Peace Through Business: Building Peace by Empowering Women Entrepreneurs
In a world often torn by conflict, peace through business may sound like a lofty goal. Yet for nearly two decades, that’s exactly what Dr. Terry Neese and the Peace Through Business Program have been accomplishing—helping women in Afghanistan, Rwanda, and now Uganda rise as entrepreneurs, leaders, and community changemakers.
In the final episode of my three-part Peace Through Business podcast series, I was joined by Monica Smiley, president and founder of the Enterprising Women Foundation and publisher and CEO of Enterprising Women magazine. Monica, a long-time champion of women entrepreneurs worldwide, shared the remarkable journey of Dr. Neese, the founder of Peace Through Business, and how the Enterprising Women Foundation has joined forces to carry that mission forward.
A Vision Born from a Call to Action
The story began nearly twenty years ago when First Lady Laura Bush called Terry Neese with a bold request: travel with her to Afghanistan to help empower women through entrepreneurship. Despite her husband’s warnings about the risks, Terry packed her bags and boarded a plane. What she witnessed changed her life.
Soon after, she founded the Peace Through Business Program under the IEEW banner—a leadership and entrepreneurship training initiative designed to equip women in post-conflict nations with the tools to rebuild their lives and their communities through business ownership.
Terry was no stranger to pioneering women’s initiatives. She had co-founded Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), served as a president of NAWBO (National Association of Women Business Owners), and played a pivotal role in passing H.R. 5050, the landmark legislation often called the “Big Bang” of women’s entrepreneurship by creating the National Women’s Business Council, laying the groundwork for a network of Women’s Business Centers across the nation, and changing archaic laws that kept women from getting credit in their own names. From her base in Oklahoma City, this native of Cookie Town, Oklahoma, went on to build a global movement rooted in one core belief: economic empowerment is the path to peace.
From Afghanistan to Rwanda: Courage in Action
What began as a training program for Afghan women quickly expanded. Within a year, Peace Through Business added Rwanda, a country rebuilding after the genocide that took more than 800,000 lives.
“In Rwanda,” Monica shared, “women literally held up the sky after the genocide.” Many were left as heads of households and community leaders. With support from Peace Through Business, these women learned to create sustainable enterprises that fueled their country’s recovery. Rwanda is now one of the few nations in the world where women hold a majority in Parliament, a testament to their determination and leadership.
One unforgettable example is Chantal, a graduate of the program who turned a personal crisis into opportunity. After a car accident left her vehicle stranded abroad for repairs, she realized there were no local body shops. Determined to change that, she founded the first woman-owned auto repair business in Rwanda—and even created the National Garage Owners Association to help others follow her lead.
When Monica presented Chantal with the Enterprising Woman of the Year Award, both women were moved to tears. “She had lost over 200 family members during the genocide,” Monica recalled. “It was the only time I’ve ever broken down during a speech. The resilience of these women is indescribable.”
Adapting and Persevering Through Crisis
The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in 2021 brought enormous challenges. The program’s Afghan director, Manisha, happened to be in the U.S. when the country collapsed. She immediately called her team, instructing them to destroy records to protect participants from reprisal. In the days that followed, Peace Through Business helped over 300 graduates escape the country while continuing to support those who remained.
Today, the Afghan program operates entirely online. The women meet virtually several times a week in a ten-week course covering business planning, marketing, finance, taxation, and leadership. Because many participants lack internet access, the program covers their connectivity costs. As Monica noted, “It’s like a mini-MBA. The women are committed attendance is strict, there are assignments, tests, and business plans are developed.”
Graduates then join the Peace Through Business Alumni Association, where they mentor other women and “pay it forward.” The results have been extraordinary: alumnae have launched new ventures, expanded into export markets, and even entered politics as ministers and policymakers.
Watch our video on YouTube Here:
A Call to Action: Women Helping Women
Monica’s message is clear—these programs depend on us. With cutbacks to international aid, nonprofit funding is tighter than ever, even as demand grows. “We had 124 Afghan women apply for 35 openings this year,” she said. “The need is overwhelming.”
