7. Empowering Women in Supply Chain │Tzippora Nusbaum

Welcome to YASCP!

Join me and my amazing guest Tzippora Nusbaum as we unpack the value of Empowering Women in Supply Chain.

Tzippora Nusbaum is a laser-focused social entrepreneur, dedicated to social equity worldwide. She is the founder of two social enterprises, Fix the Chain and Pocket Teacher. Fix the Chain empowers women across Africa to lift themselves and their communities out of extreme poverty by teaching them the business of mushroom growth and connecting them to local and international markets. Pocket Teacher promotes equity and social mobility by offering high school students high-quality educational material online free of charge. 

In addition to managing her businesses, Tzippora works to spread awareness regarding social businesses and their strong potential, so that change-makers across society can make sustainable, lasting impact worldwide.

Find Tzippora on:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tzippora-n/
Website: https://fix-the-chain.com/

Transcript

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Hello, hello, hello everyone. Welcome to SSP, your African Supply Chain podcast. I am your host Stella Jakarta, and in this podcast we discuss various topics that affect my beautiful, your beautiful. Uncomplicated African supply chains and in this episode we'll be talking about empowering women in supply chain. And I know it's a month late, but I still wanted to celebrate all the women, especially those in supply chain who are contributing to making this industry work. And to help me celebrate, I have a wonderful guest and I first heard her at ASCA conference talking about the wonderful work that her company fixed the chain is doing at Empowering Women in emerging African markets. So let me introduce you guys to Sapporo Nubo, and let me tell a little bit about Sapora. Is a laser focused social entrepreneur dedicated to social equity worldwide. She's the founder of Social, Enterprises. Fix the Chain and Pocket teacher. Fix the chain empowers women across Africa to lift themselves and their communities out of extreme poverty by teaching them the business of mushroom growth and connecting them to local and international markets. Pocket teacher promotes equity and social mobility by offering high school students high quality educational material online, free of charge. In addition to managing her business, sipper works to spread awareness regarding social business and their strong potential so that change makers across society can make sustainable lasting impact worldwide. So I'm excited to have you welcome to Yas . I'm excited to be here.. So how are you doing? Thank you. I'm doing great. I'm really excited to be here. Wow. It's a very exciting platform to be part of, and it's never too late to celebrate International Women's Day and International Women's Month. Exactly, exactly. Thank you Teora. And just to get started can you please tell the story of Fix the Chain? How did you came about with this business? For sure. Fix the chain is a social business. What that means is that we are a business like any other, except that we are here to make impacts. We are here to make change. And the way that we are going about our change in our little corner of the world is by fighting extreme poverty across mainly Central Africa. And we are connecting women who generally don't have the opportunity with really large national, local and international markets. And we come in, we help them learn how to grow mushrooms, support them along their journey, and then help them to make a sale. And at the end of the day, . It's just business at the end of the day. It's just business, you know? And yeah, I was, I was thinking can you please tell us, cuz sometimes as you said, it's just business, but why did you differentiate with being a social enterprise and could you tell us the difference between a social enterprise? and an ngo, is it the same or with a different name? Is it completely different? Can you just like make it clear so that people, like for those who did not yet get it, what is a social enterprise and how it interferes with an ngo? For sure, and I'm glad you asked because this is very near and dear to my heart. Social enterprises are not NGOs. We are there's a lot of room for collaboration. So I have a lot of respect for NGOs and the work they do. Much like I have a lot of respect for government and I have a lot of respect for corporate and we each have our place in the world and we each have our job to do. Social business is an entity in and of itself, and what we are is a business. We are for-profit. Without question. Unlike an ngo, which is a non-for-profit by definition we aim to make a profit. However, a typical business, small, medium, corporate, whatever it may be, they first and foremost make all their decisions based on their bottom line based on profit. And the social business makes all of our decisions based on impact. So we first come to make impact and afterwards we say, how can we make a profit? While making impact, whereas the comparison would not be to an N G O, it would be to a business who says, first we need to make a profit. Now how can we do good within the realms of making a profit? So our priorities are switched. And while it sounds like a minor difference, . It changes everything because every decision we will ever make will be first and foremost, how can we make the change that we have come to make and only afterwards. Okay. Now let's make sure that our bottom line is still positive. Yeah. And sapora I like what you said it. You, started this as with the impact or the focus is really to impact and then making a profit out of it. And I just, want