MADEINC
MADEXXX
A Day in the
Life of a
BUTTA BOSS
According
to the Small Business
Association (SBA),
30 percent of new
businesses fail during
the first two years
of being open, 50
percent fail during
the first five years,
and 66 percent
during the first 10
years.
MADE BY RAHAMA WRIGHT
T
he first time I learned
about shea butter it was
2002 and I was an intern at
the American Embassy in
Ouagadougou the capitol
of Burkina Faso. I was a recent college
graduate and thrilled to be working in
Africa.
My internship was a pit stop on my way to
a two-year Peace Corps service in Mali,
and at the time I didn’t realize my 8-week
internship would lay the ground work for
the next 15 years of my life.
Let me take a step back. I knew about
shea butter but I didn't know where
it came from. My research compiling
data on women's micro enterprise in
Burkina Faso revealed the importance
of shea butter production. Shea butter is
extracted from the fruit of the shea tree
which exclusively grows in subSaharan
Africa. Women in rural villages are the
traditional harvesters of this multi-
purpose commodity.
The practice of shea butter is handed
down from mother to daughter as a skill
that can be used for income generation. I
gathered stories of women handcrafting
this amazing ingredient and quickly
noticed that they rarely generated
sufficient income from their labor.
This stayed with me as I submitted
my report at the end of my internship, and
prepared to begin my service in Mali.
I was assigned to work at a community
health center. After 10 weeks of language
and culture training, I arrived to my
village ambitious to help my community.
Reality hit when I noticed many women
visiting the health center could not pay
for medicine or health services. I soon
became frustrated at the realization that
any sustainable solution to community
issues required income generation for
many.
I thought back to my internship report
and decided to spend time learning more
about shea butter production. After a
few weeks of watching women make shea
#mademaven
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