Every dollar and every mentor counts. Mentors are matched virtually with entrepreneurs to share expertise and encouragement. Donations go directly toward training, internet access, and modest stipends for local program directors like Manisha and Chantal, who continue to risk so much for others.
Monica’s organization, Enterprising Women Foundation, now hosts the Peace Through Business program, helping amplify its reach and celebrating its graduates at the annual Enterprising Women of the Year Awards. The partnership exemplifies how women lifting women can create ripple effects across continents—building stronger families, economies, and, ultimately, peace.
Building Peace, One Business at a Time
As I closed our conversation, I reflected on how deeply these women embody resilience and hope. Their stories remind us that peace is not simply the absence of conflict—it is the presence of opportunity.
When women gain access to education, mentorship, and entrepreneurship, they transform not only their own lives but the futures of entire communities. Programs like Peace Through Business show that empowering women economically is one of the most powerful peace strategies in the world.
If you would like to support or mentor women through the Peace Through Business program, visit Enterprising Women Foundation at www.enterprisingwomenfoundation. Together, we can build peace—one woman, one business, and one community at a time.
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Andi Simon 00:00:02 Welcome to On the Brink with Andy Simon. I’m Andy, and as you know, my job is to get you off the break. I want you to see, feel and think in new ways, a little like an anthropologist, and begin to understand all the complexities around you and how you can be part of them. Change what you’re doing and how you think about your own story and begin to understand what people are doing for others, other women, in order to help elevate them at times when it may be challenging or difficult. Today is the third session of a three-part webinar series about peace through business. Peace Through business is an organization that was founded by Doctor Terry Neese. I’m going to talk about the founder today, and I have with me Monica Smiley, who’s going to begin to tell us about how Enterprising Women has now adopted peace through business and its vision for the future. It’s a desire to begin to engage more of us in the process and to begin to understand how peace through business is helping women across the globe, but particularly in Afghanistan and Rwanda and elsewhere, to rise through business to help both support themselves and change their communities that they serve.
Andi Simon 00:01:15 Monica, as always, it’s a pleasure for having you here. I’m going to tell everybody a little bit about you, and it was interesting how many different bios Monica has online. And finally I had to ask Chad. Here’s Monica, a longtime publisher and CEO of Enterprising Women Magazine, a leading global publication and community dedicated to empowering and celebrating women entrepreneurs. Under her leadership, Enterprising Women has become an essential source and resource and networking platform for women business owners. It provides inspiration, practical tools, and connections to help them scale and succeed. She’s also the founder of the Enterprising Women Foundation, which runs the acclaimed mentorship program pairing accomplished women business leaders with high school and college girls to foster the next generation of entrepreneurs. She’s the driving force behind the annual Enterprising Women of the Year Award celebration, which I attended for the very first-time last year, and I’ve put it on my calendar for this year because it was quite inspirational and really very exciting. It’s one of the most prestigious recognitions for women entrepreneurs worldwide.
Andi Simon 00:02:25 Now, Monica today is going to talk to us about the founder of Peace Through Business, so you can have a better understanding of how the first two sections of our webinars about women in Afghanistan and women in Rwanda come together around a bigger vision that Doctor Terry Neese had, and the kind of ideas they have for what’s coming next, because this is a time that women need all of us to gain together, come together and begin to help them rise. Monica, thank you so much for being here.
Monica Smiley 00:02:55 Thank you so much, Andy, for the opportunity.
Andi Simon 00:02:59 is there anything in the bio that you’d like to change, expand, or tell a little bit more about?
Monica Smiley 00:03:05 It was a very gracious bio. Thank you so much. yes. You know, we just celebrated the 25th anniversary of Enterprising Women this year at our conference this past, spring in Nashville. And we’re thrilled. We’re thrilled to be here, reaching women all over the globe and helping them grow in scale, and especially proud of all the work of the Enterprising Women Foundation.
Andi Simon 00:03:30 Let’s talk about peace through business. You are very closely connected to Doctor Terry Neese. Talk about her vision, how this all began so that we can give the listener or the viewer a better understanding about why this organization is so special and special at this particular time. Tell us, please, about it.