to understand, Teora, what really led you to that decision that I want to make? I want to build a social enterprise. What took you to that decision? Really? Would you, you just wake up one day out of the bloom and you're like, I wanna build a social enterprise,. No. You worked on, and you, so how did you came to that decision? What I always knew was that I wanted to make impact and, and the exploration was how to do that and how to do that most correctly. My statement was, , I want to make change. Mm-hmm. not, I want to open an NGO or open a business. Didn't the, the avenue through which the change happened was completely irrelevant, but the, the purpose of what I was doing was to make this change. Mm-hmm. And in doing quite a bit of research in the process of discovering how and what's the most practical and smartest and, and. Most efficient and effective way to make the change that I was trying to make based on my criteria that I had kind of laid out. Social business was very much the only option. And I think that if we're gonna, you know, take these few minutes to describe the difference think it may be wise to point out what everyone's role is to play because you do need everyone. Yeah. For example, I think the easiest one is government. It's quite clear that if government isn't in place, nobody can be doing anything. I, I cannot function as a social business without some set of, of governance, without laws, without rules, without standards. So it's easy to see how any any impact I make requires that government body, and on the same, in the same manner. I require businesses, I require just regular, old, small businesses. Corporates. They're my partners. Yeah, because I have come to do. Business with the women that I serve. But in order to do business, I need clients. I need people to whom I can sell. They need markets. So we are all part of this supply chain, which is how it ties in so well with our conversation today. The supply chain is made up of businesses, so without proper profit focused businesses, none. This machine would be making any progress. So there's no question that while I am a social business, I very much require those other players even, I mean, so to speak, the bad guys, the, the, the massive corporates that many people who are in the social te you know, people love to protest against them and point out all the bad things they do, but they have the power to do immense good as well. Yeah. And they have the funds to back things that no one else can. So when Nestle says we are. To take a stab at climate change. They can do that in a way that no one else can. So they are partners with extreme potential and they have their part to play. And the same goes with NGOs. An N G O comes in and they have the capability to prioritize projects that others can't because they have that nonprofit focus. So, so we all really need to recognize where we shine, recognize where the other one shines, and then learn to collaborate extensively and respectfully to really make the most out of the entire system. And that's what I found really does work best is very much in this supply chain mindset is when we all find our place and work together to create a very smooth overall service to both ends, really. We wanna be able to get the customers what they want, how they want it, and in a responsible manner. And we wanna be able to pay a fair wage to everyone along the way from farm to plate. And that requires every. Yeah, that's, that's so interesting. And I, as you were describing, it's everyone has a role to play and from what I, what I caught from your description is that you guys are standing in the middle. You have the women that you're empowering, right? From the different farms, from the different small businesses, and you standing in. As well, connecting them to the international, to the local markets as well. So at the end of the day, you are making an impact, but also you're still being profitable in the way. That's exactly what it is. And that's also why, for the purposes that I have come to do, why I have to be a business and I cannot be an ngo. Because when I approach the farmers and when I approach these women that we've come to empower, if I would say to them, here's a gift. Grow mushrooms, but all the liability is my own. Yeah. I mean, anyone who's ever done any project anywhere with anyone recognizes that that is a project that's doomed for failure. Whereas if you approach a woman and you say, Hey, would you like to open a mushroom form? It'll be yours. You're responsible. It's your, it's your risk, it's your investment, and it's your profit., but I'll buy, and I'm really happy to do everything in my power to help you succeed. And, and what, what we've done at Fix the Chain specifically is we've. Design the business in such a way that our success is contingent upon the success and the empowerments of the women if they are not creating successful, lucrative farms. I don't have mushrooms to sell onwards. Yeah. So I, I, the business is structured in such a way that they have to succeed for me to succeed and, I need to succeed for them. So we are all very much invested in each other. And it's a bit of a fail., we have to, we have to keep our eye on the ball because if we ever stop, then everybody. Exactly, And Sapora just going into a little bit about fix the chain. Why did you guys decide to go in the business of Mushroom? Is there something specific about it? How did you came to that decision? so that there, it's very specific and I, and I get that and that's always the first question that people ask. Like, really mushrooms And the answer is, Specifically, specifically mushrooms. So when, when creating this, this impact driven business