A Reality Check for Female Entrepreneurs

Jory Des Jardins — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 21:15:42 -0600

Nobody offers doses of entrepreneurial truth quite like Guy Kawasaki, his post this week about Kabul-based entrepreneur Aziza Mohmmand made me think a bit about my own gripes about being an entrepreneur. Sure, I've got to deal with wearing many hats and with uncertainty, but I wouldn't say that beng an entrepreneur is particularly life-threatening. Aziza has a different story.

On some levels, Aziza has been lucky; she was born into a well-off family. While most women in Afghanistan were not allowed to even go to school, Aziza earned a Master's degree and was a teacher. But once the Taliban clamped down on her courses, she, too, found herself in exile, her skills of no use in her native country until an interim government took over.

Today, she runs Moscau, a nonprofit in Kabul, from which her soccer ball and leather goods manufacturing business grew. Her business has become a bastion for female employees to gain training and a paycheck.

Aziza's business isn't the most profitable one in the world--this year Moscau sold about 14,000 soccer volleyballs, and the leather goods business is good but miniscule compared to U.S. manufacturing standards. The highest-skilled employees earn the equivalent of $150 per month. But she's provided 260 female household breadwinners with a living.

One of my heroes in women's leadership, Linda Alepin, co-founded the Global Women's Leadership Network for the purpose of connecting women like Aziza with the skills to make social change happen in their nations.

Every year, Alepin and her colleagues offer an intensive two-week entrepreneur course for women leaders, who are typically funded through donations. Just in the past two years students of the GWLN program have accomplished the following:

Established a company to preserve the South Pacific coral reefs.

Advanced Turkish creations into the world market, allowing Turkish people to support themselves through their art, crafts and designs while preserving traditional arts and crafts.

Launched the Cardea Center for Women in Santa Clara, California, which will offer essential services to women throughout the community.

Purchase of property for 100 Ugandan widows providing shelter and economic sustainability.

Provided technical resources to connect thirty NGOs to improve and expand vital services for Nogales, Sonora, Mexico.

When you look at this kind of impact, it's difficult to feel sorry for having a challenging month. Challenging to whom? I live in a country that supports growing businesses, particularly those run by women. We may not get an equal portion of VC funding compared to male entrepreneurs, we may have a tougher time incorporating childbearing during our earning years, but we have the option of effecting change in the world while economically empowering ourselves.

Jory Des Jardins also blogs at Pause.

BlogHer - A Reality Check for Female Entrepreneurs - Comments

A Reality Check for Female Entrepreneurs