HerStory Podcast Series
HerStory Podcast Series
Episode 35: Meet YCI’s HerStart partner, Barefoot College Zanzibar (BCZ)
In this episode, Bobbi Martellacci, HerStart Communications Fellow, speaks with Brenda Geofrey from Barefoot College Zanzibar, one of YCI’s HerStart partners in Tanzania.
Brenda shares how Barefoot College Zanzibar empowers rural women through practical training in solar energy, beekeeping and regenerative agriculture. She discusses the challenges of advancing gender equality, including resistance from male family members, and the innovative entrepreneurship training program that equips women with essential skills. She highlights the transformative impact of the HerStart program on financial literacy and inclusion and outlines how HerStart Fellows have enhanced BCZ’s initiatives.
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Speaker 2: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 the 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 3:Hi there. My name is Bobby Marci , and I'm a communications fellow with Youth Challenge International's, her start program in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Today I'm speaking with Brenda Joffrey about Barefoot College Zanzibar, which is a branch of Barefoot College International, operating in Tanzania. Brenda Joffrey is the Director of programs and operations at the Barefoot College Zanzibar Center. She originally started with Barefoot in 2019, where she was an enriched coordinator. In this role, she was training women on life skills through their enrich curriculum. And in 2022, she was promoted to be the director of programs. Currently in her role, Brenda oversees all project activities and operations at the center. Brenda, can you provide an overview of Barefoot College Zanzibar and what specific activities contribute to advancing , uh, gender equality in the community?
Speaker 4:Barefoot College Zanzibar provide training, practical training to women who are from the rural communities and who, most of them, they never had a chance to get formal education. So what we do is we provide the training through our projects , uh, starting with the solar energy , uh, women are selected from the communities, and these communities are the ones which are not connected to the National Grid electricity yet . So we select two women from one village to join our center to come and be trained at our center. Uh , the solar program is a residential training, so they have to stay there for five months , uh, without going home , uh, to be trained on how to assemble solar equipments, how to maintain the solar equipments and to repair the solar equipments because after they finish the program, they'll go back to their communities and become the leaders . They'll be installing , uh, the equipments to the houses, which they want , uh, the houses, which they need , uh, uh, their houses to be , uh, solar electrified, and then that's it. So, apart from the solar program, we also have a beef keeping program. The same, we're training women. So for the solar , we're training all the women. But for the beekeeping sewing program, the Originative Agriculture Program, we train women from 18 years old. And you ask yourself like, why do we train only women and not , uh, men? It's because we realize that , uh, women, they're not given priorities, especially rural women. They're not given , uh, priorities. But again , uh, rural women per se , it's because , uh, we understand and we believe that women who are living in urban areas, they at least have access to information that least have access to opportunities compared to rural women , uh, where they don't have TV to watch. You don't have radio, they don't have smartphones. They don't even have power. So giving them opportunities is when we realize that these rural women, they're very innovative and they're very eager to learn , uh, all our projects at the center , uh, we don't just train and leave the women, you know, to figure out themselves. We, we train and we equip , but also we assure them of the market . So at the end of the day, they'll be able to end income as we want. 'cause again, we are dealing with women who are earning at least, you know, they're using, like currently they have , let's say, $1 , uh, income. So what we want is to even have extra dollar, you know, per day or even extra than $1 per day. So what we do is we train, we equip them. So if you are beekeeper, you be given all the equipments for you to become a sustainable beekeeper. And then , then we assure you of the market. So they go back to the communities with equipment, they harvest the honey , they're free to come to sell to us in a very good price that we buy. At the end of the day, they will pay them, so they'll end income. So it's asur them that at the end of the day, they'll earn extra income whenever they come to the center. Yeah .
Speaker 3:What are some of the significant challenges faced by the community you work with involving gender equality?