and, and kind of the goal is always so heavily sitting Kind of in front of me. What, what that did is that the business kind of created itself because I came and said, all right, we're I, we'd like to, I'd like to make the biggest impact possible. Right? Yeah. And I started doing a, a decent amount of research to see how does one make this impact that very quickly led to focusing on women.. Which just to in a nutshell, if, if you wanna make real lasting change, specifically in the world of poverty in many areas, but we'll leave that for a different day. But if you wanna make real lasting change statistically speaking, when you empower a woman, you empower her family. And when you empower her family, you empower the community and the next generation. So when you're looking to. Intergenerational graduation from poverty, which is what it's called, where slowly the entire area kind of climbs its way out until they are genuinely no longer definable as an extremely impoverished area. You have to focus on women. Yeah. Because she will immediately take that financial gain and invest invested in her children, which means within. 10, 15 years, you suddenly have education that you didn't have. You have a university degrees, you have healthcare, you have a dec decreased you have decreased death and increased nutrition. Mm. All of these things happen within no time. And that is statistically speaking., the result of investing in women. I am obviously not saying that if one invests in a man, none of that will happen . But if you're going to look at these statistics of it, you will have a stronger, more noticeable and much faster result by investing in women. Yeah, so women was a given. Agriculture was a given because once you're in these areas, a huge portion of the population in one way or another is already working in agriculture. So we already, so again, as we're looking at this, how do I make the impact the business began structuring itself, whatever it was, as I'm building it, whatever it is that I will be doing, it will focus on women and it will focus on agriculture, and then through the research. I discovered the world of mushroom growth, and when you look at the requirements and the nuances of growing mushrooms, they're. They are naturally, intrinsically, perfectly tailored for all of what women in marginalized potentially discriminated situations need. In the sense that mushrooms grow indoors they don't require land ownership. So a woman who, for example, Whether by by for, you know, she may not have freedom of movement in a really extreme situation, or she just doesn't own land because it's just less practical. She's extraordinarily poor. She, whatever it may be, she doesn't need to own land. We grow them inside. We grow them in buckets and in bags hanging from ceilings. Mm. So we also have, we have a great potential to have. Huge amounts of yield and very, very small spaces because we're doing vertical farming. The crop is year round, so she's not tied to climate change. She's a little bit immune to all of these slightly extreme temperatures. Yeah. Which is something we see deeply linked with poverty. Yes. There's, there's, it doesn't require electricity. It doesn't require really extreme labor so that even, even women in all stages of life, we even have groups that are handicapped that are able to, that are able to take part in our aim, in our trainings. So no matter how you look at it, the mushrooms are just perfectly tailored, made for these women in these really, really disadvantaged situations. It's a circular agriculture and it's a circular finance project. Yeah. So the entire thing is just so elegant., it's word. So, so that's why we use the mushrooms because they just, it works too well to pass out the opportunity perfectly. And teora with, with all of that, I believe there's certain challenges that you have to, you had to face initially or you're still facing with connecting these women with the local markets, with international markets not even talking about the logistics of it, you know. Exporting the mushrooms distributing locally financing. So can you please tell and share with us what are some of the challenges that you have to overcome during this process? Absolutely. I am . There are,. Far quite a few, and . So first of all, you're right. I would say by far the number one challenge is market. Yeah, there's no question because it's, it's, setting up a farm is easy, relatively speaking. It's, it's quite inexpensive. You, I mean, you need some funds, obviously, but it's, it's. Not a hard thing to train and to learn and to set up your own farm. Selling , that's where things get really tricky as, as we all know. So, so the challenge, there are multiple aspects to this challenge. First of all, Our goal is to pay fair, livable, strong wages to the women, which means that I'm expensive. By definition, my product will always very proudly be expensive. And that's, that's hard. That's a hard sale. Yeah. But there's, the world is no longer sitting with, you know, blinds around its eyes pretending that these problems don't exist. So when, when you find the right customer, not only is it no longer a hard sale, what it actually is, is I'm the solution you've been looking for. Mm-hmm.. So it's a huge challenge. But the effort, rather than putting our effort into making a hard sale, we put our effort into targeted, targeted customer location, locating the customers, and finding people that when we find each other, we are each other's solutions. They have been looking for me just as much as I have been looking for them. Yeah. So it's, it's obviously quite a bit of work and the path to there is, is rarely smooth. And like you're saying, and then there's