Bringing global opportunity to women-owned businesses worldwide.
Are you running a business? Then you might want to offer your skills to emerging entrepreneurs the world over. Find out about the difference Bpeace (Bpeace blog) is making in our businesses and the lives of many Afghans — leading to peace building in Afghanistan.
Learn more here.
Photo credit here (related to Bpeace)
Posted by: Laurel Delaney
One of the best online resources for learning about expanding a business internationally is globalEDGE™: Your source for global business knowledge.
Created by the International Business Center at Michigan State University, globalEDGE™ is a knowledge web-portal that connects international business professionals worldwide to a wealth of information, insights, and learning resources on global business activities.
globalEDGE™ offers self assessment tools to identify your exporting potential, guided learning modules with case studies and narration and a comprehensive list of answers to frequently asked international business questions.
Visit: globalEDGE
Posted by: Laurel Delaney
Our sister organization, The Global Small Business Blog, under its parent organization GlobeTrade.com, just published their latest monthly e-newsletter, “Borderbuster,” (Issue No. 116 – sign up here) and it is only fitting for this blog post to mention the quote that was featured under the Wind Behind Your Sail section:
“We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.” ~Winston Churchill
That said, two years ago, Eunice Mwongera (pictured left) decided to grow her Hillside Green Growers and Exporters Company, a family-owned fruit and vegetable business. A graduate of Nairobi University and former finance officer at the Kenyan Ministry of Agriculture, Ms. Mwongera, applied for the USDA Norman E. Borlaug International Agricultural Science and Technology (Borlaug) Fellowship Program.
Within a year of completing her fellowship, Ms. Mwongera had successfully applied many of the business skills and concepts she learned. Not only had she succeeded in increasing export markets for Hillside Green from three to seven countries, but Mwongera also started her own poultry, rabbit, and fish farming operation. In addition, Mwongera modified her company’s strategic and export plans, aligned Hillside Green’s food safety standards with international industry standards, and adopted new technologies.
Learn more about Ms. Mwongera’s success story here and visit the Borlaug Fellowship Program here.
So back to Churchill’s quote above, yes, Mwongera is giving back after receiving U.S. training. We are delighted to know and we wish her continued success with her business expansion initiatives.
Related article:
Eunice Mwongera of Hillside Green Growers Is Featured in World Bank’s Quarterly Publication
Photo courtesy here.
Posted by: Laurel Delaney
Below are three places to study online for personal enrichment and professional success. Most of these are complimentary.
1. Open Culture (www.openculture.com)
• Free cultural and educational media on the web.
2. Harvard University Extension School (www.extension.harvard.edu/openlearning)
• Free, noncredit courses are offered online by Harvard Extension School’s Open Learning Initiative. Featuring Harvard faculty, the courses are open to the public.
3. Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org)
• With a library of over 2,400 videos covering everything from arithmetic to physics, finance, and history and 125 practice exercises, Khana Academy is on a mission to help you learn whatever you want, whenever you want, at your own pace.
We wrote about learning online for FREE at our big sister organization – The Global Small Business Blog – who sponsors us!
Illustration credit: Harvard University Extension School
Posted by: Laurel Delaney
Read one woman’s journey – Sikh-American activist and filmmaker Valarie Kaur (pictured) — discovers how challenging the status quo exacts a toll. In it, she works to heal her divided nation.
It requires humanizing our opponents so that we work to transform them, rather than destroy and replace them. I now believe that the way we make change is just as important as the change we make. I would never have learned this without falling into the whirlwind.
Read: Leaping into the Whirlwind
Posted by: Laurel Delaney
Nancy Schuring of New Jersey’s (U.S.A.) Devon Fine Jewelry fell in love with Madagascar while gem hunting. As a result, she started a scholarship foundation — The Devon Foundation — to help its people.
During the summer of 2008, Nancy Schuring, Debbie Swinney, and Joe Portale traveled to distant Madagascar for an educational and gem-hunting experience. Our guide was Jim Fiebig, a Gemstone and Jewelry Industry expert. We encountered a fascinating country with striking landscapes, incredible gems, and lovely citizens. The gentle Malagasy people are cheerful and optimistic despite their severe poverty. These brave people touched our hearts and inspired a creative and compassionate response.
Take a peek at their Namakoo (means “my friend” in the Malagasy language) collection (pictured above). All purchases raise funds for the foundation.
There are boundless opportunities to help people in our world, especially in Madagascar. Learn how here.
Photo credit here.
Posted by: Laurel Delaney
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) along with several multinational companies are launching the Women in Trade Initiative to increase the participation of Pakistani women in the international trade sector.
“This initiative is part of the United States’ commitment to the people of Pakistan to support women’s empowerment,” said Dr Marilyn Wyatt, wife of US Ambassador Cameron Munter, at the launch of the Women in Trade Initiative, said a press release received …”
Learn more here.
Photo credit (bottom): U.S. Department of State Blog
Posted by: Laurel Delaney
The Jack Welch Management Institute offers the Jack Welch MBA online program that is truly global, and truly accessible around the globe. You can participate in classes from any place, in any time zone. No matter where in the world you reside, the JWMI will literally meet you where you are.
Learn more here. Classroom demonstration here.
Illustration credit here.
Posted by: Laurel Delaney
Burqa
Niqab
Fascinating piece — worthy of a read to merely understand the difference between a burqa (top) and a niqab (bottom) and the origin of the ‘faceless Muslim woman.’
So why all the fuss, on both sides of this question, about a tiny minority of women who wear odd-looking dress in a country (France) that is the world’s creative headquarters for odd-looking fashion? One explanation is cultural. In French culture, the eyes are supposed to meet in public, to invite a conversation or just to exchange a visual greeting with a stranger. Among Muslims, the eyes of men and women are not supposed to meet, even by chance, and especially not in public or between strangers.
Read the entire article, “The French, the Veil and the Look.“ And by the way, France is not welcoming the burqa.
Posted by: Laurel Delaney
Gayle Tzemach Lemmon writes a powerful opinion piece for CNN: “Why think small when it comes to women in poor nations?“ I love this commentary for the truth it speaks. Please make sure you read it. Here’s an uplifting snippet:
And in Afghanistan, famous for being among the toughest environments for women to thrive, I met a young woman who dared to turn down a well-paying job offer filled with perks from an international aid organization in order to start a business consultancy that she believed would create jobs for herself and many others. “If I go and work with an international agency, they will give me a very high salary, but it is just for me and my family, it will not support other people,” Kamila Sidiqi told me at the time, in 2005. “If I work to start my own company, I will train a lot of people, I will help a lot of people.”
Start your own international business to lift your country out of poverty and into a thriving economic nation — one proud of women entrepreneurs who create jobs and help their countries grow.
And thank you Gayle for writing this piece! Readers … please promise me you will take time out of your busy schedule to visit Gayle’s site. We welcome your comments!
Photo credit here.
Posted by: Laurel Delaney
