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A Seat at the Luxury Goods Table: Two Female Entrepreneurs Share Their Stories

Hanga Ahazaza, which means “create the future” in Kinyarwanda, is a Mastercard Foundation initiative that seeks to boost employment opportunities for 30,000 young Rwandans in the tourism and hospitality industry while providing business knowledge to budding entrepreneurs. It comprises of a consortium of partners from various sectors, like education, development, financial services, and private sectors. We spoke to two emerging female entrepreneurs from the program who shared their experiences of business growth and impact.

Gloria Girabawe (left) and Angelina Mutegevu (right) have seen their businesses grow and thrive since gaining valuable entrepreneurship skills through the Hanga Ahazaza incubation program.

This year, Hanga Ahazaza celebrated its fifth anniversary. Created with a targeted focus on improving the quality and relevance of Rwanda’s tourism and hospitality sector, the program prepares young men and women with these skills. It also empowers entrepreneurs by expanding access to financial services and directing business development skills training, enabling small businesses to grow.

Now is the best time to be a young female entrepreneur. As a gender that has been marginalized for too long, we are now pulling each other up.” – Angelina Mutegevu, Founder and MD, Kwezi Sana.

Business owners Angelina Mutegevu and Gloria Girabawe are part of the first successful partnership with the Foundation in the program’s entrepreneurship segment. They have since seen their businesses grow and thrive.

Young business owner Angelina Mutegevu is the Founder and Managing Director of Kwezi Sana.

Angelina Mutegevu

Angelina faces a unique challenge for a young business owner – her products sell out as quickly as they are put out due to high demand. This has been the story of her business since it launched in 2020.

At the start of the global pandemic, like many others, Angelina struggled in lockdown and required a “safe space” to cope. She turned to creating scented candles for self-care, which she decided to sell. “The way in which the business took off left me reeling. I sold 400 candles in the first three weeks,” she remembers. “It was unbelievable.”

As Kwezi Sana’s Founder and Managing Director, she emphasizes luxurious living through her scent. Her locally made, hand-poured scents are curated in small batches and supplied to high-end hotels across Rwanda. Product offerings include candles, diffusers, and linen sprays, emphasizing affordable luxury, wellness, impacting others and environmental concerns.

Despite the flourishing business, Angelina has faced the daunting task of scaling such a young enterprise and coping with its challenges, such as imported raw materials’ customs fees and tax. For her, Hanga Ahazaza acted as the turning point after completing a six-month learning and incubation program.

“The program offered practical lessons that were highly relevant to me and expanded my knowledge of business. As the sole proprietor of a small business, I learned valuable information about taxation and revenue previously unknown to me. This enabled me to transition from a small business to a validated and supported enterprise,” she says.

Angelina remains in touch with her mentor, who remains an integral part of her business and personal life. Her participation in the program allowed her to learn alongside other young entrepreneurs, building valuable relationships and sharing experiences and solutions to common challenges. “That has greatly impacted me as a businessperson,” she explains.

Angelina says she is excited to work with young people to build their confidence and self-esteem in business and their communities. Her business is accessible online, too.

Young entrepreneur and Hanga Ahazaza alumnus Gloria Girabawe is the Founder and Creative Director of Flove.

Gloria Girabawe

There’s something about Gloria’s disposition that commands respect – not in a forceful way, but polite and civil. You can imagine her sitting in a boardroom and not being intimidated in the slightest.

“Running a business as a woman is not easy – it demands a lot of resilience. I started my business while I was still a college student, which meant pushing through a lot of barriers and debunking many stereotypes about being young, black, and female. I’m proud of myself for standing the test of time,” she says.

Gloria is the Founder and Creative Director of Flove, a three-year-old business that sells eco-friendly reusable tote bags. Her love for functional, aesthetically pleasing bags that can stand the test of time in quality and style led to the business’s creation. When other students expressed interest in her designs that she carried on campus, she began selling them, marking the beginning of her entrepreneurship journey.

Gloria attributes her sharpened entrepreneurship skills to the Hanga Ahazaza incubation program, which helped her gain a better understanding of the local market and institutions supporting local businesses. “It was a great opportunity to lay the foundation for various systems in my company, such as setting up our production line and finances.” She also benefitted from networking with fellow entrepreneurs, as she explains.

As a successful businesswoman, Gloria has scaled her business significantly. Flove currently employs 16 young women aged between 20 and 35, seven of whom are full-time employees.

What excites me is creating for a community in need. I strive to be financially independent and build generational wealth.” – Gloria Girabawe, Founder and Creative Director, Flove.

Gloria has built a community around her brand and business, working with college students and early-career women to create social impact. She finds it incredible to witness the transformative power of providing a source of income for these women and how it contributes to a woman seeing herself differently. “I’ve also seen my confidence grow with time and exposure, and perhaps I wouldn’t have had the same confidence had it not been for the business,” says Gloria.

The women often receive intensive training in the manufacturing of handbags, with a qualified product engineer teaching them how to achieve quality standards.

She continues, “We’ve built stories around the way we present our collections – stories of empowerment, of being brave enough to be your own wildest dream, to be the woman of your own world. I’ve seen the brand build a community of women who are excited for the future and doing amazing things with their work. That is one of my biggest motivations.”

She admits some of her biggest challenges have been limited resources and sourcing raw materials outside Rwanda. “However, we hope things will improve with time and growth. I believe Rwanda has really set itself apart,” she says.

She added that her country has put considerable effort into pushing for young female entrepreneurs. “The dream continues. By 2030, I want to have 500 young people employed by Flove. The ambition goes on!” she concludes.

This post originally appeared in Horizon Magazine.

 

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