logistics because if I happen to find that that customer in America and we're growing out of Ghana, there's, that's, that sentence encompasses a lot. But. It's, it's, it, it's how it has to be. Yeah. And there are ways to kind of try and circumvent as much as possible some of the logistical difficulties. But, but at the end of the day, that's how the supply chain should be, and it should function as a. We pay fair wages, and I would never apologize for that. The opposite. It's, it's the banner under which I stand, so, yeah. Yeah. I, I, I can imagine connecting with all the, this, these different markets as well. It's astronomical. That, that you go through, you know even locally. And I like what you said, it's finding the right partner. You know, not everyone is for you. It's really about finding that one that really appreciates the value that you bring, the product that you bring, and they appreciated. As well, you're doing impact business. You know, you want to pay fair wages. It's not just about exploits it's about finding the right partners. It is, and I should, actually, I should correct my own phraseology. I'm not paying wages whatsoever actually, because, and, and I, and I believe this so very strongly. Mm. I'm paying prices. These are independent farm owners. Yeah. And the farm is theirs. And I say wages just because that's the, the phrase that's thrown around that it's just on the tip of my tongue. But it's, it's paying fair prices for, for a produce that they deserve. 100% of the profits. Percent. Exactly. Yes. And also toora well being that you, you are from a different culture. You are from a different country as well. You are an Israelii woman, . Yes. So how, when you started when you started to fix the chain, now in an African country, how, what cultural shocks did you really found and you had to deal with, you know, Cause that's about, I believe that's bound to happen.. So like, yes. What cultural shocks did you like had to when starting? Yes. Yes. It is bound to happen. So you know, the truth is that. There weren't culture shocks, so to speak, because., it was more culture experiences because part of the, the basis of everything I do is this deep, deep respect. I'm not coming and saying, you know, I come from the Western culture and let me, let me bring you my Western culture and show you my ways. That's, we've tried that and it did not work., I think everybody can agree that was a failed one. Yeah. So , so rather than doing that, Because that's just completely and deeply inappropriate. The entire experience was a much more humble and much more exciting and respectful. Hi, . Mm. Hi. Let's work together. Yeah. And I can't wait to meet you and I'm really happy to show you how I work. So then it wasn't a culture shock because there weren't expectations. I didn't come in expecting Western culture because it isn't, and I came in just open-eyed and curious. I wonder what this. Very different experiences going to be like, well, brains. Yeah, exactly. And that led to a lot of room for some very interesting conversations where, you know, there would be, there would be a woman where, where I would write something and she would, you know, write something back and I would say, oh, we need to hold on where I come from. Yeah. When one says this sentence, that means. I'm pretty sure you mean something totally different and we need to pause and we need to translate and then we can move forward and there is just a ton of, but it, but it was never. It's never accusatory, it's always exploring together and just kind of let's learn how we how Yeah. The other one meets and, and the timing is always a great example. How, how Yes. Timing. When one, when one sets a meeting in Israel.. If you are 60 seconds late, then you open and you, oh my God, I'm so sorry and so apologetic. Africa is not quite the same . Yeah. When one sets a meeting, like if I show up today, then we will all say thank you and move on. Move on. That took exactly and, and I used to like, Panicking. I, you know, I'm, oh my God, the meeting started 30 seconds ago and like come panicking, running in turn on a camera and nobody's there Is there like 30 minutes,. 30 minutes later they come waltzing, it was, and everyone came waltzing in 30 minutes later and then you learn, okay, I guess and this, yeah. And now it's great.. I mean, it's, I'd rather work that way than with all of the stress of being on. So, so it's, it's fun and it's different and it's constantly learning. And what's great about my business specifically is I'm constantly going to new areas kind of by definition, because once we've set up here, now let's expand and make impact elsewhere. And so, and there's such drastic differences based on the different areas where I'm working. Just a never ending exposure to so many new cultures, and it's been a lot of fun. Yeah, I can imagine. And I can feel it. Even like the energy, you know the way you speak and I see that it's such an enjoyable process for you. you know, learning new cultures, adapt, like, adapting to them because again, we're not all the same. You know, we can be, I'm in Mozambique and you're Israel, but we can communicate, we can understand each other. And they, I think that's the beauty that comes with cultural knowledge and understanding and the respect that she said and being humble about it. That we can learn, we can do business. and we can learn and ha and extend grace to each other. I can say Absolutely. Yeah. So absolutely, and I think, I think it's crucial. