You may not know this but I grew up in poverty. When I was a child my grandma would wake me before sunrise on Saturday mornings to go to the local market. Not to buy, but to sell. Obviously as a child I did not want to do this. I don’t think my grandma wanted to do this either. But because our family felt ignored by government and forgotten by the world, we really had no choice but to tap into our entrepreneurial spirit to survive. This resilience, this unbreakable hope that is the heartbeat of entrepreneurship, is something I’ve also seen in the hundreds of entrepreneurs I’ve served. If you’ve started a business or if you’re thinking about starting a business I’m certain you know exactly what I mean. 

While my personal and professional experiences taught me that yes, the world can be an unequal place, it also taught me that entrepreneurship is an effective and practical path to create a more equal world. In the past year I’ve worked with non-profits that also believe this. It doesn’t matter if it’s the area of girls education, climate resilience, survivors of gender-based violence or agri-preneurs, these non-profits are seeing that people don’t want handouts, they want the opportunity to build a business that gives them the ability to take care of themselves and their loved ones.