This week…wowza! I thought I would step back and get a little storyteller on you. I am convinced now more than ever, we need to come together through our stories to build a world in which we can all be proud to live.
I had been searching for a way to use the experience and skills I have been given to their highest and best and let me tell you, it was nearly paralyzing. I was so determined to make an enormous, durable, measurable impact that I could hardly get my mind around the what and the how.
When I think about some of the work that I have done to date
- Working at a girl’s school in Uganda with motivated, albeit under-resourced, young women determined to succeed.
- Working with women coming out of prostitution in Rwanda at a capacity building project–I saw first-hand how skills building and dignity go hand in hand to create a better life.
- Working with widows in Indonesia building culturally appropriate capacity so they could care for their children and rebuild their community after the tsunami.
Three examples of many experiences that have directly highlighted the fact that when women succeed, communities thrive. I know this, have seen it and there is now substantial research to concretely support this assertion. Growing, successful business is a key leveraging factor for economic development. As such, women-owned businesses have the power to fruitfully benefit the female founders, their families and their communities at an unparalleled rate.
Kebon is here, focused on the coffee industry, to do just that. Champion women who are growing, processing and selling our coffee.
I hope you will join me!
~Winter