emotional or psychological needs; and failure to provide necessary education, medical care, nourishment, shelter, and/or clothing. Neglect is usually typified by an ongoing pattern of inadequate care that may be readily observed by individuals in close contact with a child. School personnel, for example, may detect indicators of neglect such as poor hygiene, low weight gain, inadequate medical care, or frequent absences.
Globally, more than 680’000 children are counted as victims of child neglection cases just in 2019 alone. In 2012, 82.2% of child abuse perpetrators were found to be between the ages of 18-44, of which 39.6% were recorded to be between the ages of 25-34. In the United States, more than 4 children die from child abuse and neglect on a daily basis. Over 70% of these children are below the age of 3.
It goes without saying that, although a lot of parents are committed to a number of responsibilities in their efforts to provide for their families, Proper Child Care is an essential need that will contribute towards building health families, which will result in healthy communities and ultimately healthy nations. MummyCare saw an opportunity to give parents a much needed help to be a part of the upbringing of their children.
Oreneile, the Founder & CEO of MummyCare grew up in Mahalapye. As a young female entrepreneur, Oreneile’s world view has been sharped and inspired by her travels outside Botswana, and in some instances, outside Africa. In 2015 and 2018, she was in China, Shanghai as well as Beijing and other small cities in China such as Yangju. Oreneile’s annual calendar shows frequent trips to different cities around South Africa and Botswana.
Oreneile’s entrepreneurship journey started back in 2007 at age 14. Her father was a serial entrepreneur with footprint in several businesses ranging from a poultry farm, an animal farm with various cows and goats, to manufacturing bathrooms. “It inspired me to watch him doing business, and my interest in business started at that young an age.” At 14 years old in 2007, she started her entrepreneurship journey with a Junior Achievement Botswana membership. The program demanded that all participants must come up with a product and work as a team to make the product/business a success and provide all figures to support. Oreneile’s team came up with an ornamental, musical tune, with a mirror and they made a lot of profit. They won the regional competitions and made it to nationals.
“In 2012 I fell pregnant and had my first baby boy in 2013, my little blessing, pushed me further, into creating an empire for him. So I saved the money I got from my allowance as I had always been doing, and started loaning out money to individuals at 30% interest monthly. I did so for about a year. I learnt a lot about people and that business. I stopped borrowing them money, due to the challenges I had with having the money returned from customers, and that is when I learnt the importance of due diligence checks on the person you do business with”. Oreneile told Launchit Blog.
In 2011, Oreneile started her Bachelor of Arts (Social sciences) degree at the University of Botswana. A Double Major in Economics and Accounts. Her hunger for success and passion for business, has her implement the wisdom of Oprah Winfrey, “In life, do what you need to do to unlock the opportunity to do what you want to do”. At tertiary school, she took her first job with LOWAPI, a Differently Able Pupils tutoring company as a tutor. This was an opportunity that Mrs Gaba, the owner of the tutoring company gave to her, seeing her passion and of course, her trusted academic abilities.
In 2015, Oreneile took all the money saved from the loan business and ventured into the Arbitrage Business. She met Miss Maposa, an experienced entrepreneur in the clothes business who encouraged her to travel with her to South Africa to buy more clothes to sell. The experience was on its own hectic and yet inspiring for a young woman who wanted to build a future for herself and her child, as well as saving up enough money to venture into her real business, the babysitting business. Oreneile learnt to make tough decisions at a very younger age. She also learnt to take risks in order to get closer to her goals. Travelling to Johannesburg for most Batswana is still a much feared risky exercise, and yet the business demanded her to travel there frequently to keep the business going. The business taught her many life and business lessons including credit management and customer management amongst others.
“I juggled all this, with my degree pursuit, and learning Chinese part time at the Confucious University of Botswana. I graduated 2018, and started my pursuit to start my babysitting company” Oreneile Cebani.
When raising the start-up capital, Oreneile approached her former employer, Mrs Gabs, to join forces with her to sell food at Botswana’s flagship winter sensation, the 1000 Toyota Dessert Race. They were selling food off the boot of the car and also through a small stall. A month later, Oreneile gathered enough strength to try the food business one more time, alone. She pulled a food trailer to the Makgadikgadi Epic event, with the support of her friends.
2018 saw the official opening of MummyCare Babysitters business, with a business card of a hardworking young female CEO, Oreneile Cebani. The company leveraged on social media to bring exponential growth to its brand as well as clientele base. Just like many other entrepreneurs in Botswana, Oreneile was well vested in what the CEO of Launchit International, Mr. Goitsemang Khutsafalo explains as ‘the craft of her business’ and struggled with ‘the business of her craft’.
Entrepreneurship is a continuous learning journey, and entrepreneurs like Oreneile who are eager to learn and ready to implement what they learn, their growth is always inevitable. In the first months of her business, she experienced all normal business challenges, she made her first mistakes, and eventually growth. Oreneile has been on several entrepreneurship programs, such as Stanford Seed’s Go-To-Market Botswana where she learnt different things about business including the Business Model Canvas, Financials, and Marketing amongst others.
Oreneile during Project124 2019
“When I joined Project124, my hope was to meet a potential investor to grow my business. Little did I know, Project124 was different. It required more of me doing the work necessary for my growth. As compared to others that only gave us the theoretical training to take forth on our journey, Project124 was practical and testing, and the Project124 Pitch was even more exciting, where we pitched to an investor. These programs gave me the confidence to pursue my business. Since the program I have more confidence in what I am offering my market and letting people know that we exist, and they can trust us as we are offering trained, certified and professional babysitters for their children.”
Because of their excellence and professionalism, MummyCare’s daily walk-in reception and telephone lines has been busy on daily basis for the past 3 years, becoming the most trusted babysitting company in the city of Gaborone. Their dream is to expand their “Babysitter at your home” service, to building a facility where they could provide their market with different babysitting options for their different babysitting needs. MummyCare is gearing up to expand its reach beyond Gaborone. Oreneile believes that at the rate of their growth, she believes that her business has a future that may reach other countries around the world.
Reviews From Social Media
“All I know is a mother needs a sitter once in a while, and I recommend these sitters.”
– Lenna Bambino Matsoga
Contact The Gabs Experience: (+267) 76 084 386 , Facebook: MummyCare Babysitters