Monica Smiley 00:03:49 Sure. Thank you. Andy. Well, we’re coming up on almost 20 years since the founding of the Peace Through Business program, so it has quite a history. so Doctor Terry Neese is the founder of the Peace or Business program. She founded an organization called the Institute of Economic Empowerment of Women. 20 years ago. And it really initiated when she got a call from First Lady Laura Bush. So during the Bush administration. Right. Laura Bush was instrumental in working with women in Afghanistan, was very concerned about what was going on there. And as they had some newfound freedom with the fall of the Taliban 20 years ago, she reached out to Terry and said, I see a need to do something to help women business owners in this country.
Monica Smiley 00:04:40 And I think you’re just the person to help do that. So will you get on a plane with me and go to Afghanistan? And as Terry shares the story, she told her husband and he said, no, you’re crazy. You’re not going. And she said, sorry, but I’m packing and I’m going this week. And so she. Off she went. had apparently had to wear a bulletproof vest on the trip, she tells me. and it was really eye opening for her, obviously, to see firsthand what was going on in the country at the time. So she came back and started to put the idea together to form the Peace or business program. Now, a little quick history on Terry. So Terry was also the founder of Women Impacting Public Policy. And some of your listeners may know about whip. They’ve been around for, gosh, I think close to 25 years as well. They have an anniversary coming up too. And Terry founded whip with a woman named Barbara Kossoff. it was a bipartisan organization.
Monica Smiley 00:05:47 It still exists, is doing great work today. Barbara was the Democratic piece of that program. Terry was the Republican piece. And so everything they did was certainly bipartisan. They worked together really well. so she initiated that program with Barbara, got it started again, still thriving, still doing great. Angela Dingell is now the president and CEO of whip. so Terry had some history there. And then Terry was also one of the early presidents of NAWBO, the National Association of Women Business Owners. So she was involved in the famous H.R. 5050 when that legislation was put forward to do things like help women to be able to get a credit card in their own name without their husband having to sign, etc. it established Women’s Business Center, so many incredible things. So, she was instrumental there with Virginia Littlejohn and Eddie Frazier and some other incredible trailblazers. So Terry goes way back. She has that history. she’s from Oklahoma, and I always smile when I say where she’s from a town called Cookie Town, Oklahoma.
Monica Smiley 00:06:57 It’s. I don’t know what the population is today, but it’s like 12 or something. It’s very low. And no stoplights, no stores. and in fact, she owns a family farm there. She just finished putting together, buying back pieces of property that had been sold off from the original family farm in rural Oklahoma. So she now owns something like five 500-acre cattle farm now in Oklahoma. Just a fun, interesting fact about Terri. So I’ve known Terri for 25 years. I met her the year before I started Enterprising Women. I knew she was a leader in the women’s business community. I reached out to her and said, hey, I’m, you know, I’m getting ready to do this. What do you think? and we spent some quality time together. We, you know, became fast friends. And so we have this wonderful 25 year plus relationship. we were a partner in whip early on. I’ve been a partner in everything she’s ever done, I think so I appreciate having her in my life in that way.
Monica Smiley 00:08:03 But, early on, she asked me to come on to the board of directors for ICW, and I did that. So I ended up serving on her board for about 11 years. And in the very early years from, I guess, the first year on, when the program started in Afghanistan, they needed help matching women with mentors in the US. And of course, we have a big community with enterprising women. So when she said, I’ve got a coffee grower coming, can you find me somebody in the coffee industry who could mentor her? You know, we we’d take a look and we’d find them. So I had a lot of fun with it and also had the opportunity to host some of the women in my home. And, you know, I’m still friends with many of these women today. So I understood the passion behind the program, why she loved it so much. and really, you know, shared her belief in it. So Terry got us started in Afghanistan, as I said, almost 20 years ago.
