It’s an Irie Lyfe for The Allens

“We don’t realise just how bountiful St Thomas is,” Nzinga Allen, who lives in the said parish, stated with a smile. Yet, she herself actually knows. And, so she and her family, including her daughter, son and husband are not sitting with their palms propping up their jaws, looking at the bounty, and lamenting that ‘nott’n naa gwaan’.

For, something is really going on for them. They are making use of the abundance of plants and fruits because they are gripped by the entrepreneurial spirit, and have long rejected the notion that St Thomas is a poor parish, despite all what it has been endowed with.

“St Thomas people are not poor. It’s what they choose to have and what they choose to leave … Right in this little area here, you see ackee, you see soursop, there is guava, across the road you see ackee, June plum,” she pointed out. They also cultivate Scotch bonnet pepper, turmeric and ginger; have their own pimento trees; and are bee-keepers.

With these they have created a line of value-added products called Irie-Lyfe. These include honey infused with Scotch bonnet pepper, dried Scotch bonnet pepper flakes, guava leaves, ‘search-mi heart tea’, soursop bark and leaves, ‘strong back’ leaves, Jamaican ‘dandelion coffee’, etc, all attractively packaged and bottled.

The Allens are spinning what nature have provided, so, for people who would like to become entrepreneurs, but are wary of jumping into the deep end because of the assumption that there is a lack of developmental, financial, and administrative support and inspiration, Allen said it is all about getting attached to organisations that give such support. Being flexible and committed are also two important factors.

For the family, the old adage that no man or woman is an island rings true. Much networking is done, especially with acquisition. “You can’t just depend only on your thing, so we find like-minded beekeepers who keep their bees naturally. We approach them to supply us with honey. And we are also a part of the Ujima Natural Growers Group and we have access to naturally produced Scotch bonnet pepper, ginger, and all the other things we want to add into our business.”

With the rehabilitation of the major road network and the establishment of an urban centre near Morant Bay, the parish’s economy is ready to take off. It is an opportunity for small businesses to embark upon a path of growth, because things are definitely going to change, and they are preparing themselves for such.

“The thing is, with some of the organisation that I’m a part of, it’s about how we can influence the changes that are coming into St Thomas,” Allen revealed, “So, we are actually a part of another group called the St Thomas in the East Cluster. It’s about bringing other like-minded business owners together to kind of influence the direction that the parish is going to go through.”

Yet, the Allens have always known the direction that they want their life to go into, and it’s about merging the personal with the professional. Their life is their business and their business is their life. They are Rastafarian vegans who have homeschooled their children, and are selling and using products that contribute to good health.

“For me and my husband it’s about giving a really good example to the children … We are a family that does business, we are not businesspeople, and then we are the Allens. No, it is actually part of who we are. That’s our business. Irie Lyfe is our business name because that is what we want to provide for our children. We want a good life, we want an irie life … We want to emulate that in everything we do with our children.

That message is certainly not lost on her daughter, Akila, who has been bitten by the business bug from her childhood days of when she would resell books, including readers, that she no longer needed to buy others. And by being around her parents she seized the opportunity to sell things wherever they were selling. She now has a line of fashion jewellery called Africa Design, and has recently added tie-and-bleach T-shirts to her rings, nose rings, earrings, neckpieces, waist beads, wristlets, etc.

She loves to adorn herself, and “being able to create my own business can allow me to live the lifestyle that I like, to help me go to school, to help me deal with the day-to-day expenses,” the 21-year-old explained,“It’s about figuring out what you can do and make people like it.” And, it is not a ‘hustle’ to supplement a nine-to-five income and fill a gap; it is a real business to which she is committed.

“As my mom said, business and life must merge. This for me is self-expression. So, who I am is expressed in what I create. It makes it easier. I don’t have to keep up with the trends. I set the trends. And if you like it you like it … I want to be a household name … I want my name to be on people’s lips,” the young entrepreneur who is charting her own map of independence said.

And for her peers in the parish who are struggling to lay a business foundation, her advice to them is to stop partying too much and save.