Winnifred Selby was only 17 when she founded Afrocentric Bamboo Limited in Ghana, to make bikes out of bamboo. As its 19-year-old CEO, she now manufactures and sells her eco-friendly, socially-relevant products in the UK, US, the Netherlands and the rest of Africa.
We meet her in Johannesburg, where she is a finalist for the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards. For a person who completed high school only last year, her confidence is unbelievable. The numbers roll off her tongue.
“I employ 42 girls, have sold 2,000 bikes and have impacted over 2,000 people. I am proud of what I have achieved.”
Wearing an African print dress and beaded jewelry, her body language – and corporate speak – could well be that of a businesswoman in her 30s. She says she has been an entrepreneur since the age of six.
“It’s in my DNA, being able to see a problem and find a solution for it. When I was young, we were very poor, and my mother had no food to give me or my four siblings. I had to devise ways to make money.”
Pain made her creative. “The kids in class would be eating and I would cry. When my friend’s mother gave me money to eat, I thought I should do something with it. I kept it safe in a small box, and kept adding to it, by selling toffees,” says Selby. In 2005, she happened to hear about the designer Craig Calfee in the United States, who came up with the idea of using bamboo to make errand bikes. Bamboo is ubiquitous in Ghana, and Selby had her light bulb moment.
“I would see girls walking eight kilometers to school, and thought why not empower them? When I started making the bikes, people asked if I was in the right frame of mind.”
She embarked on the business with $5,000 from her savings. Today, she has her own bamboo plantation and sells 100 bikes a month. In the international market, they fetch her $350 apiece. While the frame is bamboo, she imports the metal spare parts for the bikes from China.
“I realize I am impacting my generation. We women can do more no matter what our age.” Right now, she has some turning 20 to do.
Unable to focus your mind on the jobs at hand? Not able to fully savor the present? Fret not. The Mindful Revolution, which is becoming popular the world-over and is now gaining ground in South Africa, might be the answer.
“Stress causes an escalation of self-doubt, and many women then turn to maladaptive ways of coping. Our aim with introducing mindfulness includes exploring and demonstrating how to develop skilful acceptance of whatever is arising at the present moment; settling the habitually-distracted mind; and dispeling the myth that we always have to get it ‘right’ or ‘perfect’,” says Capetonian Zo Hoka Dashati, a practitioner who imparts mindfulness, particularly for women in the corporate sector.
The long-term goals of this practice include higher emotional intelligence, improved attention and focus with an attitude of acceptance and greater levels of compassion at work for self and others.
“Our approach is a radical departure – we are not striving, seeking goals or new preferred states. Instead, we are profoundly doing the opposite – we are allowing ourselves to be where we are – resilient and flexible, even when the present moment is uncomfortable,” says Dashati, whose own first experience of a stress-reduction program in the workplace came courtesy of weekly-seated massages at her office in London ten years ago.
“The clear benefits of these mini-treatments eventually inspired me to learn more about the body’s self-healing capabilities.” In the years since, learning and sharing mindful techniques have become Dashati’s quest.
“We are often like headless chickens, we are not connected to our bodies. Our breath allows us to connect with our bellies and bodies. Say yes to now!” she says.