Women Entrepreneur Incubator Project

I will be traveling to Tanzania in September to work with aspiring women business owners. With the support of AfricAid, my work will center around coaching women and girls in business, entrepreneurship, and social enterprise. In an area of the world where education can make the difference between life and death, this project aims to foster business skills and entrepreneurial endeavors as a sustainable model for economic stability for the women of Tanzania. This is a pilot project, with the intention of scalability in the future. 

I am turning 50 years old in June. I admit I struggled with that. One day while contemplating the reality of what was happening with me, I made the decision then and there to embrace my circumstance as a middle-aged woman and celebrate what I intend to be the halfway point of my life. Other than the trite call to "grow old gracefully", how was I to embrace the inevitable? A big party?...Perhaps. A trip to Europe?...Fabulous. Accomplishing something dramatic, challenging, and life changing?...Absolutely! I decided my Median Year would be celebrated by creating and accomplishing something magnificent; including 1. A demanding physical challenge 2. a foreign land 3. the opportunity to significantly enhance the quality of someone else's life.

I've had an interesting and full life to this point. What would make the second half equally fulfilling? Sharing what I have with others who haven't had all of my blessings and advantages seems like the next obvious step. I searched extensively for a forum where my offering would be met with open arms - not as easy as one would think. I had all but given up on the perfect match when a woman in my networking group gave a presentation in which she told of her trip to Tanzania where she hiked Mt. Kilimanjaro. That's it!!!  My Tanzania connection did a virtual introduction to her sister who lives there, and she connected me to a former Peace Corp buddy working with an NGO providing education to women and girls. They had me at education, but after connecting with the organization leaders and finding out they have programs for leadership and business skills, and are interested in developing projects in support of entrepreneurial and social enterprise initiatives, I was hooked.

So now I embark on this journey to take the resources cultivated through my life to women and girls in a part of the world where economic equality, as well as financial and social stability, are hard to come by. Together with the Africaid staff, I am bringing my background in human service management, education, business, entrepreneurship, and digital marketing to create a program for young women to develop skills in business ownership and social enterprise management. Through this initiative, participants will demonstrate business skills consistent with their goals and enhance their ability to take advantage of opportunities in business. AfricAid's established track record in the education of girls in Tanzania, offers the perfect platform on which to launch a women's business incubation project. 

AfricAid is a nonprofit organization that supports girls' education in Africa in order to provide young women with the opportunity to transform their own lives and the futures of their communities. As a result of AfricAid's work, hundreds of young women have become teachers, nurses, and doctors. AfricAid's scholars have been accepted to leadership training programs around the world, have started their own initiatives, and are now mothers to the next generation of educated girls. The result is an exponential increase in education for young women and a powerful cycle of reaching, teaching, and empowering that is changing lives across Africa.