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I always, I always say this and I really, really stand behind it. If, if somebody would come in from halfway across the world and just kind of one day show up in my neighborhood, sit all of us down and say, all right, from here on out, this is how you're educating your children. I would be really angry.. Yeah. I'm sorry. Who are you and what say do you have in my life? And so I know how much I respect the knowledge that I have of my culture and how completely out of place a foreigner would be if they came for the purpose of making change. If a foreigner come to the community and says, Hey, I'm new here. do you wanna have a meal together? Oh my God. Move into my house.. Yeah. Yeah. And let's become friends. But no one ever has the right to impose themselves and their culture on others. And, and so there's just this very, very deep and profound respect that I have for the places. I'm the foreigner. No one else's. It's just me. Exactly. So it's quite a new experience. And, and I like that you're saying with each new experience, which new place that you go, you are getting to learn more and more about the other cultures. And I think one thing that I've, I've always got triggered is when, like they box Africa in. you know, it's just like one as if it's one country, , but it's full of different cultures and languages, thousands of languages, you know? And the fact that you are in Tanzania, you can't relate the same way with Ghanaians. The fact that you're in Mozambique, it's not the same way that you're gonna relate with Egyptians. So it's completely different. And we, we have different cultures. We are in the same. Continent, but we carry different identities, I can say, and different ways of doing businesses as well. And now Sapora with fixed the chain. I saw that it's addressing three sustainable goals, development goals namely ending extreme poverty, addressing gender inequality and fighting climate change. And I'm particularly curious, and I I, I know that you spoke a little bit more on how the mushrooms as, as well, they are very climate friendly. I can say produce, but, and, but I want to a little bit, go more on that and how you are really ensuring that you are fighting climate change with fixer chain. Oh, absolutely. The truth is actually we, we hit 10 SDGs. Oh. Which was totally unintentional, if I would be completely honest about it. I mean, we started out aiming to hit no poverty with an eye on a climate. And then when the business was fully structured and someone just kind of asked, Hey, which, which SDGs and when I really read through them one by one and I just kept them like, oh my God. Also that one. Oh wow, look, stop. So, which is really cool. And I'm, I'm very, very proud of that statement because I think what it says is two very, very strong statements. One We are genuinely holistic. Mm-hmm., if we, if we first built the business and then looked at the SDGs because we thought we were only following one, and we see how many we hit, then I can, I quite proudly say that we did a good job recognizing the intricacies of the system and recognizing that you can't target one and kind of ignore the others. So, so climate is very much one of them. And, and I'm, and I think it's a great question and we touched on it earlier but, but I am very happy to elaborate that the, first of all, it must be said that that climate change and poverty really go hands in hand. Because what we see, and I assume that most of your listeners know this, but just, just on the off chance that, that somebody is un is unfamiliar Two things happen the less. The less empowered financially an area is, then the less potential they have to protect themselves in the case of extreme climate. Right? Hmm. So that when, for example, it can be as simple as a prediction, a weather prediction, in a very rich country, they have a lot of private companies making extraordinarily, extraordinarily exact weather predictions down to the street. This is where the flooding is going to be. Yes, yes. I was only just learning about this like really recently, that there are private companies that can monetize on the satellite and not only satellite, there's four or five different ways that they can predict it, and it's expensive. So the more money you have, the more prepared you are. Forget everything else. Before we've even started with the actual climate happening. Hmm. We were already at a disadvantage because we are deeply, deeply non prepared. We don't have any area specific information. We, there are some areas that even in real time still are slightly lacking, let alone predictions. So, so there's a deep disadvantage before we've even gotten started. Once the climate change is happening, first of all, geographically location. Speaking from an international perspective. Mm-hmm., a lot of the really extreme change is happening in the men region, which means some of the poorest countries are also those feeling the strongest changes and. Which is obviously deeply, deeply unfortunate. And they're also the least adaptable because they don't have this financial buffer to make change. They're not mobile, they don't have, they don't have money. They don't have, you know, that, that spare cash for a rainy day, quite literally. So every aspect that you look at it chronologically, L geographically, wherever you look at the, these communities, they are deeply, deeply disadvantaged when it comes to climate change. And then the response also is inadequate because we don't have the funding, just like we didn't have the funding in the first place. Yeah. So so climate and poverty go together extraordinarily, deeply. and tying it back into women. Wherever you see these type of issues, women tend to be disproportionately disadvantaged. Again, the men, let's say, have fertilizer where women very often don't. Hmm. So the men's fields are just stronger, they're