![Surya Pratiwi, who has launched children's entertainment business Surya Shines after rediscovering a love of performance. Picture by Darren Howe Surya Pratiwi, who has launched children's entertainment business Surya Shines after rediscovering a love of performance. Picture by Darren Howe](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/166161973/85d79cd2-23e3-4a96-a098-2bf83a5b0e59.jpg/r0_0_2532_1682_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
As a child Surya Pratiwi loved performing.
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"But I just stopped," she said.
Now, thanks to inspiration from someone close to her and a seven-week small business program at social enterprise SisterWorks, Pratiwi has hatched a plan to perform for a living.
"In Australia I have a boyfriend who does clowning," she said.
"And when I did that I felt [reconnected with] my childhood feeling.
"Before, I followed my boyfriend to his bookings and sometimes the bookings got too much so I helped. It seemed like I can [do it].
"But I didn't know if I was any good."
Then in March she entered the Castlemaine Idol competition.
"I won!" Pratiwi said, with fresh surprise.
The confidence the win sparked has only grown as a result of her participation in a small business empowerment program at SisterWorks.
Pratiwi was one of four women graduating from the course on Tuesday, and as part of the process had to pitch a small business plan.
Her children's entertainment business, Surya Shines, which is already up and running, offers face-painting, balloon-twisting, children's games and bubbles.
The other graduates pitched plans to sell steamed pork buns, home-grown flower bunches and semi-precious healing stones.
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Program facilitator Maria Gillies said the course - which featured guest lecturers and covered a broad range of information and advice - was geared mostly towards home-based businesses.
"We want to encourage them to start small just with the equipment they have, so they are not needing to take out a loan," she said.
The program had been created specifically for SisterWorks' migrant, refugee and asylum seeker clientele, and it tended to have a significant impact on them, Gillies said.
"It is designed to support them not only in training but to give them confidence they can do it without worrying about having the perfect English," she said.
For Pratiwi, the section on pricing was particularly pertinent because it had been a long time since she ran a small food business in Indonesia.
She is looking forward to an ongoing connection with the program participants for motivational meet-ups and mentoring.
In general Pratiwi appreciated the "mind-opening" effects of meeting people from different cultures at SisterWorks.
"And all of them (are) nice people," she said.
The next small business empowerment program is scheduled to start on July 11.
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