HerStory Podcast Series
HerStory Podcast Series
Episode 28: Meet Humu, YCI's HerStart Partnership & Training Coordinator in Ghana
In this episode, Ariel Tozman, HerStart Program & Partnerships Fellow, speaks with Humu Abdul Rahaman about her role as YCI's HerStart Partnership & Training Coordinator in Ghana.
With a passion for women's equality, Humu shares how YCI's HerStart program addresses the economic disparities faced by women in Northern Ghana, creating avenues for empowerment through entrepreneurship and mentorship. She shares real-life success stories, showcasing how HerStart has supported women to start businesses, gain financial independence and ultimately bridge gender inequalities in the region.
Welcome to Youth Challenge International's Hair Start Hair Story podcast series. Youth Challenge International, OYCI launched the Hair Start Innovate the Future Program in 2020 as part of our initiative to advance women's equality globally, our goal is to provide 10,000 women in Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda with the resources and supports they need to successfully launch and grow their social businesses. We are sharing real stories of young women who are leading change in their communities. Y C's , hair Start Innovate. The Future Program is funded in , passed by the government of Canada to progress Canada's feminist International Assistance policy. Learn more@y.org or hair start.org .
Speaker 2:Hello, my name is Ariel Tasman and I'm a programs and partnerships fellow with Youth Challenge International's Hear Start Program in Ghana. Today I'm speaking to Humu Abdul Rahman about her role at YCI Ghana as the partnership and training coordinator. Humu was also one of the mentors for the Hear Start Grow Your Social Venture program. This program helps young women entrepreneurs grow their social and environmental impact through business skills, coaching, mentorship, and training. Humu and I are coming to you from the YCI Ghana office. The first thing I asked her about was the role of the partnership and training coordinator.
Speaker 3:My role entails , um, coordinating trainings, managing the affairs of the trainings, and also being a liaison between , um, YCI has Start and then the partner nor sac . And so , um, basically I do trainings. I conduct trainings , um, on Spark Seed and then Grow. And then also , um, I meet with partners and coordinate the activities of , uh, the partner and then YCI. So basically that's what I do.
Speaker 4:How long have you worked at YCI? As the PPC?
Speaker 3:Yes. I joined , um, YCI in , um, September, 2020. So basically I've worked for three years now. So I'm three years old in my role as A PTC.
Speaker 4:What motivated you to join the Her Start program in Ghana as the PTC?
Speaker 3:Okay, so my motivation for joining , um, YCI has start in Ghana stems from my passion for , um, women empowerment. And so , um, throughout my background , um, I've been working with women to promote , um, gender equality and as well as , uh, some , um, community , um, leaders who are , um, the custodians or people who takes decisions in these communities. And so , um, my passion stems from this working with young women and also , um, seeing that it aligns with , um, the goals of the health that which is also , um, working to bridge , um, gender inequalities in our , um, communities. And so when I saw this opportunity , um, it was a dream come true because , um, I've been waiting to , um, work on a project like this. And it came at the right time, at the right time because I just ended a project which was also , um, on girls education. And then I transitioned to this role, which is very similar to what I was , um, practicing or doing over the past few years in my life. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Can you tell me why the Her Start program in particular is like meaningful to you considering your background in women's empowerment and your passion for female empowerment? Yes ,
Speaker 3:Yes. So it's so meaningful to me in that , um, over here in Northern Ghana, women are not so engaged in economic , um, activities. And so Headstarts , uh, being a program that is focused on ensuring that women are empowered through , um, um, economic , um, activities , um, I saw it as a , uh, an an avenue an avenue for me to , um, contribute to achieving or bridging the inequalities, sorry, bridging the inequalities in , um, in our society. And so Hair Start has contributed a lot in the , in the lives of the young women through entrepreneurship and even those who have not been able to start yet unless they have some basic knowledge about , um, entrepreneurship and how to roll out their businesses in case they start these opportunities or they get the opportunities to launch their businesses.
Speaker 4:How have you seen the real life impact of the program? Can you provide a specific example of what you were talking about in terms of how entrepreneurship has really helped these women empower themselves? Yes. Financially.
