Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) alum Chimwemwe Mlombwa got the idea to open her business while visiting her home village in Malawi. She found herself sitting with a group of village women who were weaving, and was quickly drawn into the conversation.
“They were all making baskets together and talking about their lives,” Mlombwa said. Then the conversation took a turn. “I was surprised. Women began casually sharing, and so much [of the conversation] had to do with intimate partner violence — but it was like they didn’t know that’s what it was.”
AWE alum Chimwemwe Mlombwa launched a social enterprise to help survivors of gender-based violence become more self-aware and financially independent in Malawi.
Mlombwa says too many women cope with gender-based violence without being able to identify it – something she knows herself after experiencing and escaping an abusive relationship.
That visit to her village spurred Mlombwa to start her business in 2020, called “Kwathu Ndi Kwanu” which is a social enterprise dedicated to empowering women to break free from the cycle of gender-based violence. The business creates safe spaces for the women to talk about difficult relationships and find peer support — all while they make unique Malawian baskets and artisanal products that are sold in local and tourism markets.
The business’s bottom line is righting a wrong that too many women face in their private lives.
“Intimate partner violence is rampant — much higher than statistics suggest,” Mlombwa says. “People would rather put on makeup than admit that someone is hurting them.”
In a speech in 2020, Malawi’s president cited statistics that as many as one in three women in the country face physical or sexual violence — a trend that has only gotten worse during COVID-19 restrictions.
In fact, violence against women is on the rise not just in Malawi, but across the globe. The United Nations has called this trend “The Shadow Pandemic,” because violence against women intensified due to COVID-19 stay-at-home orders and restricted access to medical services.
In Malawi’s widely spoken Chichewa language, Kwathu Ndi Kwanu means “my home is your home.” The business is designed to create a safe space for dialogue about domestic violence, and operates in two locations in southern Malawi as well as in a refugee camp outside the capital Lilongwe.
There, African women come together to talk about their lives and weave, using traditional techniques to create unique and innovative designs. The artisans receive 60% of the proceeds of any sale.
“I understand the importance of money in giving women power to make decisions,” Mlombwa said, adding that women’s financial freedom leads to greater independence.
Weaving together creates a safe space for difficult conversations about intimate partner violence, says Mlombwa.
The remaining 40% of the proceeds is invested in educating women on sexual reproductive rights, laws governing intimate partner violence and digital literacy - classes designed to help women analyze their circumstances and make informed decisions.
Mlombwa says her business got a boost after she attended the U.S. State Department’s Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) in 2022. AWE’s online learning platform DreamBuilder, developed by Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management, helped her to strengthen her business plan and focus on setting specific goals.
For example, she says the platform’s business training modules encouraged her to think about how she could use feedback from her customers to keep improving her business model.
“The issue with entrepreneurship is that everyone makes it seem so hard — but DreamBuilder simplifies it, makes it easy,” Mlombwa says. “I realized I was designing products for me – but I really needed to test my products and platforms and get consumer feedback.”
She says AWE also taught her how to leverage social media to digitally target retail customers.
“Social media is great,” Mlombwa said. “But not everyone has Instagram. You have to know your customer, and find them where they are. You have to be in their space.”
In fact, AWE helped Mlombwa realize that she had been targeting the wrong market from the start. Instead of just putting the women’s creations in local retail stores, she began promoting her product to event organizers and local corporations interested in supporting women’s empowerment.
The strategy worked. In October, she landed a sizable contract from a national bank for 2,000 hand-made baskets that the bank plans to provide as end-of-year gifts to clients.
“That’s a big order for us - this will change people’s lives,” Mlombwa said.
Finding corporate clients for quality hand-made products has helped Mlombwa’s social enterprise positively affect the lives of survivors of gender-based violence in Malawi.
AWE also helped Mlombwa target potential customers overseas who are interested in Malawi. She now has a growing client base in Europe and Canada and is working to set up PayPal to facilitate online payments which would allow her to keep expanding internationally.
Mlombwa is using her business to advocate for greater social awareness about gender-based violence. Her business has helped women find a voice for their experience. She is hoping to use this to raise awareness through a social media campaign as part of the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, an annual global movement that starts on Nov. 25 and ends on Dec 10, which is also Human Rights Day.
“Our [social media campaign] theme this year is ‘A Letter to my Abuser’ where we intend to share our stories online, and ask ourselves, why is this person holding me hostage?” Mlombwa said. “Sharing your story is about resilience and taking back your power.”
The biggest challenge, she says, is tackling the way culture has normalized gender-based violence in Malawi among both men and women.
Creating safe spaces to tell your personal story helps women to find resilience and “take back their power”, according to Mlombwa.
“I know people who told their mother they were being abused by their partner, and she said, ‘it’s just a few slaps, come on, you can take it,’” Mlombwa attests, adding that women need to understand that this thinking is wrong.
“We can educate women,” Mlombwa adds. “But we also have to start dealing with the things that are culturally embedded in us. If our mindset doesn’t change we will always be stuck.”
For Mlombwa, changing the culture around gender-based violence starts with creating a safe space to talk and giving women the resources to advocate for themselves.
The Academy for Women Entrepreneurs was launched in 2019 to empower women around the world with the knowledge, networks and access they need to launch and scale a business. Since then, AWE has helped nearly 250 Malawian women like Chimwemwe Mlombwa to reach their economic potential, and through business and social enterprise, make positive change in the communities they serve.
For more information visit: https://eca.state.gov/awe
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