more resilient. The men have manpower. So as they do know that something is coming, they can prepare, they can fix in. In retrospect, the women are very often really, To their own resources, not to mention the other duties that they have, the children that they're taking care of. Yeah. This being torn between, do I save the business or do I save my family? Yeah. The women have such a burden on them. If it does lead, yes. If it leads to extreme malnutrition, if it leads to a lack of food. Statistically speaking internationally, whenever there isn't food, the woman will always be the last eat. She will always feed everyone in her family and herself last again, statistically speaking, and by and large, and I would never point at a single woman or man and accuse them or applaud them without knowing their situation. But statistics are very, very strong. So they're the issues I have come to Target and climate. cannot be separated on any level. So with that said, whatever I do must be extraordinarily climate aware. And so that's why what we do is we a try and reduce climate harm as much as possible, wherever possible. We find the most damaging agricultural waste in that area. We try and keep it local, both from a climate and a financial perspective. You don't wanna have too much traveling and transportation. Once we've grown the mushrooms and the mushrooms are, you know, we have this waste product, the byproduct of the mushroom growth, when we're ready to start afresh and do a new batch, now our byproduct. is a fertilizer that we can then reinvest in the soil, in the area and in the women and in the communities. So we're making a, we're fixing the problems. We're making their, their agricultural techniques more climate change resilience. Yeah. And, and, , all of this. We don't use fertilizers, we don't use chemicals. Mushrooms grow without any of the insulin, any of those problematic harm. Yes. Plus we are not climate dependent, so that should there be a sudden drought, as long as we can get our hands on water, we don't need it to be rainwater where it, it takes only two and a half liters of water per keto a fresh mushrooms, which when you compare that to other fields of agriculture is nothing. Nothing. Yeah. So we're extremely.. So we are using very little water. We're not dependent on rain. We can be grown year round. We have a lot of buffer for these sudden extreme climate conditions. So we set up the farm so that if there's minor flooding, it doesn't affect us. We set up the farms, that there's a, a bit of a heat wave doesn't affect us. Wow. So we've really managed to buffer the women from climate change while empowering. to be a little bit more ready for these disasters as they come and they're growing food. So if we are in an area that's facing drought, we are also producing a very high nutrient product that they can say, forget selling it, I'm gonna feed it to my children. Yes. And that's an option too. So we are, we are very, very, very deeply intertwined with everything climate yeah. Out of this mission to solve poverty. Kind of impressive how that happens to work out. Yeah, it, it is very impressive. Like what you, just explaining how it really, how come it comes into a very full circle. Like it doesn't matter the whatever season you they can find themselves in, it will consi continually be producing it is saving water, which is currently, it's a crisis in many countries as well. And for example, here in Mozambique, we suffer. like particularly end of the year till like up until March, there's like floods. So and what you explained exactly in terms of that example of some of the developed countries, they can predict exactly where it will heat that. that for me just hit home. You know, sometimes it's access to information that when you don't have the resources, sometimes you just suffer because you just don't know where, where to find the proper information, which is quite expensive as well. And if you're empowering the community, if you're empowering the women, you know, to, to have the power of, to have the power of decision, imagine where we can go from there on. So it's quite, and, and.. It's extremely true, and that's also why there's so much respect for the communities and the work that we do. Because, for example, as the community becomes richer I would never know if they would invest in a bridge, because what? They have everything they need right across this river, but we can't cross it because it's, yeah. So maybe their most important thing is a bridge, whereas maybe another one would say, forget that we are gonna buy in to this really expensive weather prediction because we suffer from floods. We don't need a bridge. And another one says, the clinic is, Seven hours away and no one can get, and every, so, and, and each community knows themselves better than anyone else. And so if by empowering them, that's when the real change happens because they know what they need and all they need is, is. The access to it. And if we can just give them even a small boost in finances and, and our goal is to give them much more than a small boost, but if we can't give them the small boost in finances, then, then that's all the access they need and they can really take it from there. Now hearing towards the end, I just, I want you to live a word of advice to women who want to start their own business especially in industries which are dominated by men. And I'm pretty sure they've seen, you've seen so many examples of women who started and they were bit reluctant. So what advice can you give to women who want to start their business and how can they thrive that's a great question., I mean, it's easy to stay and it's hard to do, so sometimes it's a bit of