Afghans apprentice across the U.S. during the 2011 Bpeace Apprentice Road Trip
Posted on 04. Dec, 2011 by Rena Fried.
Thirty-seven Host Companies opened their doors to 9 Afghan Bpeace Fast Runners for the 2011 Bpeace Apprentice Road Trip (BART), sponsored in part by the U.S. Department of State.
Continue Reading
At the Annual Bpeace VERAs (Volunteer Excellence Recognition Awards) we recognize our most exceptional members.
Continue Reading
Jerrie describes Inzozi Nziza Ice Cream as an oasis in Butare. “Both the staff and the store’s appearance are welcoming and it is clear that they have worked hard on customer service. It is simply an inviting place to walk into; there is no other place with the same atmosphere in Butare and it is a very positive change.”
Continue Reading
What an incredible night! Bpeace took over the Samsung Experience for an evening of dancing, drinking, munching, and schmoozing all in the name of creating One Million Jobs.
Continue Reading
A meeting of the minds at Dubai Women’s College with Bpeace members from the U.S. spending the week with 16 Afghan Fast Runners.
Continue Reading
The desire for marketing skills is truly tangible among Bpeace’s Afghan Fast Runner entrepreneurs and I was excited to fulfill that need in early May 2011.
Continue Reading
The Bpeace Dubai Summit was a whirlwind trip that gave me the opportunity to teach HR management skills to 16 of Bpeace’s Afghan Fast Runners.
Continue Reading
After an engaging week in Pennsylvania, four Bpeace Rwandan Fast Runner entrepreneurs traveled to New York City to apprentice with Host Companies and continue to learn transferable business skills.
Continue Reading
Bpeace’s Rwandan Fast Runners shared their personal stories at Columbia University on a panel titled, “Doing Business Our Way: Voices of Rwanda Female Entrepreneurs.”
Continue Reading
Four Bpeace Rwanda Fast Runners rolled into Harrisburg, PA in early April 2011 and left with inspiring business lessons in to expand their hospitality, landscaping and funeral service businesses.
Continue Reading
The garden center manager held the garden center owner’s face in her hands. A perfect fit for a garden center owner, the woman’s name is Soline. “Soline, does that mean sunshine?” Both women laughed. “Well, Soline means sunshine to me,” said the garden center manager. No, they weren’t celebrating a particularly good sales day. They [...]
Continue Reading
The red carpet was the hallway at the global law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf. The fashion statements were more sassy than flashy. The opening video took the night’s first award. The special celebrity guests included a glowing team of Bpeace’s Fast Runners from Afghanistan led by our country director Soraya Omar. Oscar can’t compete with [...]
Continue Reading
We hit the ground running in El Salvador. Our task was to cover the ground in six municipalities in 4 days.
Continue Reading
Dosti balls are made with top-quality synthetic leather, providing superior bounce and shape; they are attractively silk-screened with a dove bird design in the colors of the Afghan flag. Every purchase of a DOSTI soccer ball creates empowerment through employment for the Afghan women who hand-stitch them.
Continue Reading
Shahla’s 26 employees in her Kabul factory hand-make 20 shoes a day, using just one pedal-operated sewing machine and re-purposing used vehicle tires for the soles.
Continue Reading
Chips are a favorite snack among Afghans yet they only have access to ones imported from Pakistan that are often burnt and can only be purchased in large, open packages. For Sora, who believes that Afghanistan has the best tasting potatoes in the world, this is an opportunity.
Continue Reading
Khalid says his ice cream parlor offers one flavor–”plain.” It’s really cardamom with rosewater–a flavor so exquisite, that when he demonstrated it to a host company they immediately wanted to add the flavor to their menu.
Continue Reading
In her extended family, Tahera was the first woman to take a job outside of the home. Today, 20 of her female relatives have followed her example and she is the manager of the Balkh Business Development Company.
Continue Reading
Zabi’s family construction company, JAC, focuses on schools and clinics because he understands that rebuilding the physical structures in Afghanistan is essential to rebuilding the country and sustaining peace.
Continue Reading
Azi is the co-owner of RAHA which offers IT services in Mazar, Afghanistan, to local businesses, and computer training courses to individuals.
Continue Reading
Project Artemis and Bpeace work hand in hand with women in Afghanistan who show potential as business builders. Four Bpeace member/volunteers were on hand last week to see our Fast Runners learn and grow.