Monica Smiley 00:09:03 A year later, they decided to add Rwanda to the program. And of course, you know, we all know about the tragic history with Rwanda, the genocide and the impact that that it has had on the country, and really the role that post genocide women played in that country to really hold up the sky there. they’re one of the few, parliaments in the world that is majority run by women. I believe that’s still true. and women, there are really serial entrepreneurs. So, you know, once they have business skills, they’re not just going to start that one business they talked about when they see a need and there is a lot of need. They’re going to start another business and maybe another business. So the impact of the program has really been great there. So in year two, they we did start the program in in Rwanda. And just this last year we could share a little bit more about the future. But we’ve actually now expanded the program into Uganda through another partnership that we have that we can.
Monica Smiley 00:10:12 I’ll be glad to share a little bit more about it later, but and so with the early years of the program, look like was we were doing in-country training and back at that time in Afghanistan, we were doing it in person. and in fact, at one point we were actually going out into the villages, which was which became quite dangerous to do. But we were we were really teaching it all over the country, but particularly, in the, in the major cities. And so the women were going through the training program, writing business plans, preparing marketing plans, being matched with mentors. And then we were selecting a group of 15 women from Afghanistan and 15 from Rwanda to come to the United States in the summer for additional leadership training, and in the early years, they actually came for three weeks, which was really a long time. and as the years went by, they shortened that a little bit just because it was a long time for the women to be away from their families and their businesses.
Monica Smiley 00:11:15 So they tightened that program up a little bit. But for a number of years, they were gone for three weeks, and it was like a mini-MBA that they received. And then the last week of the program, they were matched with a woman in the US who had a similar business, and they actually stayed with a woman wherever she was in the US. Yeah, they went to her business every day with her. They reached out in the community and met other women. they tackled particular problems that the woman might have, and, you know, just absolutely incredible opportunity for these women and equally impactful for all the women in the US who participated in the program. So that’s really what the early years of the program look like. in more recent years. Andy, since the fall of the country to the Taliban, we’ve had to move the program in Afghanistan to entirely virtual. Yes. Manisha, who is the program director for Afghanistan, was able to get out of the country. She actually happened to be in the United States when the country fell to the Taliban.
Monica Smiley 00:12:21 And she tells an interesting story about getting a phone call that it was happening. She instructed the person on the other end of the line to go to her office, get the laptops out, put everything else in a barrel in the back and set it on fire. Yeah. because they were so worried about anyone associated with the program, being in jeopardy. And then for the next at least month, Tierney’s manager, Cathy Cruzan, who was the chair of the Board of directors at the time, and a number of other women. Were on the phone night and day, trying to help as many of our business graduates safely get out of the country. And we did have about 300 of our graduates who actually left the country. it was just a harrowing time. we were fortunate that many did happen to be in the US at the time, and so she was safe, but obviously just so torn, so upset about all the women who were there who were in jeopardy.
Andi Simon 00:13:29 I and she managed to get her family out of Afghanistan as well.
Monica Smiley 00:13:33 She did. Since that time, her sister, has been out for some time. Her parents finally got out a year or so ago. her father was a physician. And, you know, just so many women who were leaders, just had to leave. You know, they just weren’t safe. They had to get out. Yeah. Amnesia has her green card now, which is. Which is great. And she’s fully, indoctrinated into the US. I would say she’s pretty incredible. And you heard from the first podcast you recorded? we are so proud of her because she is really known as an international expert on the women of Afghanistan. She testified before the UN recently. Any time there is any discussion about the state of women there, and particularly women in business there, she is a foremost expert on the topic.
Andi Simon 00:14:32 And also very charming. What is interesting is that the women in business in the US always have a challenging time when we talk about access to capital and how few women in business get access to venture capital in a good fashion, or how the finances of their business and all the kinds of things that we focus on here.
Andi Simon 00:14:56 Little do we think about the life of women in Afghanistan, Rwanda or elsewhere and how it really is so much more fundamental survival to find ways not just to have meaning, but to, to really raise their family and to have an income stream and to create something that is economically viable for themselves and the role that they play in the communities that they live in. And Rwanda is, I suspect, very different than Afghanistan, while the need is similar, the freedom of the women in Rwanda now is to do something and, and once the handcuffs are off, now we have to do something. And my goodness, I mean, Chantal gave us a great story about how she had a, a wonderful automobile, repair place. And then how do you go from there? But it is, it is interesting. And our perspective is tainted by the immediacy of the things that we need without seeing a larger perspective of what’s going on over there. When you think about how we can tell the story here for the listener and the viewer, I’d like you to think through how you can take the story and begin to share it.
