Carolyne Main

My mother led me here.

An empowered woman

taught me to empower women.

When my father passed away we were still young. My mother was a secondary school teacher who was teaching home economics which includes food and nutrition. She started selling fresh milk to hotels make ends meet because her salary was not enough to sustain the family., They loved the milk she was selling; it was fresh and was not diluted with water!

Carolyne Mwanri, BRAC Head of HR & Training

Her classes were starting at 10 am, so she would wake up at 4am and drive from our village to Kilimanjaro town where she was teaching. By 7am she had distributed the milk and spent time looking for more opportunities.

Soon she started cooking food for market traders, and with the profit she made from selling milk she was able to pay for fuel for her car which was helping her to get by and the remaining helped her set up a shack selling nutritious food.

Her tasty organic food made her popular; she later found a better place to sell her food to long distance bus commuters.

She has retired now and she is teaching nutrition and life balance to girls in her community, She also organizes organic dinner nights with other nutritionist to talk about body health. She has her own farm with all types of organic vegetables and fruits that are used by her restaurant and for retail selling; Her restaurant is now in a big commercial building and has branches in three other regions.

I tell her story because it seems to embody what BRAC is about. It is like I knew BRAC before I found it and worked here!

Brac empowers women. My mother is a woman who started from scratch, never gave up but was able to grow big and transfer her knowledge to others by ensuring that while doing her services she is helping people move from eating junk food to eating a balanced diet. To her it is not about doing business but also transforming life, and this is the spirit of BRAC to me.

Good ideas are for sharing. Pass them on. Thank you.

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