Fish market vendor Madhu Lata has no regrets selling fish at the Labasa Market for the past 13 years.

Since learning how to sell fish while working at All Seafood Company, the 49-year-old widow from Vunivau, Labasa, stands proud today because her fish business has provided her the basic needs and will to get her three children educated.

Today, her eldest son is a police officer in Labasa, one daughter is a second-year student nurse at the TISI Sangam College of Nursing and Health Care Education, while the younger is pursuing a final year teacher’s course at the Fiji National University in Suva.

Amid the challenges she faced as a wife and widow, she never gave up on the battles ahead.

Ms Lata lost her husband in 2004. She said she had nothing left after his passing, including a place to stay with her children.

To feed her children, she worked as a sugarcane labourer, a house girl, and a salesgirl before her employment at All Seafood Company.

“There were days where my children would wait a long time for me to bring food for them to feed,” she said with tears.

“Being a mother and woman alone without family support was difficult. However, I thank the almighty God for giving us strength.”

“I cried and struggled for many years, but I always made sure my children never went to bed on an empty stomach.”

Growing up, she never thought that she would become a fish vendor, even though she reached Year 11 at Naleba College.

“I left school because I was the youngest of six siblings, given the responsibility to take care of my sickly mother at that time.

“But now, in a week, depending on the fish supply, I would make an income of $350.”

Not bad for a woman who started off her fish business with $50: buying fish from suppliers and selling them at the market.

“Today, I am a proud mother and I thank God, even for the challenges that have passed by to make me a strong woman,” she said.

To all single mothers, Ms Lata urged that they should never give up on their children.

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