Andi Simon 00:16:09 And, you know, in a simple fashion, because I’ve been talking to people about doing the recordings and I’m trying to, you know, boil it down to some key things about giving women the survival skills they need to take businesses from startup to success, enter conditions that I don’t think we can imagine anyway. You can craft that so that people can share it the same way. I mean, I’m trying to, you know, you’ve been so involved and I’m just catching on.
Monica Smiley 00:16:38 Yeah. Well, let’s talk a little bit about Rwanda again, just for a second, because I, we talked a little more about Afghanistan. So what Chantal didn’t share with you is that the reason she started her body shop Repair business is that she was in a car accident and her car was damaged and it was sent, I believe, to Belgium and for something like six months. and she said, this is ridiculous. There isn’t anywhere if you are in an accident, there isn’t anywhere in the country to get your car repaired.
Monica Smiley 00:17:14 Wow. And she said, I got to do something about this. She didn’t know anything about auto body work or, you know, pain had a problem.
Andi Simon 00:17:24 I love it. Don’t you love?
Monica Smiley 00:17:25 Yeah. Yeah, I can think she just lost her car for six months and said, you know, other people shouldn’t have to do this. and so, you know, she decided she was going to do it. Well, the first thing she had to do was get permission from the government to open this place. And they said, well, absolutely not. It sounds messy and noisy and you can’t put that in the city. It needs to be way out in the middle of nowhere where it isn’t going to bother anybody. And she said, no, that that’s not convenient. It’s got to be in the city. Well, they were going through a period of starting to really do some rezoning. We saw that difference. I was there in 2014 and back again in 2018. Just an enormous change in just a four-year period.
Monica Smiley 00:18:07 So, she said no, it’s got to be in the city. She said, well, you know, I, we got to figure this out. So she started the National Garage Owners Association when she told you she was the president of it. It was because she was the first one. Yeah. Yeah. And we gave her every year for years. Andy, we’ve given the Enterprising Woman of the year award to at least one Rwandan and one Afghan woman, and we usually give it to them in the summer when they would come to the US for their leadership summit. Last year, we gave it at the Enterprising Woman of the year awards for the first time that. So the year after this happened, I chose her for the Enterprising Woman of the year award. and it was always a surprise. We didn’t tell them that they were winning, and the way that we would do this was I would go to their leadership summit and tell them that we were going to do a story on a few of the women.
Monica Smiley 00:19:02 Could I sit down and do an interview? So then I would interview them. I go back to my room and write something, and then I would present it at the graduation ceremony and it was complete surprise. Well, here in the US, people win a lot of awards and it’s a big deal, but it’s not as big a deal as their where they don’t win any awards. So it’s huge right? They often just not recognized at all. So we called her name and she came up on the stage. And Annie, she was standing so close to me that she was touching my arm. Wow. And I started sharing the story of her starting this business, running the National Garage Owners Association. But also, she had shared with me that she had lost over 200 members of her family in the genocide, including her mother. Wow. And, you know, I had to share that as part of her story. It’s part of, obviously part of her journey. And I could feel the emotion rising up in her, and I could feel it in myself.
Monica Smiley 00:20:04 It’s the only time I’ve ever given a speech that I broke down and cried in the middle of it. It just was so overwhelming. And when I went to Rwanda with Terry in 2014, one of the things we did was call on some of the women who had graduated from the program or they were in the program in. Most of the time they had a story that they that they shared, and they broke down and cry as they shared it. thinking about a travel bureau owner, we stopped to see her, and she said the only reason she hadn’t been killed was that she had gone on a trip the day before, associated with her business. but she came back, and most of the rest of her family had been killed. So, I mean, just so they’re living with this, this history that is just inescapable. It’s such it’s had such a profound impact. And, you know, post genocide, the government really told many of these women leaders what they needed to do. I, I mentored a woman and have maintained a close friendship with her for many years.