Speaker 4:Most of the challenges, I , I will talk is when we are going to the communities , uh, for example, with our solar program to go and select women who will come to be trained at our center. So one thing that we countered is a woman has to get approval from the husband to go to , to get the training. So you'll find most of the time , uh, men don't want to give this approval. They'll just tell the , the , the woman , like, if you go to that training for five months , consider it as a divorce. And again, women are , they don't want to get divorced. And again, it's not like barefoot plan, you know, to divide, you know, to like , uh, divide the families. So , uh, the big challenge I'll say is , uh, uh, women getting approval from their husbands , uh, we have to convince a lot of energies used to convince their husband Mm-hmm . <affirmative> to agree for a woman to come to join our program for five months, and then again , uh, return her to the communities where she's safe. So we have to do a lot of convincing to the chief, to the community chief, who is a leader to first talk to the husband. But again , uh, the good thing of barefoot is we are working with the government, and the government have a very big hand. So that's also , uh, we use that hand to convince the husband, because at the end of the day, this program will not only benefit her, the woman , but the community and the family at large.
Speaker 3:What is Barefoot College's entrepreneurship training program, and how does it empower women
Speaker 4:At Barefoot? I , I'll say all our programs, they are based , or they're focused on the entrepreneurship skills. Like how do we change these mindsets of the rural women who are born to believe that I was only , uh, you know, born to be a mother or a wife. They can also be, you know, successful entrepreneurs. So talking about beekeeping, talking about suing, talking about regenerative agriculture , it's all about how we are changing their mindsets, how we are equipping , uh, them with the skills that they're sustainable. But at , at the end of the day, they will help them , uh, to end income. So we have a curriculum which has entrepreneurship skills. So in here, women are trained on how, you know, how you even talk to, to your customer. What's the kind of a language that you talk to a customer that they have to come back to a shop instead of going somewhere else, or they have to come back to your business instead of going somewhere else. So we have different games that we play with the mammals while training this. You know, I'll tell them, think about where you buy your groceries. You know, think about where you buy the products that you use at home. Why do you go to that shop often and not going to the other shop? So they'll come back , uh, to us with a lot of restaurant, maybe how they , they're free with them , how , uh, cheerful they shop. Uh , they , the owner of the shop is how they're free even to, you know, to , uh, borrow something at the shop. So the flexibility, it's the same thing that they also , uh, uh, they also have to do with their businesses. 'cause again, they'll live at this , uh, barefoot as sewing ladies, they'll be interacting with customer. They'll leave there as , um, uh, beekeepers. So they'll be interacting with customer. It's very important for them to know, okay, this is the service I need to provide to my customer. This is the language that I need to talk to the customer. But again , uh, knowing that most of them, they didn't go to school. So some can not know how to read or write. We still train them on how to write, you know, to keep bookkeeping , uh, records. Uh , let's say you have a stock , or maybe you , you just have a small business at home. Uh , you're selling snacks. Uh , let's say you have made a hundred chap parties and you , you went to sell it, but you were only able to sell, let's say 90 chap parties and 10 remain . So you have to put , uh, bookkeeping , uh, records of your stock . Mm-Hmm . <affirmative> , how much did you buy to make a hundred share parties ? How much was your profit? You know, what has remained? You know, so the very simple bookkeeping method for them to track records of their spendings Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . But also if they are making profit. Apart from that, also in our inter entrepreneurship skills, we emphasize on a way a woman can , uh, you know, be confident to pitch her projects. You know ? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> , uh, you just met , let's say you came to Barefoot today, and you know, you selling , let's say something which we also put to the shops. Let's say you're selling dresses pitch to me. You know, I make very nice, you know, you can , so we are preparing them also to prepare like a , a pitch something in one minute. You know, let's say I'm so busy, but in one minute you can tell me everything, and by the way you speak, it's when I'll be interested to, to know about your product , all of that. We are training women, and yeah, we see how they change.
Speaker 3:Could you , um, share with us an impact story related to the Her Start program that , um, you know, particularly highlights, positive changes that have been brought to the lives of women , um, living in the communities that you serve ?
