Dana Swanson Switzer's Online Journal: Week 1Getting acclimated |
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Rural Swazi women
This is the reason we are here. It hasn’t even been a full week, and I already feel and see the impact of the work we are doing in Swaziland. We were able to go into Lamgabhi today. We joined Meg, the procurement guru for Gone Rural, who maintains the records for each product transaction and order for all 700 artisan women. She visits each group of women every three weeks to do three things:
- Purchase/pick up the items that were ordered on her last visit.
- Purchase grass from the women to dye at Gone Rural headquarters (this will be returned to the women in an equal trade for the weight of undyed grass to make products).
- Place an order for the next trip out to the rural area.
Every three weeks, the women artisans create a marketplace and come together to trade and sell their products. Some men and many children gather in this marketplace while the women spend the day braiding the grass, selling food and playing music.
The women are very strong and knowing their struggle makes the experience even more beautiful. Swaziland has the highest percentage of people living with AIDS in the world and a 40 percent unemployment rate. Within these rural communities, 25 percent of the women are single moms and 80 percent of husbands are unemployed. These men, who are often HIV positive, may steal their wives' hard-earned money for alcohol and choose not to work to support the family. This makes it even more impressive to witness the women's dedication to their craft and the selflessness they exhibit in protecting and supporting their families.
Gogo Victoria, one of the artisan women who cares for nine children, welcomed us into her home when we were done with our work for the day. "Gogo" means "grandma" in siSwati and her dependents are the children of her children, most of whom have passed away from AIDS.
Marketing Gone Rural boMake (the non-profit arm of Gone Rural that provides health and wellness services to the artisan women) will be my project over the next month. While I still have more to learn, even on Day two, I am faced with the power of this initiative. And how important it'll be to create a consistent message and fundraising strategy to support their children through school fees, bring wellness clinics to their villages and educate these women on their newly constituted rights.
Positioning a non-profit within a for-profit
Before launching into the heart of our project, we experienced Swaziland's biggest concert event, Bushfire, which served as our introduction to the country's culture of arts and entertainment.
After the fun weekend, I entered the assessment phase of the marketing project. I gathered all current materials, and contacted donors and partners to determine the "position" of boMake in their minds. Through this effort, I found an opportunity to streamline their message and align the organization’s communications. This is an important first step before creating a fundraising strategy. A vision, mission and positioning statement must be developed or honed to make the organization's intention clear to an external audience. It is difficult to see why anyone wouldn't want to help these women when you learn about their courage in the face of their struggles. The challenge will be recreating that feeling on paper or in a request to partners. Another challenge will be keeping this project focused and developing a realistic action plan.
Our brainstorming meetings were successful and the team generated a strong mission and vision statement. Next steps will include researching the competitive market to determine which organizations to benchmark ourselves against, (the Gone Rural/Gone Rural boMake structure is very unique), as well as creating a strong positioning statement.
Learn More
Read more of Dana’s journal to see how she applied her classroom knowledge and marketing know-how to help improve the economic situation for Swazi women:
- Meet Dana
- Week 2: Down to business
- Week 3: Cultural differences
- Week 4: Global spotlight on Swaziland
- Week 5: A sense of accomplishment
Read the other MBAs' adventures.
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