Orange Corners South Sudan incubatee Dalia James is a passionate pharmacist and entrepreneur, and the founder of Planet Health Pharmacy (2023). After earning her pharmacy degree in India, she returned to her home country with a mission to improve healthcare access. Though Planet Health Pharmacy she makes essential medication more accessible to underserved communities, addressing critical healthcare needs in South Sudan. We spoke to Dalia about her entrepreneurial journey, her participation in Orange Corners and the challenges of being a female entrepreneur in South Sudan.
Hi Dalia! Could you introduce your business, Planet Health Pharmacy?
Planet Health is a pharmacy which provides all the medication patients need. As South Sudan is a new country, some drugs are hard to get. We cooperate with other pharmacists to fill those gaps and make medication available within the country.
The unavailability of medication affects me close to home. My father has hypertension, which means he has to take drugs every day for the rest of his life. Growing up I’ve seen him struggle a lot to get the drugs he needed. It was expensive and challenging to find medication. As Planet Health we’re trying to make medication affordable for people, selling at a lower price than other pharmacists. Our main goal is to help people and increase their life expectancy.
What makes Planet Health stand out from other South Sudanese pharmacies?
Planet Health is special compared to other pharmacies because of our personalised customer services. We’re dedicated to providing excellent services to our customers, especially patients with chronic diseases. Often these are elderly people, who can’t move around a lot and sometimes also forget their medication. We’re working on developing an app that reminds them when it’s time to repurchase their medication. We focus on providing accessible and affordable long-term medication for chronic diseases, while ensuring quality and convenience.
I was in Egypt earlier this year. I’ve seen how pharmacies work there and this really inspired me to do better things for my country. Customer satisfaction and customer comfort are really big things there, which motivated me to do the same here.
And everyone at Planet Health is young. That includes me, as a founder. We try to incorporate social media in our business, try to communicate with our customers without them being physically here. We’re only one phone call away. We also have a delivery option, where customers can send us a prescription and we deliver it to their homes. We’re also working on providing online services, such as a mobile app and text reminders for refills. Trying to come up with new innovative things like that makes us different from other pharmacies.
What makes us stand out from other pharmacies? We try to come up with new innovative solutions!
Dalia James, founder of Planet Health Pharmacy
Do you have any examples of how Planet Health is making a positive impact in Juba?
I have one patient, an elderly man. He doesn’t walk very well, his children are busy. He’s very loyal to us, he gets his hypertension drugs from our pharmacy. One day he mentioned he lives a bit far and that picking up medication is a challenge.. how great if he could get it delivered to his doorstep. I was “we don’t do that right now, but we can do this for you”. So the next day, one of our staff members delivered the drugs to his house, which made him truly happy. This motivated me to do more for other people. I hadn’t realised it was an issue, but just talking to him I understood we needed to step in and help patients get their medication.
What are the challenges you experience as a female entrepreneur, and how do you overcome them?
In business generally, there are a lot of challenges. And then adding to it that you’re a woman running a business, it can be difficult. Especially in a community like ours. Men often view women as inferior to them. That can be really hard. Women entrepreneurs get a lot of intimidation from people. They try to talk you out of your ideas, telling you “this is too big for you” or “we don’t believe that you can do that”. This can be discouraging sometimes as a business owner. But how to overcome those things? You just need to reassure yourself that you can do those things. Look back at where you were two years ago, and where you are now, and then you look at the things that you have achieved. Those things can really motivate you to do more. The challenges are there, but it’s better to not just focus on the challenge, but also to look forward to the goal that you want to achieve.
There are also benefits to being a female business owner. Men look at you as if you’re a weak creature and like to step in to help you. And our taxation system sometimes also favours you as a woman, as the government tries to make things easier for you. It’s not always bad to be a woman in business. You just need to know how to use your voice when you’re in a room full of men trying to intimidate you. You should be confident, know what you’re doing, and if you are of course they’ll support.
When you felt discouraged, was there anyone in particular who supported you?
There are a lot of people. As humans we tend to flourish when we live in communities. You can’t do things on your own. I can’t mention them all, but I have strong and supportive community of friends around me. My business partner, he’s been encouraging and supportive as well. He doesn’t like to be in the spotlight too much, but he’s been present from the start of Planet Health until now and always provides his full support. And my older sister has always supported me as well. She supported me financially and emotionally in various stages of my business, always encouraging me to push through. She’s my role model. She’s also a business woman, in addition to her corporate job she has a soap-making business. It started small, but she worked hard and it’s doing really well now. This made me realise I don’t always have to choose just one career.
Entrepreneurship runs in the family?
Maybe! But the situation in the country also pushes you to think outside the box. You have to to make a living. Things are really tough out here. As a new country, there are a lot of gaps that aren’t filled yet. But this also makes it a blessing to start a business here. It’s not that hard compared to other countries. As the country is young, there are many opportunities to do things no one has thought about yet.
What advice would you give to other women hesitant about starting their own business and seizing those opportunities available?
They shouldn’t feel that there’s anything they can’t do. As women we can do everything that we put our mind to. There is no need to be afraid, just start. It’s always the start that’s hard, but once you start you’ll find something to push you and motivate you to do more. And there are also organisations like Orange Corners that’ll help you to push those dreams.”
As women we can do everything that we put our mind to!
Dalia, Planet Health Pharmacy
Do you consider yourself a role model?
I hope so. Regularly girls in my family, in my community, tell me that they’re inspired by how I handle myself and how I put effort into the things that I do. I hope that I can be a role model to them, and I’m always here to give them any advice that I can.
How’s your experience with Orange Corners been?
It was really nice to meet everyone. Other programmes just give you funds, without training you how to use those funds. But Orange Corners is taking the initiative, time and effort to give us a six-month training programme about how to run our business, how to improve our business. It’s a treasure to get information like that. I’m already applying a lot of the lessons learnt in my business, and it’s just amazing.
For example, one of the guest speakers spoke about how you should separate your business from you as a person. That really struck me, as that was something I wasn’t doing. I treated myself and the business as one. I’d take money out of the business sometimes or I’d put my own money in the business, which became problematic. This advice helped me manage my finances better. Every training taught me something new. How to reach my customers, talk to them, how to market my product. There are so many things I learnt from Orange Corners!
I have great, great ambitions for Planet Health! In the next five years, I see a very big cooperation of Planet Health pharmacies.
Dalia, Planet Health Pharmacy
What are your future ambitions and plans for Planet Health?
We’re still in the early stages, so I’m taking this year as a learning experience. I’m not putting a lot of pressure on myself thinking I didn’t do this or that, but focus on how much we learnt. I have great, great ambitions for Planet Health. I want us to have a lot of branches around Juba. I want us to go out of Juba. I want us to reach every South Sudanese person. And I also want to use the resources that I have to empower other women and to empower other people. In the next five years, I see a very big cooperation of Planet Health pharmacies. I see us doing a lot of great things, and I see us helping a lot of people, especially with chronic diseases. I see us being a backbone for increasing the life expectancy here, and also helping older people to live a very comfortable life!
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