Speaker 3:Yes . So , um, since we started this program in, in internally specifically, I can talk of , um, one of the entrepreneurs who , um, is into share , uh, share production. And so , um, through the share value chain. So she has a lot of products that she uses share butter. And so , um, this young woman did not have any , um, economic , um, venture or any business doing, but through the program she's been able to start her own business and she has been able to employ other young women to work with. She's been able to put up a grinding meal in a community that did not have access to grinding meal , where they had to travel for Miles before they could assess it. But through the program, she , she's been able to launch her business. She's been able to even scale up beyond what we even expected. And so I can say she has gained , um, some kind of freedom 'cause I remember very well that like she's now very confident to make her choices and make her decisions. Another young woman who was also being forcefully , um, married, but after getting this opportunity, she was able , like it was out of her will, the marriage was out of her will, but , um, after getting, gaining her economic independence, she was able to take a decision for herself because it was something that she never consented to. So she had to just leave the marriage and then focus on her business. And she's doing so well because in the first place, she wasn't so happy with the man that , um, she was with, but she didn't have an option because she didn't have any source of livelihood then to depend on the man. But now she has her own business and she can take decisions for her, for herself. So she's, she's now very cool with life and like life is so good with her. And so , um, I would say that it has impacted so, so many times on this , um, young women's lives.
Speaker 4:One part of the Her Start program is that there's this mentorship aspect for the women who make it to grow the final stage. Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> . And we were talking about confidence building and you know, obviously also in the first stages you learn about like just social business and that stuff. But specifically with confidence building and like mentoring in general, can you tell us a bit more about that aspect of the program and how it's helped these women?
Speaker 3:Okay. So , um, yes. Uh , so for the young women that we work with, actually some of them are first time , um, like into business. And so we believe that they need people to guide them to , um, take them through the , um, entrepreneurship journey. And so what we do as an organization is to identify people who have some entrepreneurial experiences and skills, and then we assign this young women to , um, to guide them as to how they can , um, work on their businesses in terms of sourcing , um, raw materials. Because we know we , we , we know that some of these young women after venturing into the businesses sometimes face challenges with accessing or , um, getting the resources, the raw materials for their business. And so for some of the mentors, they've been able to guide this young women to create some other networks within , um, their ecosystem to link these girls up to so they can have access to some things like things that could make their businesses , um, a reality. And so , um, this mentors have contributed , um, so much , um, to the success of this young women also , um, mentors like they meet on regular basis Uhhuh. And so through their meetings, the young women are able to channel their challenges to them and they are able to support or guide them , um, through this because they also belong to a group of entrepreneurs. They end up linking this young women to other , um, associations or other people who could also help them beyond the hair start , um, project.
Speaker 4:Where do you think your passion for female empowerment comes from? And if you could tell me just a little bit about like your background, where you're from and Yeah, just like where you think your passion for .
Speaker 3:Okay. So my passion for women empowerment , um, stems from my school, my high school days think when I completed high school , um, there was this network , um, internally called the KAA kaa , um, is an association of comfort alumni. And so in the group, what we were doing was to go around , um, communities to talk to some community , um, members, especially the opinion leaders about the importance of , um, <inaudible> education. We also , um, did some activities around sanitation. Things that could promote good health and wellbeing within , um, the communities, especially the girl child education, because those days, girl child education was a big challenge. It, it still is, but um, comparatively about 20 years ago, I think it was much, much of a challenge than now. And so my passion came from there. And so as we were going through the communities and talking about this, I just felt that, oh no, this is where my passion lies. And so I did business back at senior high school accounting, but through this activities I noticed that no, I want to venture into development work. And so I switched from the accounting field to the development , um, work. And so when I went to university, I read a course on , um, community development. And so I started my journey from there. And right after completion , uh, I had the opportunity to work with comfort , you know, <laugh> ? Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> <laugh> ,
Speaker 4:Full circle.
Speaker 3:Yes. I had an opportunity to work with them and I was working on the entrepreneurship project. Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> . And the focus was on women. So I would say I got my passion from camped and the Common network and also growing up from the northern region, I saw so many challenges. I saw some challenges within the community where , um, women who were not , um, like economically empowered , um, suffering and a whole lot going through lots of challenges. And so , um, growing up to see all this, I just, I found that this is the area I want to work on. And so that is how come I am in this fold .
Speaker 5:Thank you so much for talking to me. Hum .
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 6:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us today and learning about how you challenge International has partnered with young women to advance gender equality globally and create a social entrepreneurship ecosystem with a positive impact for all. If you enjoy this hairstyle, innovate the Future podcast episode, please subscribe and share our episodes on social media. A special thanks to the fellows that volunteer their time in Ghana, Tanzania, and Uganda, who help create these episodes. Y C's has that innovate. The future and fellowship programs are funded through the government of Canada's volunteer corporation program, providing skilled Canadians opportunities to volunteer with global partners and advanced Canada's feminist international assistance policy. Join us and thousands of young people around the globe creating a better future together. Learn more@yci.org or has that.org .
