黑料吃瓜

Hanna Olberding cheerfully woke up before 8 a.m. almost every day in Fall Semester 2019. After morning classes, she sped at noon to CoLab in Alden Library (opens in a new window). She and her classmates worked to increase the sales of handmade baskets, so that kids in Zimbabwe could run to classes of their own.

Students in Entrepreneurial Business Consulting worked with  to expand the market for baskets the foundation sells to pay school fees for .

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Zienzele, a Ndbele word that means 鈥渢o be self-reliant,鈥� works with women鈥檚 business cooperatives in 38 communities in Zimbabwe. The cooperatives are agricultural (farming crops or raising livestock) and creative (weaving baskets or sewing clothes), and all have the same goal: empowering women and providing education to children.

The student consulting team, led by , consisted of five students from diverse backgrounds and majors. Olberding is studying sustainability and tourism; Justin Autry, finance; Brian Beres, business analytics; David Knock, construction and project management; and Zoe Meadows, dance performance and choreography.

鈥淭his was such an eye-opening experience for me,鈥� Olberding said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e not only marketing baskets, we鈥檙e changing lives. This isn鈥檛 for class anymore; it鈥檚 so much more than that.鈥�

In 2010, more than 1.3 million children in Zimbabwe were orphaned and 50,000 households were headed by children below the age of 18 because their parents had died of AIDS, according to .

Handwoven sisal baskets are a traditional art form in many parts of Africa, including Zimbabwe. Women cut the sisal plants with blades to strip the fiber out of the blade-like leaves. They rub the fibers along the side of their thighs, until the twine can be woven. The twines are dyed in colors, then formed into baskets that are both ornamental and practical.

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The results , most of which are sold in New Hampshire and Vermont, where the foundation is headquartered. 

鈥淪ales were sporadic and mostly through word-of-mouth,鈥� said Megan Clark, marketing director of Zienzele Foundation and daughter of co-founder Nancy Clark. 鈥淭he local market became saturated.鈥�

All five of the team members are enrolled in the Certificate in Entrepreneurship program (opens in a new window) which has given them the tools to properly manage and organize logistics in business ventures.

During the semester-long marketing campaign, the consulting team revamped the Zienzele Foundation website and made it user-friendly. The students also created  to reach a younger audience and used appropriate hashtags.

Their efforts on Instagram were successful: . That mention drove more than 500 visits to Zienzele鈥檚 website and $820 in revenue from basket sales. At one point, the foundation was handling six to seven orders per day 鈥� the number of orders they had previously filled in six months.

鈥淏efore revamping the website, the online basket sales never felt worth the effort,鈥� Clark said. 鈥淭hese changes will help us reach a longer-term goal of expanding the direct-sales relationships available to the women鈥檚 groups making the baskets.鈥�

, a professor of nutrition at 黑料吃瓜 in the 1980s and 1990s. Nemapare was studying nutrition among women and children in her native country; Nancy Clark, a nurse, was a volunteer. In 2000, as Zimbabwe grew increasingly unstable politically, Earthwatch discontinued its support for Nemapare鈥檚 project. Having seen the growing crisis of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, Nemapare and Nancy Clark regrouped and started Zienzele in 2003.

鈥淚f Nancy and Prisca were willing to put so much effort 20 years ago, we as students have no excuse,鈥� Olberding said. 鈥淭heir passion inspires us to work hard and help students attend and finish school in Zimbabwe.鈥�

Editor鈥檚 note: Interested in sponsoring a child-headed household? A donation of $300 provides a child-headed household with one year of school fees, uniforms and supplies, basic food and medicine staples, and shipments of clothing and shoes.