PEACE THROUGH BUSINESS®

Nazila Kakar is realizing the dream of being a woman business owner in Afghanistan. She’s tapped into the agricultural resources of the country to build a food company, producing yogurt, cheese, butter, james, and pickles. Her mom made jams and pickles when she was young, and it’s been satisfying to transform that into a sustainable business.

Like many women business owners in Afghanistan, she faces challenges acquiring credit and battling bias against women in the workforce. She’s sought to differentiate her business through natural, high quality offerings and a growing reputation with her customers. Along with growing her business to other cities in Afghanistan, her aim is to inspire young girls with a message of focusing on their vision to be independent and to fight for what they want.

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Yvette Muhayemariya is a survivor of the Rwandan genocide, losing many members of her family. As time went on, she found a sense of purpose in creating her own identity and owning her future by starting her own business.

It grew out of struggle she experienced when building her home, realizing a need for businesses that sold construction materials. While her business has grown, it’s had a set of challenges such as ensuring suppliers deliver on time and taking a chance on customers by extending credit. She plans to expand her supplier base as part of her efforts to keep the business growing.

Her success is an example to her three children, showing her daughter a woman can succeed by working hard and being focused on her goals. She hopes her sons will respect women and understand girls can succeed, just like boys.

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Agnes Muhanus owns Nova Coffee, which is grown in the volcanic regions of Rwanda. As a mom to four children, she is an example to her family about how a woman can build a successful business and make her own path.

Her husband offers advice on agriculture, and is sometimes needed for obtaining credit due to existing cultural attitudes about lending solely to women. Yet the business is going strong, selling coffee to European, Asian, and American markets.

The coffee off season doesn’t stop her, as she sells jewelry from a network of suppliers who hand make the merchandise to support their families. In this and her coffee business, she is constantly supporting women who want to get ahead and build themselves up.

She’s open about the challenges of having a women-led business in Rwanda, but wants to keep speaking out and empowering women in her country to chase their dreams.

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From an early age Umutasha Ruzibuka developed an eye for clothing and fashion from a family housemaid in Rwanda. As a little girl she was able to model to experience how clothing can powerfully shape how one feels.

This experience stuck with her, and she would develop a passion for clothing and helping other women by founding Ki-pepeo Kids Clothing, a children’s apparel store with a focus on fashionable options for kids and empowering female employees to build greater autonomy with their career.

She mentors her team in tailoring skills and helping them find success in the workforce, as many women in Rwanda must really push to make their way into a professional industry. Ruzibuka also has ambitions to grow the business beyond the small group of tailors into a larger operation with a full-blown factory.

Anyone can buy Ki-pepeo Kids clothing online, but she hopes to make it them available through Amazon. It’s part of her desire to build a sustainable company that empowers women with confidence and long-term skills for success.

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Rachel Kakize saw a problem that needed to be fixed. After high school she started working in the medical field and noticed a regular lack of essential supplies available. She was inspired to take action by forming her own medical supply company, PrimeMad Technologies LTD.

As a Rwanda businesswoman, she speaks about the hope she has for her country and the role she is playing in helping to rebuild the nation's structure after the horrors of the genocide. As a businesswoman, she is playing a leading role and hopes to inspire future generations. A wife and mother of three sons, she’s committed to being a part of a peaceful and successful Rwanda.

To build up the success of her company, she continually works at creating a more efficient supply chain and building long-standing relationships with her contractors. When it comes to future growth, her ambition is to have her own manufacturing plant to close the time gap in ordering equipment and having it delivered to customers in a timely manner. As the medical field grows in Rwanda, she plans to be a part of a better future.

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Menizha Wafeqh was raised by her parents to believe that women could be strong, confident, and achieve great things. She’s put that ethos to work in her life as an advocate for women in her native Afghanistan, who often face discrimination. Wafeqh is the co-founder and president of Afghanistan Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which supports women in their entrepreneurial pursuits. She has spent almost two decades working with governments to assist women in business, leading seminars for how women can forge ahead, and training men to be allies.

Her journey saw the struggles that women still face in Afghanistan, with many men she’s encountered still believing that women don’t belong in the working world or shouldn’t have equal access. Much of her work involves debunking this thinking misconceptions regarding Islam and the role of women.

Through the PEACE THROUGH BUSINESS PROGRAM®, she has been an ally for training women to pursue business opportunities in Afghanistan and changing the narrative about what women can achieve. Her goal is that Afghan women will continue to move from just being economic beneficiaries to economic actors who drive change and opportunity.

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The start to young Jeannette Gakwandi’s life was beyond tragic - her parents and siblings were killed in the Rwanda genocide. It was the remainder of her fractured family who sustained her and nourished her to find a path forward.

While much of her story is painful, Gakwandi’s inner strength is palpable in this interview. One way to overcome her experience was a vow one day build a house of her own. Her ambition then grew to make this skill a livelihood, slowly and meticulously learning the trade of construction and building her own business. Her company now has several employees and contractors working to advance housing in Rwanda.

Being a woman in housing construction has come with many challenges — some men have refused to work with her, and she must continually assert herself to keep the business moving forward. It took a lot of scrambling for resources and learning skills on the fly, but today she has a steady business with an eye towards further expansion. Her message to young girls is to not be afraid to tackle industries that have traditionally been closed to them.

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Chantal Munanayire lost her mother, sisters, and other members of her family in the Rwanda genocide. Yet she was determined to build a life and overcome the tragedy, doing so in a society where women have to work extremely hard to enter into business and entrepreneurship.

In this episode she describes how a typical happenstance, the need to fix her car, became the catalyst she needed to move forward with building a business. Chantal became a female repair garage owner — extremely rare in Rwanda at the time. This was the start of a remarkable turning point in her life, as she went on to build a successful business and was elected as the first woman president of the Rwanda Garage Association.

Chantal was also honored by the American Embassy as a Woman of Courage for her entrepreneurial contributions and leadership. She remains committed to being a model to low-income women and girls, who can look up to a powerful and strong example of leadership and courage.

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Hasina Aimaq’s father died in Afghanistan, leaving his wife and a daughter. Girls were not allowed to go to school or study under the Taliban. Her mother took her to a house who taught children and always hid Hasina under her burqa since both would have been killed if discovered. She talks about how men feared educating women because “they might not listen to us anymore.” Finally, when the Taliban left, she was able to go to school. her mother sat outside the school gate all day for 12 years, waiting for Hasina. At one point, she raised her burqa to see and “they beat her with wooden things.” Hasina says her mother is her role model. Hasina now has a food business, specializing in selling desserts her mother makes.

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Judith Mutamba recalls at a very early age losing her father and four siblings due to the uprising in Rwanda. She wanted to be in Rwanda and wanted Rwanda to be free, so at a young age she was one of the first to to join the fighting. She heard that if you got training, the instructor would make you his wife. They thought she had served in the military in Uganda, but instead she trained herself and “added some age” to her 14 years so she would be accepted. It was guerilla fighting with hand-to-hand combat. Eventually she became company commander and then captain. After the war, she was the only woman who received a medal and was the best in the training and one of the best fighters in the infantry. She always competed with men. After leaving the military, she started a church in Rwanda with now more than 100 people. Through the church, Judith trains women to empower themselves. Judith also owns a tour company called Amazing Eco-Africa. Today, she knows “we are all Rwandans.”

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