A woman in Oro province has been delivering fresh garden food and vegetables to customers in Port Moresby to generate income to support disability advocacy programs in Popondetta town. “Everything that I do with my SMEs, supports my disability advocacy programs in Oro, including the community support programs as I am currently the PNG Women in Disability Network Incorporation Chairperson.” Ms. Sommerville Kanaba is a business woman from a mixed parentage of East Sepik and Oro Provinces who resides in Popondetta, who identified the need for affordable fresh garden produce in the city in 2023 while frequently flying between Port Moresby and Popondetta for her Disability Advocacy Workshops. She started the business of selling fresh garden food from Oro as a side business. She first started advertising on Facebook in 2023 and got a good number of interested buyers who ordered from her. “When I started out, I had about 20-25 interested people but I only delivered around 10 bags of food at that time. A day before I flew, I would go to the market and buy the food in the afternoon, pack them in the night and bring them over to Port Moresby the next day.” Sommerville with the help of her sister, packed the food in K50 and K100 bags as per the vegetable orders and payments and delivered. The bags of food contained the famous Oro Queen Bananas, taro, greens and some fruits and vegetables, hence the name ‘Veggie Delights.’ Most of the vegetables she sends over from Oro while she purchase her Chicken trays and Dry coconuts here in Port Moresby that are included in some orders. In an interview with PNG Hausbung, Sommerville mentioned that some of the challenges she faced were flight cancellations, delays and recently it has gotten costly to airfreight the food. “I’m aiming to one day expand and maybe charter a plane with the sole purpose of flying the vegetables over to avoid flight delays and cancellations.” Sommerville highlighted that she started this side business mainly to teach her family to find something to do and try to generate an income from it. “Some of my nieces and nephews just sit around doing nothing so I started this business as a way to teach them how to identify market gaps and fill those gaps and maybe make some money out of it.” Apart from Veggie Delights, Sommerville and her family own other small businesses that are all operate under her family SME-Oro Stringed services. “My sole trader is Zoar Travel and Passport services, Zoar Floriculture and Zoar Tourism, which is run by my partner and I. Our newest edition is Veggie Delights which is used to support disability initiatives.” If people want to find out more about Veggie Delights or order a bag of the best taro in the world, they can check out Oro Stringed Services on Facebook or directly WhatsApp them on 675 82140792.