Speaker 4:So, to answer your question, I think , uh, we talk of the recent project that we are currently doing , uh, with , uh, YCI. And that is a p program, it's partner innovation , uh, program that , uh, for Barefoot, we are working on rural women. We are training rural women on the financial inclusion, financial literacy. We provide education as far as financial literacy is concerned. Uh , we came up with this project and we are working with 60 women , uh, 20 from each region in UJA Island. So we already trained , uh, both of the regions now. So we go to the this mama and we ask them, after two months of the training, what do you see as a change? So most of them, they'll tell you, now I have my own bank account. Mm-Hmm , <affirmative> , I didn't have a bank account before, because I believe that having a bank account, you have to be very rich. You know, some others are saying, I didn't know to read or write. So I know like, if I go to the bank, maybe some people will just steal my money. So I was scared to save there . But now they have bank accounts, they're operating bank accounts, they're saving their business income in the bank accounts.
Speaker 3:Can you tell us how her start Fellows , um, contribute to the success of Barefoot College? Zanzibar , um, initiatives?
Speaker 4:Barefoot College, it's , uh, it's , it's good . A very, very big organization as far as <inaudible> is concerned. We have staffs , but sometimes we , we need new skills. You know, we need new experience, we need new ideas. So with these fellows coming up, let's say today we have a comms person , uh, com fellow , uh, the next day we have a monitoring and evaluation learning fellow. The other day we have social enterprise fellow, we have programming partnership fellow. So having all these skills , uh, to our center, having all this , uh, experience to our center is really Im , uh, adding positive impact to our work . For example, currently I don't have to work , you know, on the , let's say, writing newsletter, preparing the newsletter, or let's say some sort of report, because we have a comms person who is on the ground most of the time. So he's seeing , she's seeing everything and she's taking pictures of everything. So it's easy for her to write, to help me write a report , uh, let's say talking about , uh, monitoring and evaluation person. Uh , in ZBA Center , we don't even have a person who is focusing on evaluation, monitoring, and evaluation. So it's really good that we don't have to go to our headquarters office to request, like, I need a medical person to help with this, because again, we have the fellow on the ground who has exactly , uh, skills that we needed. So for me, I'll say fellows are really helping us , uh, grow, because at the end of the day, it's not about us learning from them or should see , but it's also about us also sharing our experience with them.
Speaker 3:What are the next steps or future goals for Barefoot College Zanzibar? Um, and especially related to the challenges that you spoke about , um, earlier in the interview about challenges faced by the community.
Speaker 4:One of the plan , uh, that we have is to expand our projects because we have seen how , uh, this project has worked well in Pja Island . So now we want to expand more to mainland, but also to expand even more to East African countries.
Speaker 3:Okay. Wow.
Speaker 4:We have been approached by, out of organization in Uganda, in Kenya, in , uh, Malawi, in Rwanda. Can we have the same solar program in our communities? Can we have the same , uh, you know , uh, let's say beekeeping program in , in , let's say in Botswana? All these things , uh, now , uh, forcing us also to somehow expand a project to those countries. Not even opening the center, but at least , uh, having women trained. So we can send our trainers to go to those countries if it's easy. Or we can send women to come to Zanzibar to be trained.
Speaker 3:What advice would you give to individuals or other organizations that are also aiming to promote gender equality in, in similar communities like Zanzibar through maybe social entrepreneurship or community development?
Speaker 4:One thing I advice , uh, entrepreneur is to create a product which can compete in the market. Like, you don't have to use a lot of strength marketing it 'cause it's a very good package in zba . What I also noticed is if one or two hotels are buying your products, all of them, they'll contact you. So good products, good marketing skills, you sell the product. So that's advice. But again, advice to organization I'll say is the organization that are , uh, working on , uh, similar or what we do, giving , uh, entrepreneurs training only is not enough. You train them, let's say for barefoot, we only train them on how, you know, you , you do beekeeping, but if you don't equip them, you know, if you don't assure them of the market. Mm-hmm , <affirmative> , it's very hard for the , for the project to be sustainable. So making sure that they have skills, but they also have equipments to practice those kind of skills. Thank you. Welcome .
Speaker 2: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 Cs 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@yce.org or hair.org .
