A J The­o­lade

Ar­lene Collins Mo­hammed's suc­cess sto­ry, like tales that are the most en­dur­ing, isn't one in which all the ac­tion takes place overnight. Twen­ty-six years ago, she was sell­ing door-to-door, with a bas­ket of pre­served plums and man­goes made by her moth­er. She would walk through the streets of Laven­tille, where she grew up, and end in the vicin­i­ty of Nel­son Street, where she would go on to spend most of her adult­hood.Mo­hammed's up­ward tra­jec­to­ry could have been stymied not on­ly by pover­ty (she has told the sto­ry of hav­ing on­ly two pairs of un­der­wear as a child–one she would wear while the oth­er dried be­hind the re­frig­er­a­tor–and of liv­ing off the small in­come from sell­ing her moth­er's pre­serves), but al­so be­cause she was un­suc­cess­ful in the Com­mon En­trance ex­am, now called SEA.

Thrown in­to the world of work from the age of 12, Mo­hammed used what she had, the op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn. She learnt how to sell and says that she de­vel­oped a knack for busi­ness from her moth­er. She be­came well-known in her com­mu­ni­ty, some­thing that would over time, earn her a loy­al cus­tomer-base. Faith and prayer be­came the foun­da­tion of all her en­deav­ours.

Mo­hammed moved on from pre­serves in her late teens to sell­ing corn soup and souse on the Laven­tille taxi stand. She would sell cup sizes priced at $1, $2 and $3. With the knowl­edge of how to stretch a dol­lar, she saved the prof­it from this ven­ture, and used it to buy three food carts, one of which she used her­self, while she rent­ed the oth­er two. This was the gen­e­sis of Ar­lene'sFried Chick­en (AFC)–fried chick­en breast bone and fries for five dol­lars–a pop­u­lar meal among the school chil­dren from East­ern Boys and Girls' schools on George and Nel­son Street.

Once off the ground, Mo­hammed would sea­son her meat and leave the rest of the prepa­ra­tion to her moth­er and em­ploy­ees, so she could de­vote some time to study. She at­tend­ed the El Do­ra­do Youth camp, where she spe­cialised in hair­dress­ing, and once she had saved enough again, she opened a hair sa­lon called Re­flec­tions, on the cor­ner of Nel­son and Duke streets.The sa­lon was fol­lowed by a 24-hour mi­ni mart, and then a for­ay in­to sell­ing cloth­ing pur­chased in New York, first from an open-air stall in a car park on Up­per Char­lotte Street and then to a small cloth­ing store she opened near­by on the same street.Mo­hammed just kept ex­pand­ing. As her in­come in­creased, she would save a larg­er per­cent­age of it. She pur­chased a build­ing on Nel­son Street to turn in­to hard­ware, but even­tu­al­ly turned them in­to a set of apart­ments. She ex­pand­ed AFC in­to a chick­en shop to raise the cap­i­tal need­ed for an­oth­er ma­jor in­vest­ment–the pur­chase of a derelict mall, on Char­lotte Street, that she would re­fur­bish and dub Ar­lene's Mall, ini­tial­ly home to 18 booths rang­ing from spe­cial­i­ties in hair, nails and cloth­ing.

Mo­hammed says that the mall, like all her oth­er busi­ness ven­tures, was a dream she had to nur­ture and feed with pa­tience while her plans came to­geth­er. Speak­ing in a re­cent CNC3 in­ter­view, Mo­hammed ex­plained that no one in her im­me­di­ate cir­cle saw the po­ten­tial in buy­ing a build­ing in such a state of dis­re­pair. "I thank God so much," she said, "I didn't lis­ten to the friends I had at the time. I pressed on be­cause even though they were say­ing that, I was see­ing the cor­ri­dors, I was see­ing the booths, I was see­ing the peo­ple walk­ing down the cor­ri­dors. I had the vi­sion, I had the faith and be­lief that God would open that door for me."The pur­chase and re­fur­bish­ment of Ar­lene's Mall was fol­lowed by the man­age­ment of what Mo­hammed re­named Aaliyah's Mall, af­ter one of her four chil­dren, and then the man­age­ment of A and A Mall. Mo­hammed now has over 144 rental clients and her busi­ness con­cerns stretch across re­al es­tate, food, hair­dress­ing, re­tail cloth­ing and oth­er con­sumer goods.

De­spite spec­u­la­tion that has come to the at­ten­tion of Mo­hammed, that she ei­ther won the lot­tery or had to be in­volved in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty to achieve as much as she has, Mo­hammed in­sists that it is prayer and faith in God that made her suc­cess­ful. "I know about a bas­ket," she said to CNC3 in­ter­view­er Janelle Bernard, "I know bout breast bone and chips, I know bout shop, clothes, do­ing hon­est things to achieve what it is I have to­day."While al­so cred­it­ing sound fi­nan­cial ad­vice and ser­vices from East­ern Cred­it Union, Mo­hammed says that her suc­cess can al­so be at­trib­uted to the ex­ten­sions of her spir­i­tu­al be­liefs–giv­ing back to her com­mu­ni­ty and be­ing a reg­u­lar tither at a church she at­tends in Laven­tille. Though a busy en­tre­pre­neur and hands-on par­ent to her four chil­dren, aged 19, 17, and two who are un­der the age of ten, Mo­hammed al­so still makes time for oth­er pas­sions, and us­es her love for singing to com­pose songs, be­fore record­ing them on CD.Mo­hammed be­lieves that her most poignant mes­sage, ex­pe­cial­ly for young peo­ple from de­prived com­mu­ni­ties is that de­spite chal­lenges, there is hope for the achieve­ment of their dreams. But, she says, it will re­quire that they try and like her, be de­ter­mined in their ef­forts. Mo­hammed al­so em­pha­sis­es the im­por­tance of sav­ing "as small as it is," to­wards fi­nanc­ing the small steps it takes to climb one's way to the top.