Continue Reading
For the Fast Runners, Tuesday was their first day in NYC started with morning orientation at Fenton Communications. Then sandwiches (“Why do Americans like cold food?) and off on a double decker bus to tour Manhattan. There are 6 young men in this group, four women, plus Fahim our Entrepreneurial Advisor in Mazar, and Soraya [...]
Continue Reading
The end of this journey’s road took us to the Salvadoran countryside. The green was a welcome break from the asphalt streets, cement shopping malls and traffic jams of busy San Salvador.
Continue Reading
The solution to break the stalemate of gang violence is not as simple as employment of at risk youth.
Continue Reading
Who among these middle market companies can best impact the violence here? We are day four of wall-to-wall meetings with some of the best minds and organizations in El Salvador and we continue to explore.
Continue Reading
We are in El Salvador and learning big time in this — Bpeace’s first fact finding expedition!
Continue Reading
In exhausting and exhilarating intimate dialogues, we helped the Fast Runners reach their ‘aha’ moments on the steps they need to take to progress their business ideas.
Continue Reading
Mobina, a 2007 Fast Runner, invited us to the radio station she operates. With over half a million listeners, her station is one of the most successful in the region.
Continue Reading
Bpeace is a witness to the business sophistication and worldliness that is emerging in Afghanistan. (Of course this doesn’t get much airtime anywhere.)
Continue Reading
Mazar feels like an Afghan city at peace–-a beacon of hope for the rest of the country.
Continue Reading
On our last day in Rwanda we reflected on the jobs and networking group created by Fast Runners and the Business Club formed by applicants to the Bpeace Race to Innovation.
Continue Reading
Richard told the women who were in school for hospitality to remember the letters SWOT–know your Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
Continue Reading
The demand for high quality good tasting tomatoes is growing at a rapid pace and Shema Farms, operated by Bpeace’s Race to Innovation finalist Sara, cannot keep up.
Continue Reading
One of the Business Club founders gave us a tour of the university and described how Bpeace was a key part of the support network that she and her peers access.
Continue Reading
What a closing day it was on Friday. Fran’s presentation on personal finance was followed by the final ceremony at the Credo Hotel across the road from Sweet Dreams.
Continue Reading
I met with Herve, a finalist in the Bpeace Race to Innovation, who is attending college in Butare, to talk about his vision for creating jobs for women.
Continue Reading
Lively cultural bonding among the Sweet Dreams’ trainees and Bpeace takes the form of a morning song and dance party in our classroom at the National University of Rwanda.
Continue Reading
We have been conducting training with this incredible group of potential Sweet Dreams ice cream employees, and they think like experienced businesswomen, not novices.
Continue Reading
What we never really expected was that every single woman in our training here in Butare would bring so much joy to our training time together.
Continue Reading
It was smiling faces and waving hands that the Bpeace team encountered at the first training for the Sweet Dreams ice cream store.
Continue Reading
In Butare, an unexpected positive outcome from the Race for Innovation
Posted on 16. May, 2010 by Bpeace.
When 7 entrepreneurs weren’t selected as finalists for the Bpeace Race to Innovation they founded a Business Club instead of getting discouraged.
Continue Reading
On May 12, more than 200 guests celebrated Bpeace’s successful 2010 DanceGiving FUNraising campaign at the City Winery to raise much-needed capital.
Continue Reading
Hervé Debarego chose to start a food delivery service in Kigali after witnessing three women dashing through the city, attempting to escape from the police.
Continue Reading
This year’s Afghan Fast Runner Annual Meeting was held at the Afghan Women’s Business Federation (AWBF). The room was filled with cakes and cookies and smiles.
Continue Reading
And through it all while we have learned so much about business, I think the greater lessons were about each other and our shared humanity.
Continue Reading
Connecting the dots in Kabul: Business, culture, and peace
Posted on 16. Apr, 2007 by Toni Maloney.
Kamela, who now employs 12 people in her Business Development Service consultancy, trained 3,000 people throughout Afghanistan to start businesses in the last year.
Continue Reading
“We need customer service!” Everywhere I go in Rwanda, that’s what I hear. All of our Fast Runners clamor for assistance in customer service training for their employees.