Monica Smiley 00:21:19 A woman named Annette. And one of the things she said was, after the genocide, if you were educated, and, you know, a leader of any kind in the country, you were assigned a job. And it didn’t matter whether it was what you went to school to do. Yeah, they told you what you were going to do because it was what the country needed to rebuild. Yes. And it had happened to her. It happened to her husband; everybody she knew. And you couldn’t say no. It was just the way it was. Right. So Chantelle is a very powerful woman and you know, she has such a passion for the women in this program. She wants to give them those business skills that they need to really, grow and scale their companies. But more than that, to really turn them into leaders who impact their communities. And we have seen story after story of women who have not only started multiple businesses, but some of them have ended up running for government office.
Monica Smiley 00:22:21 They’ve become ministers, you know, in the, in the cabinet, piece, your business is so well known in Rwanda that if you mention it anywhere, they are just I mean, they just Revere it, which is why it’s so important that we need to keep supporting it. We see the impact.
Andi Simon 00:22:41 I think you’ve made it come alive in the story of Chantal and also Manisha. I mean, these are women who have risen above a terrible Tragedies and are trying to help others. You know, we often say as we rise, we lift others with us and it becomes very much. women helping women. but it’s really helping society change and become more stable in a time that is very, unsettling. And I don’t know where Afghanistan is going, but I do know Manisha talked in our first podcast about how difficult it is for the women to do their jobs in their home, but they’re trying and they’re trying to make their businesses survive and thrive, even though they can’t necessarily be outside of the home and do it the way they would perhaps prefer to.
Andi Simon 00:23:30 And it is. It is fragile. What would you like from the listeners and the visitors and the viewers to do? Because I think there’s a call to act here that is, quote, both appropriate and I think quite inspirational. You know, clarify for others what is it that we can each do?
Monica Smiley 00:23:50 Well, I think particularly in the environment that we’re seeing right now with so many cutbacks to foreign aid. I know Afghanistan had I hope the number is the correct one, and it’s a horrible number. But I just the other day I saw that we were withholding 1.7 billion in aid to Afghanistan. I you know, we’ll have to fact check that, but they’re not getting our support right now. And yet, what we see is the need is greater than ever. as we look at the faces of these women who are joining our regular, virtual training sessions, they are so hopeful and so resilient. And put yourself in your shoes. Would you be able to get out of bed in the morning? You know, it would be really tough with the obstacles that they’ve had to overcome.
Monica Smiley 00:24:45 And yet they’re hopeful. They are trying to find a way to support their families, to educate their children. you know, it’s under the most difficult of circumstances. And Andy had shared on the earlier podcast that we had women on that first virtual zoom call who had been in federal jobs. One, I believe I told you was a university professor. An economics professor. And she said, well, I you know, we can’t work at the universities any longer, so we have no choice. The only thing I could do is start a business in my home. She was starting a bakery, had no background to do it, but was trying to figure it out and trying to figure out how she was going to make money doing it. so there’s certainly women like that. Some of these businesses are admittedly very small. Maybe, home goods, you know, products used in the home and so forth. But we also have seen women, for example, dried, dried fruits and spices and so forth.
Monica Smiley 00:25:51 That’s a fairly big industry. Yes, and some of them have jumped into industries like that, learned what they’re doing and have really, you know, have really been successful with them over the years.
Andi Simon 00:26:04 So I want to clarify that the program isn’t a gig. It’s not a one-shot weekend away. Learn how to do a business. It’s a much more scope. So when we’re thinking about investing in a program, describe for the listener or the viewer how, how big a scope it has because it’s really quiet, MBA is, as if this is really a training program that could transform these women in both places as well as elsewhere, and to very successful business women. please.
Monica Smiley 00:26:37 Yeah. Well, it starts with an application process, and we receive many more applications than, than we have spots, particularly in Afghanistan this fall, we had 124 women, applied for 3435 openings, and so many made a point of developing some other programs for the women who weren’t accepted into the program, so that they also had some resources, some mentorship, etc. because we were really taken back, we had never had that many people apply, which shows you what a need there is.
