Part of the plan for our two-week trip to South Africa was to get out into the community to see the real country. The premise was that it is hard to advise women entrepreneurs when you don’t have an understanding of the environment in which they operate. I completely agree. When I found out that one of our field trips was to a high school, I wasn’t sure I got the connection. After being there, I get it now.

The school we visited was Matthew Goniwe Memorial High School in Khayelitsha, a large township in Cape Town. If you want to see it for yourself, go to YouTube as there are many touching videos there.

The first thing I learned is that the word “township” refers to an informal settlement comprising houses made out of cardboard scraps and whatever building materials can be found. Being there made coming home to my 5 bedroom, 2-story house feel…well…gluttonous.

Starting out our discussion, none of the kids knew where Washington, D.C. was though most had heard of the United States. It was clear, however, that they all knew what H.I.V. was and how to prevent it judging by the posters on the school walls. One gentleman was even sporting a rubber bracelet a la the “Livestrong” model that touted “safe sex = abstinence.” He told me that he had many girlfriends, but then showed me his bracelet. He wants to do accounting (which I think is their generic term for math) and I just bet he will.

The students are part of a South African program called Youth Enterprise Society (Y.E.S.). The goal of this program is to give the children skills they need to “become masters of their own destinies” by launching into entrepreneurship, furthering their education, or finding a corporate job (which isn’t so easy in a country that bears an unofficial 35% unemployment rate!). The day we visited they were working on their Life Skills module and exploring how to make good choices. They worked diligently on their projects with us looking on (and sometimes asking questions) and then, at the end, presented their work to the group.

We left them with a few words of encouragement, and even taught them to WooHoo.

I am not sure what I expected from these kids – raised in extreme poverty in a country where the other extreme - wealth - is right around the corner. Regardless of my expectations, they blew me away with their smiles and positive attitudes. They all wanted to get their photo taken with the kids in our party (see my daughter and fellow traveler Ciana Robinson in the picture) and showered us with hugs as we left. We have plans to find ways to work with them in the future and at some point, I’ll have to go back and pick up the piece of my heart that I left behind. Truly life changing.

PRESS RELEASE

Damascus, MD - A group of Maryland-based women entrepreneurs recently returned from South Africa after completing three workshops in different regions of the country for women entrepreneurs there. Part of a program that began in April 2008 when 12 carefully-selected and diverse women were sent to the U.S. for a three week program, these workshops are designed to provide assistance and business development to both aspiring and current Information and Communications Technology (ICT) or ICT-enabled women owned businesses.

As a part of their two-week trip, the US-based women met with the original South African program participants, who now call themselves Femtrepreneurs, to hear how their experiences in the States have impacted their businesses and to receive additional mentoring from their U.S. counterparts. All of the women, without exception, have seen positive and dramatic changes in their businesses and expansion of their vision.

“It was phenomenal,” said Julie Lenzer Kirk, President and CEO of Path Forward International and the lead instructor for the group. “In just the few short months following the US portion of our program, these smart ladies have transformed themselves, their businesses, and are beginning to impact their communities as well.”

The program, which is coordinated by Meridian International Center, was created by a think tank of U.S. and S.A. women entrepreneurs and developers from a team of organizations represented in South Africa by Pretoria’s Maxum Business Incubator at the Innovation Hub and in the U.S. by Multi-national Development of Women in Technology (MDWIT) in Baltimore.

“This program is amazing” said Jill Sawers, Entrepreneurship manager of the Innovation Hub.  “We hoped the women would do well, but we now see that a small investment in the entrepreneurship skills of the best and brightest women can impact hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people in South Africa at an exponential rate.”

With funding from the U.S. State Department’s Educational and Cultural Affairs Bureau and South Africa’s Small Enterprise Development Agency, the program builds on the success of the training by helping the women reach out to others as they launch a supportive international network of women technology entrepreneurs.

Renee Lewis, CEO and Founder of Pensare Group and a member of the U.S.-based leadership team, said that “based on our own real-world experience, we are helping women entrepreneurs to understand their power to leverage their own community networks for growth. This model catapults women into entrepreneurship faster and more successfully than more traditional models.”

The Femtrepreneurs are also independently providing internships, business, and mentoring to those younger and/or less fortunate women in their communities.  Claudia Morrell, Executive Director of MDWIT, stated, “I have always believed that the best way to impact girls and rural women in developing countries is to empower the educated women there to individually reach back and pull their sisters up. It is universal that women want to help others - they just need the resources and knowledge to do it.”

Plans are underway to continue the expansion of the program, both within South Africa and to other regions of the world. “Meridian International Center is proud to be involved in this critically important and relevant program. We look forward to using our dedication to global engagement and our international network of contacts to further expand the impacts of this extraordinary initiative,” said Program Officer Rhianon DeLeeuw.

Please welcome Paula Constantino, my guest blogger this week, to talk about a special (and worthy) project she’s launching that she could use your help with!

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Remember how good you felt when you went out of your way to help someone without even thinking about getting anything in return? Felt really good didn’t it?

In our running here, there and everywhere - often with our cell phones in hand - we sometimes lose sight of how truly wonderful it feels when we reach out and help others, giving back to our community or even more globally. How we give back is a purely individual choice, but we all should give serious consideration to giving back in some way or another.

Personally, my way of giving back is encouraging women to help other women – first through my online resource at www.WomensSupportTeam.com and most recently with our nonprofit at www.1000WomenCanChangeTheWorld.org.

This may seem like a giant leap… but a new paradigm is emerging in the world, embracing the revolution of the heart with the capability to change the world from the roots up. We now know how to position women globally to make a positive impact on the world for generations to come.

By harnessing 21^st century technology, we can inspire, enlighten and empower women worldwide by providing them with practical, useful life and business skills – information that is easy to access, easy to use and easy to pass on to others. With your help – giving back in whatever way you find comfortable – we can enable women to think differently, improve their quality of life, and position women worldwide to co-exist peacefully.

Although we currently have more than 150 women mentors in place to provide the information modules, we can always use more expertise, but we could really use some help to fund the implementation of this worldwide movement, that is starting locally in the Washington, DC area.

You may be wondering how I came up with this movement. As the product of an extremely dysfunctional family that included being victim of sexual abuse, I have always been a survivor. Despite moving up and down the East coast and attending more than twenty-five different schools, I have been determined to not only turn my own life around, but to reach out and help other women be all that they can be.

Having been fully immersed the “the ole’ boy” world during my career as a lawyer, I believe that when we work together to help others succeed – sharing our expertise and wisdom – we all truly do achieve more. And it feels good, too!

Giving back is rewarding on so many levels. As you’re thinking about giving back, you might want to check out our nonprofit and maybe “Chip-In” toward our launch www.1000WomenCanChangeTheWorld.org.

For more information Contact: Paula Constantino paula@w-s-team.com or 410-707-7378

www.1000WomenCanChangeTheWorld.org