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What can a business do to support womens rights in other countries?

April 7, 2011 By
Soviet poster celebrates women's right to vote...

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I must say I am really enjoying Nikki P’s 30 day blog challenge. It is day 10 today and if you missed yesterday’s post here it is . I did struggle with that one and today’s challenge is still about SEO. I have to come up with a title heading using words that folk would use to find me use it as a basis for today’s post.

I have to declare right now that I have cheated with this heading. Why and How? There is a neat plugin that shows you what word/s or questions folk typed into their search engine in order to arrive at your blog and someone found me by typing this question in their search engine so I thought I would try and answer it.

What can a business do to support women’s rights in other countries?

An interesting and really important question to ask. I partly covered this question on day 4 of this challenge in post entitled   how can I help empower women in africa

In answering this question I will work on the assumption that this is a business that is based in the West and has overseas operations and that being the case what can you do

  1. Have a strong Corporate Social  Responsibility Policy (CSR) and if you don’t know what this is I wrote about it here. A well written and thought through CSR policy will influence, your recruitment,  sourcing,  supply chain and perhaps enable you to come up with  a whole new product range
  2. Ensure that you are leading by example
  3. Look at how your business might impact on the very same rights that you want to support
  4. Does the country in which you work have a programme for supporting women’s rights? If so find out how you can support that programme. But avoid being drawn into the politics of the country at all costs after all you are there to do business and are not an activist. The programmes might include education for girls , or business skills for women
  5. Do you view women as consumers of products and services? If so can you create a service or product that enables women to be gainfully employed or is for the benefit of women?
  6. last but not least consider volunteering your time to share/teach business skills with women so that they can start their own enterprises and become financially independent. Financial independence enables women to access health care, education for themselves and their children, the legal and political system (to fight for their rights)

 

I do believe that business presents an usual opportunity to support women’s rights in other countries through the policies that they adapt in regard to recruitment, supply/sourcing chains, the products/services that they provide as well as CSR.  An Online Platform called Business Fights Poverty is a good resource so please do check  it out for further reading

I would be interested in how your answers to the same question, don’t shy leave me a note

 


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Filed Under: Business support for women, Latest Tagged With: , , , ,

#30dayblog- A day in the life of

April 4, 2011 By

Yesterday’s challenge in this 30 day blog challenge was about the Women in my life and today’s challenge  is for me to tell you about my typical working day.

Planting trees at the Villages in Action conference in Uganda

I really do not have a typical working day  but as online enterprise  there are things that I must do daily and these things make up my marketing strategy

My working day begins at 6AM and the things I usually do at this time are

  1. check and send emails
  2. this is also a good time to call suppliers in East Africa,  given the time difference which ranges 2-3 hours depending on the time of the year
  3. I schedule  the day’s tweets
  4. catch up with folk on Facebook, Business fights poverty and LinkedIn
  5. I write the day’s blog post if I didn’t do so the night before
  6. I oversee Africa on the Blog to ensure that there is a post for that day
  7. update the website with either new products or take off those that have sold

Depending on the time of the year normally the first half of the year where it is very quite I will take on additional work outside of Ethnic supplies to make the books balance, so I might be gone working for someone else  for the entire day. Phone calls are mostly scheduled,  so that I can give the caller undivided attention

Other activities taht may fill my day include

  1. reading to upgrade my knowledge and my preferred reading is the Poverty blog on The Guardian
  2. contacting and following up buyers
  3. face to face networking
  4. planing  speaking engagements
  5. Coordinating the work of LTHT
  6. I also collaborate with others so depending on what it is an entire day maybe taken up by such projects or it might be a Skype chat with others involved
  7. looking for new customers

But most of that can change depending on where I am in the world as part of my work involves hands on project management on the ground.

 

 

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Filed Under: Latest, Women in Business Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

The women in my life

April 3, 2011 By

Day 6 of Nikki P’s 30 day blog challenge- day 5 was about writing a guest post for another site. My challenge for today is to write about someone else and tell you how awesome they are!

I often tell you about the women behind the fabulous products at Ethnic Supplies but you never hear about the women that make it all work once the products arrive here in the UK. This post is therefore is about those women. They are many and I can’t possibly name them all!

These women share their skills and time with me to ensure that I can be effective at what I do and for that I am grateful. I can honestly say I could not do what I do without them.

Emang Mwanamke

Freda

 

Freda-I met Freda on Twitter a few months ago and I cannot begin to tell you how generous she has been with her time thus far. Freda is an Electrical Engineer and terribly response job but since meeting her she has found time to cover a speaking engagement for me when I was double booked, help out at exhibitions in London and to promote Ethnic Supplies on line. In Freda I have found someone that is as passionate about I do as I am.

Sarah- I met Sarah on Ecademy nearly 3 years ago and as they say the rest is history. Sarah is a firm advocate of

Sarah

my work and takes ever opportunity to promote my work amongst her huge network online.

Sarah is the Communications Manager at Arrow Light Haulage. Sarah is one of the leading bloggers here in the UK and specializes in Multi Author blogs and when I approached about an idea for all Africa blog she promptly indulged me and the result is  AFRICA ON THE BLOG- Sarah also takes time out of her busy schedule to contribute to this blog

 

BIRDS- this is a team of women who blog on the aptly named  BIRDS ON THE BLOGwhich is led by Sarah. This team are not only fab friends but support my work at LET THEM HELP THEMSELVES  OUT OF POVERTY by ensuring that 2 orphaned GIRLS have access to education. The BIRDS encourage folk in their individual networks to support and donate money for the various community initiatives in Ruhanga SW Uganda  and one such initiative was the distribution of 250 mosquito nets to the folk of Ruhanga



Nathalie Jamois- I met Nat on ecademy as well and she is the brains behind the fab Ethnic Supplies

Nathalie Jamois

website. She is terribly creative and has done her best to help me understand how websites etc work, but the jury is still out as to whether she has succeeded. As well as  knowing her in a professional capacity, she is a personal friend and a confidant. She sometimes drives me mad but I love her to bits

 

 

 

Nawale- I met Nawale when I appeared as a panelist at one of the Business Link road shows for women CALLED what is stopping you. She got in touch and 2 years on she has taken over the sales side of Ethnic Supplies.

 

Foluke Akinlose- I met Foluke 2 years ago when I was nominated for the PRECIOUS AWARDS.

Foluke Akinlose

I am grateful to Foluke as she uses every opportunity  to promote my work including inviting me to contribute to her latest book The PRECIOUS book of quotes

 

 

 


Irina

Irina- I met Irina through Nat- I have never met her in person as she lives in Russia but I am proud to count her amongst my good friends and we have been known to spend hours chatting on skype. Irina is the brains behind the design of this website as well as the LTHT charity webiste and I grateful to her for being so generous as a friend and for sharing her skills with me

 

 

 

Ces

Ces is the brains behind Brand Buzz. She too is an avid advocate for my work and has used her expertise in branding to develop a whole new look for the LTHT website. I was pleasantly surprised when her and lovely hubby dropped in one evening to understand what I do and how they can help, bearing in mind that they lived in Liverpool at the time.

 

 

 

 

Grace

 

Grace is a fellow Ugandan and I met her on UgPulse an online for Ugandans. Grace has been there since the early days and is one of the people I turn to when stuff doesn’t make sense. She is very grounded and calm even when the rest of the world is flapping. She is generous with her time and has been called on many times than I can remember to represent Ethnic Supplies.

 

They are so many women that make my life easy, I would be here all day if I tried to name them all. You know who you are girlies, I am grateful to you all ladies!

 

 

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