Women business owners partner to bring prosperity and peace

QANDI AMAKI made history when she became the first woman elected to the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce Industries organization. Teddy Gacinya started the City Infant School in 1994. It was the first school to open in Rwanda after the Genocide against the Tutsi. Last year she was appointed to represent Rwanda as a Senator. Immy Camaradi, a serial entrepreneur, operating businesses such as petrol stations and coffee wash stations in Rwanda, in a few short years now has profits of $200,000. In 2007, Taj Sirat employed 28 at her volleyball manufacturing company in Afghanistan. Today, she has 300 employees and revenues were up 70 percent in 2011. She is exporting soccer balls to Germany and working on getting her balls in the U.S.While these women have vastly different stories on the road to success, their paths intersect at the Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women (IEEW). They are graduates of the Peace through Business Program, which is based on the theory that a country that is more economically sound has a greater capacity for peace.The six-year old program, the brainchild of Dr. Terry Neese, founder and CEO of the non-profit IEEW, was created to educate women who have suffered oppression and whose homelands have been devastated by war, genocide and poverty. Each year, 60 women from Afghanistan and Rwanda get assistance in creating and running their businesses through 8 weeks of basic business education (like accounting, marketing, and business plan development) in their own country, and 30 graduates (15 from each country) are selected to participate in the business bootcamp at Northwood University in Cedar Hills, Texas for three weeks of leadership development training, as well as mentoring from women business owners who run similar or related businesses in the U.S.Changing livesThe Peace Through Business program boasts an 85 percent success rate. Eighty-five percent of the 250 women who have enrolled in the program are still in business, compared to the 50 percent failure rate of the first year for small businesses in the U.S. Furthermore, with the program’s requirement that participants “pay it forward”, each one teaches one, by sharing what they learned with other women back home, through the Peace Through Business Alumnae Association’s training classes or informal, one-on-one mentoring.It all began when the U.S. State and Education Departments reached out to Neese, whose credentials include being founder and past president of Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), past national president of National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO), past Distinguished Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), and owner of several successful businesses. She was asked to create a program for women business owners in Afghanistan. After a one week trip there, she was convinced. “I thought, maybe this is what I’ve worked for all my life. I had spent time in HR showing women how to ratchet up the corporate ladder, helping women get ahead. It occurred to me that I was supposed to pay back my blessing by helping women in war torn countries,” says Neese, who knows what poverty feels like. She went from being the daughter of farmers, growing up without indoor plumbing, no college education and just $606 in her pocket as a single mom to starting a personnel agency, Terry Neese Personnel Service nearly 40 years ago.Neese came up with the concept for the program, and with a database of some 200,000 women business owners in the U.S., she had plenty of women to tap to serve as mentors. The eight week, in-country program delves into financial basics, marketing, promotion and selling, operations management, human resources, and culminates with the creation of an in-depth business plan designed specifically for their business that is submitted electronically and reviewed by the Institute staff in the U.S. Those that are chosen to come to the U.S., spend a week at the bootcamp; one week of mentoring that includes living and working with an American woman business owner, and a week attending the International Women’s Economic Summit in Washington, D.C.Up close and personalThe one week of mentoring is a pivotal part of the program. The women work one-on-one on how to implement the business plan, ramp up marketing, share financials, as well as practical tactics for approaching a bank for a loan, dealing with employees, or hearing about the benefit of networking with local officials, other business owners and influential groups.Marion Marshall is big on the sisterhood, that’s just who she is. When a girlfriend passed along an email about the opportunity to be a mentor, there was no hesitation.“I started selecting books for Chantal before she came,” says Marion Marshall of her mentee from Rwanda.Chantal, who lost her brother during the Genocide, lived in the bush during that time. The 30-year old event planner was a perfect match for Marshall, creative director of Absolutely Blooming!, a Dallas based full service event planning and design production firm.“She had never been in a paper store like Party City. She got a chance to go to a gathering of the International Special Events Society and to meet a lot of people there. I happened to have a wedding the weekend she was here, so she got to see what I do – everything from dealing with customers, to doing the flowers,” says Marshall.A bond was formed. “We email and Facebook. What sticks out in Marshall’s mind? Chantal could only take so much stuff home. “She left her entire wardrobe here to make room for the books. She said she could get more clothes, but not more books.”But learning is a two-way street. Jan Hill, creator of Eden Salon in Oklahoma City taught her mentee, a salon owner in Rwanda, new techniques to enhance her spa services back home, so that she could return and teach them to her staff. She also shared secrets for recruiting talent and worked with her to figure out how to obtain essential equipment she needed to take her business to another level.“I learned a lot about Rwanda and the culture there. These women have gone through so much. They cobble together two or three things to make a living and support a lot of people. They are poised, gracious,” says Hill who is inspired by the women she has met.Replicating success“Taj says she never would have run for office or done a business plan if it hadn’t been for the program. She hadn’t thought through how to take her business to the next level until the program,” says Neese.Such success is confirmation that Peace Through Business is on point. Now, the challenge is taking the program to the next level. “What we are doing can be replicated. We have gotten calls to start programs in Haiti, Kenya, Uganda, Morocco, India,” says Neese.If she has her way, she’ll be able to say yes once again to the call to help women business owners. There’s no lack of desire on Neese’s part. It comes down to resources. The organization does not receive public funding and relies on the private sector. “We are blessed to have the supporters that we do, but other corporations need to step up to the plate. We’re a proven success and our model can be replicated any where,” says Neese.Five years from now she would like to have expanded such that the program is in five countries, and that their alumnae in Afghanistan and Rwanda will have extended their teaching beyond their communities into provinces and rural areas, says Neese.The impact could be huge. “We believe if you teach a woman or man to fish, they will teach others, especially women because we are talkers. When you educate a woman, you educate her community. When you educate a a woman, you educate a nation,” says Neese.Finally, she adds, “It’s hard to be at war when you’re partnering and working together to build a civil society. If we’re teaching economic development and creating jobs, we’ll have a more peaceful world.”

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Women business owners partner to bring prosperity and peace