a problematic question, but, I mean, for what it's worth I think that we need, as women, we need to believe in ourselves. before anything else. And, and that's hard to do because ever since we were born, and, I say this about myself as much as I say this about others, and it only gets more extreme when you hit these, these other cultures, but there is a built in hierarchy that, that we all experience. There's no question about it. It's easy to understand how the world came to be that way. It's easy to be forgiving and say, . Okay. I, I get, I get how men are physically bigger and physically stronger. So it, it, it begs the hierarchy because they can nine out of 10 times physically overcome any one of us. Yeah. And , even in a very western business world. Yeah. A woman physically is the one having the baby, which means she is going to be out of the office for X amount of her career because she just had a baby. Meaning there are, there are certain built. differences that I understand how we got here, understanding that it's an inherent difference but not a weakness. Mm-hmm., I think is the first step for us to say, yeah, hell, I just had a baby . I'm not apologizing for that. Yeah. That makes me the strongest thing in the world. And for each, and, and that's an example, but, but for the first step I think is for each one of us to look inwards and. Society has a problem, but I don't, and I can be as strong as I choose to be. And I, I think that's the first step and I think the second step because society, we're not gonna wake up tomorrow and it will be different. That'd be great, but it's taking its time. I think we have to work with each other and I think the most empowering thing that a woman can do is look next to her and say, Let's, we're in it together and let me hold your hand and I'll pick you up and you pick me up. And men do it as well. And, and the stronger we become, the more we encourage each other. We become a force to be reckoned with. And, and I don't say that because it's a call to war. I say it because if we don't believe in ourselves, , how can we expect someone else to believe in us? And and we are doing it. And we're doing it exactly well. But I say this as a reminder to those who are earlier on in the journey and those who are still, I don't know, but what if, but I don't know if I deserve it. Try, yeah. What the, that happens if you fail, you'll be right where you are now anyway. And if you see that she's right next to you and she's kind of hesitating, encourage her to try as well. And as we all do it together, then we have to be part of what's. equality and equity worldwide because we're already there. Yeah. And we're just jumping into the game without really asking permission. So I think that would be my biggest word of advice is believe in yourself. Thank Then if you see others who need that, believe in them too. Yeah. Thank you Sapora. Even what you just said right now, do it. You know, what's the worst that it can happen? And for me, just to share my example with studying the podcast, it was. Do it, you just do something, you sitting down and be like, ah, do I, do I have enough experience? Can I talk about it? Can I do, you know, all of these are thoughts that are just limiting you. What's the worst that can happen? Really, you know? But if you, . At least if something goes wrong, at least you learn something new. You know? Yes. Yeah. At least. And you'll . Yes. And if you win, you win and you learn, you know, it's, at the end of the day, you, you will always gain something out of the experience. So thank you. Thank you so much Zora. And how can people reach out to you if they want to know a little bit more about fix the chain? Also pocket teacher that you also have, how can they get in touch? The best way is probably either through the website, I would say, or through LinkedIn is just the easiest, most international way. Yeah. To be in touch. The website is fixed, the chain, but hyphenated, so I assume it'll be in the podcast description. Yes. But I'm there. I'm extremely available. I love reaching out and networking. So please do. Yes, and Bar is very welcoming guys. So please feel free, , please feel free, free to go on her LinkedIn to go on the website. Like send her, she's very open to to, to, to discuss and to talk about empowering women about her business, about social enterprise. Like I, I can see and I can feel your passion Sapora and I believe that fix the chain is gonna go off the chart and it's something that's gonna be recreated all over because it's, it's something. we need it. And people are waking, waking up to it, and it's really about growing the communities. It's really about making an impact that will sustain, that will stay, that we'll take people out of poverty. And I'm so glad that you decided to say yes to this, and start. You know, sometimes people think that it's not gonna be worth it, but if you start, there's people who are looking. and they appreciate your work, and I'm actually inspired by the work that you have done so far. It's actually really commendable. Oh, thank you. I'm so excited that, that you're helping me share. And I mean, it's, it's exact, it's this collaboration. You know what I do is, it only goes so far. So thank you, Thank you for helping get the word out and letting people know. Yeah. Yeah.. Yeah. You're most best luck to us all. Yes, you're most welcome. So guys, thank you so much for listening to the podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to subscribe to share this episode to all of your contacts, to like also on Spotify as you get the chance to also comment on the webs of what you thought about the episode. So please leave a comment and I will see you next.