Shortly after writing her CSEC examinations at Tucville Secondary, Sarafina Edghill, like most persons awaiting their results, spent the majority of her time home.

It was not long before her godmother asked her to find something to do and encouraged her to go to Carnegie School of Home Economics, as by then Sarafina’s love for cooking was well known.

“It wasn’t something I thought much about but since I was younger I was always in the kitchen- but at that time I wanted to be a lawyer.

“By the time I was in high school and had Food and Nutrition classes, I had fallen in love with cooking. So when I was encouraged to go to Carnegie, I went to register, got through and never looked back,” said Sarafina.

She decided she wanted to be a chef and began attending Carnegie. However, at the time, she was only 16 and as such, could not do the catering and hospitality course she wanted to do; she’d have to wat until age 18. Despite the disappointment, she decided she would do out her two years in commercial food preparation.

After that, she would go on to complete a series of evening courses, the last of which was an advanced course in elementary cake and pastry preparation, which she finished a short while back.

With those completed, Sarafina, now 22, has finally decided to do her diploma in catering and hospitality, which she will begin in September. As to whether she will be leaving Guyana to gain her full Bachelor’s Degree immediately afterwards, as Guyana does not offer it, Sarafina is unsure but stated that she will be doing it eventually.

Aside from school, Sarafina has for the past three years done catering for a number of individuals and businesses. She also hosts cupcake sales close to three times a month and revealed that she is jokingly called the cupcake queen, proudly displaying a chain bearing a cupcake pendant given to her by a client last year.

It all started two years ago when she sold her first set of cupcakes. “When I was doing my cake course,” she said, “I decided to do cupcakes. I wanted to try everything and told my Mom I’d need her help to do a sale to see how it goes, and it began from there. They sold out so quickly that I decided to do another sale the next day, I had to keep baking for an entire week.”

Despite her success, however, Sarafina stated that like all businesses, there have been high and low times. One of the things that has threatened to overwhelm her sometimes is the lack of support, which she explained now stands at 50\50.

“I believe a lot of young entrepreneurs suffer from a lack of support. People will say that they will support you but when you’re looking for that support, they aren’t there, so you just need to forget about them and do you.”

Sarafina’s talents however, are not just limited to catering as she often graces the fashion runways and does photoshoots for some of Guyana’s top designers such as Sonia Noel, Keisha Edwards, Olympia Small, Quinton Pearson, Sidney Francois, Melissa King and a few others.

She has also tested the waters of theatre and realized that it is something she enjoys. She played a waitress in Desiree Edghill’s play, “My top, Your bottom” last December in commemoration of World Aids Day.

Sarafina said she initially found it a bit challenging as the young woman that was put against her was not only extremely talented, but also very experienced. However, she managed to overcome her fear and performed well.

A young multi-talented woman, Sarafina said that she would like to encourage all young budding entrepreneurs and creative persons to not only think about their dreams but to actively pursue them, no matter how long it takes.

She hopes that in the next four to five years she would have not only realized her dreams of being a chef but would have already expanded her business both locally and internationally.