Continue Reading
Four Bpeace Fast Runners are food processors who will spend two weeks in Maine learning from entrepreneurial natural and organic food companies.
Continue Reading
Bpeace Fast Runners Jeanne and Sylvie have a dream: The Beauty School of Rwanda, a first of its kind vocational school bringing a future to the youth of Rwanda.
Continue Reading
Building a brand requires a marketing strategy. The Action Marketing Team, a pop-up group of marketers, transformed the face of our Rwandan Fast Runners’ businesses
Continue Reading
Our first corporate sponsor is traveling with us! Regis Corporation, one of the U.S.’s largest operators of beauty salons and retail stores, is training Bpeace’s salon owners.
Continue Reading
Back in Rwanda by critical acclaim, Sabra held court at Richard’s office. She met with Associates to review finances and discuss how, as she says, “the numbers tell the story.”
Continue Reading
Most of the women have clear visions for where they want their businesses to be in the future. Now it’s our role to help them get there.
Continue Reading
The goat stew and the savory “bananas” are excellent. There we bright sun and low humidity during the day and the flowers are blooming and the evening air is so lovely.
Continue Reading
Phyllis Rosen sets HR bar high–and our Rwandan Fast Runners reach it
Posted on 11. Apr, 2009 by Phyllis Rosen.
I spent time with salon owners Harriet and Jeanne, and we came up with a big change to benefit their customers: regular appointments with favorite stylists.
Continue Reading
Fifteen Afghan Fast Runners arrived in Dubai for the Bpeace Apprentice Road Trip. They will be taking business classes and going on site visits.
Continue Reading
Common ground in Kabul: renovation is heck, and yoga isn’t for wimps
Posted on 11. Dec, 2006 by Kate Buggeln.
Our mission: opening our Fast Runners’ new co-operative store called Rainbow Artisans; it’s the first all-female owned cooperative in Kabul.
Continue Reading
Baby, it’s cold (in)side: Bringing some Bpeace heat to Kabul
Posted on 13. Feb, 2005 by Toni Maloney.
When our Afghan entrepreneurs had their first “aha” moment today, you could measure the ripple of happiness that went through the Kabul mission team.
Continue Reading
Working out and opening up: New beginnings for Afghan Fast Runners
Posted on 13. Jul, 2006 by Kate Buggeln.
Athena and Kate met with the Bpeace Fast Runners involved in the Rainbow Artisans cooperative. We worked with 12 Associates on their strategic and development plans.
Continue Reading
The Council of Fashion Designers of America arranged for the ladies to meet Behnaz Sarafpour at her design studio. For Palwasha, it is the highlight of the day.
Continue Reading
12 extraordinary entrepreneurs from Afghanistan are in New York for a three-week training program. The women attended classes at FIT and saw the city from above it all.
Continue Reading
Our honored speakers at the 2007 Gala were two of our very own Bpeace colleagues: Palwasha and Richard. You can read their speeches below.
Continue Reading
This message of empowerment from two of Bpeace’s members, fitness gurus Jeff and Julie Castaldo, has a whole different meaning here in Afghanistan.
Continue Reading
We started asking the Associates, “What’s new? What’s happened since we last caught up?” To hear all the progress in one sitting made the Bpeacers feel terrific.
Continue Reading
As a cookbook author, public television host, chef and restaurateur, Lidia Bastianich accepted Bpeace’s first-ever Economic Impact Award for her achievements.
Continue Reading
After running her manufacturing company out of a tent, Fatima and her 77 female carpenters will now be transitioning to a real building that Bpeace helped her purchase.
Continue Reading
Bpeace is raising money through our unique “One Million Jobs Campaign.” Fundraisers commit to raising $1,000 and creating one job. Everyone who meets the $1,000 goal by May 1 celebrates with us for a night of music, mingling, great food and cocktails!
Continue Reading
At 440 lbs, Guhondo is the heaviest gorilla ever weighed. We spent an hour with him in the jungle today after an early morning ride to Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park.
Continue Reading
You can never begin to understand the impact this training has had, and how well prepared we were because of Bpeace.
Continue Reading
We heard about the disturbance in Kigali, but the world did not hear about a MILLION WOMEN MARCHING FOR GENDER EQUALITY.
Continue Reading
How can you fully understand a genocide that took a million lives in three months? It’s very hard for us to imagine that this country was the site of one of the worst killing fields.