Monica Smiley 00:27:12 so they’re a part of a ten-week program that they are meeting multiple times a week online in Afghanistan. We pay to provide internet service because a lot of the women wouldn’t have it otherwise. So there’s an extra charge for that. and then, in the case of Afghanistan, Indonesia teaches the program online with them. attendance is strict. They’ve got to participate their assignments, their tests. There are quizzes. they’re building towards writing a business plan for the company. their understanding marketing, including digital marketing, their understanding finances for their business. the whole thing, basically government regulations, taxation, anything that’s going to affect the company. and it has to be, a business that’s, that is established. It can’t be. This is a dream that I want to do this. It’s got to be real. Yeah. so they after they go through that program, they are matched with mentors, e mentors in the case of Afghanistan. So it’s done online. And that’s an opportunity for your listeners if they’re interested in being any mentor, they have a particular skill set or just to help, you know, any woman in general with her company, even if it’s not what your company does.
Monica Smiley 00:28:33 that’s okay. and so we continue to support and mentor. They join the Peace Through Business Alumni Association, which is an active alumni association that continues to support the women. And they’re taught that they have to pay it forward. So the expectation is that they’re going to continue to support and help other women in business there. And I know in Rwanda, the graduation ceremony that I attended in 2018 was in a hotel ballroom that was full. There were hundreds of women because it wasn’t just the graduates. All the alumni came up to congratulate and all of their families came. So it was major and all the all the significant government figures were there speaking and, you know, etc. So this is it’s a big deal.
Andi Simon 00:29:24 It’s a big deal. It really matters. I’m already thinking about several women I know who would be both good donors and excellent mentors. And the question is, how do you really build in their mind a reason for doing this that is immediate and can be sustainable and inspirational, as well as very effective for them? This is great.
Andi Simon 00:29:46 Go ahead.
Monica Smiley 00:29:47 I was just going to say, I think it’s a challenging environment right now for nonprofits to raise dollars. And there have been a lot of cutbacks, a lot of grants that used to be there that aren’t there. so we’re working extra hard to keep funding the program, and any donations of any size, you know, are valued. They’re important. Shantel Indonesia are not volunteers. They are paid. so we need to keep them paid. We need to support everything that they’re doing, and it takes some dollars to do that. We also last year had a delegation of 22 women who, came from the picture business delegation to the Enterprising Women of the year conference. We flew them in early, and they had their own meeting first so we could focus on some things that they especially wanted to address. Then they joined the rest of the Enterprising Women Conference so that they could get some next level training. And to meet women entrepreneurs from the US and around the world were there. And some fabulous alliances have come out of that.
Monica Smiley 00:30:58 I know you mentored, the last day of the program, we had a number of women from the Enterprising Women Advisory Board who stepped up and mentored, the last day that they were there. So, you know, that’s a program that requires some funding as well, just to support them.
Andi Simon 00:31:15 Well, I’m going to I think we should wrap us up. I do want to acknowledge Doctor Terry Nice as being an inspiration for all of us. And Monica conveyed her role in this. but she’s a beautiful woman. And, and this is in her spirit that we’re looking for women, perhaps women as well, who want to help women in Afghanistan, Rwanda, and really around the world rises and use business as a way to build themselves, their families, their communities, and peace. And I don’t think peace through business is an inappropriate word to use here, because it is at a time where everything is fragile and it’s hard to find it. I am honored to have done this today as part of the On the Brink With Andy Simon podcast, and we’ll be sending this out to many people and inviting others to come in.
Andi Simon 00:32:12 And if you’re watching it during our streaming event, it’s a pleasure to have you here. Thank you for coming and take the story and keep spreading it, because unless we endorse it and spread it, it will be always searching for folks who can help it rise. And I do think it’s a time of great collaboration that women can help women in all kinds of ways. So I thank you. Thank you, Monica, for being here. And I’m going to say goodbye to all of you who come to our podcast, and I thank you for participating today and endorsing us. Shall we say goodbye?
Monica Smiley 00:32:44 Thank you. Andy, it’s been a pleasure. Bye.
