What Happens When Rural African Women Gain Access to Mentorship, Education and Economic Opportunity? with Linda Latsko Lockhart

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast. 20 years ago this year, I decided to leave private sector and take a deep dive into development work and found a global giveback circle. If I look closely at the continent, Africa's economic growth strategy should be its women's empowerment strategy. What we're learning now is there's still social stigmatisms behind taking a job that was traditionally male dominated.

[00:00:29] They're going to know what financial freedom feels like, but the women are going to know their value. They are not going to be shy about it. Stay tuned as we bring you inspiring people who are unlocking Africa's economic potential. You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast with your host, Terser Adamu.

[00:00:52] Welcome to another episode of the Unlocking Africa podcast, where we explore the ideas, innovations and strategies that are unlocking Africa's economic potential. Across Africa, one of the continent's greatest economic opportunities is also one of the greatest challenges.

[00:01:10] Millions of young women are entering working age, yet many remain disconnected from the education, skills, finance, networks and employment opportunities that would allow them to participate fully in the economy. For young women in rural communities, those barriers can be even greater. The challenge is not simply getting into school.

[00:01:34] It can include the distance to training, the cost of education, limited formal employment, skills that do not match local demand, lack of access to finance and social expectations about the roles women should play at home and in the communities. Global Giveback Circle has spent two decades trying to understand what happens when those barriers are addressed together.

[00:01:58] Today, we have Linda Lockhart, who is founder and CEO of Global Giveback Circle to discuss this further. Linda, welcome, welcome, welcome to the Unlocking Africa podcast. How are you? I'm very good. Thank you for having me today. It's an absolute pleasure to have you on the podcast. As always, I like to start from the beginning and get to know a bit more about yourself.

[00:02:23] So I was hoping you could give us a nice introduction into who Linda Lockhart is. Well, thank you for that. Well, 20 years ago this year, I decided to leave private sector and take a deep dive into development work and found a Global Giveback Circle.

[00:02:41] So the rest of my life has been very blessed because I am living my passion, working with women and girls who make me smile and shine every day. And I couldn't be more grateful for the opportunity.

[00:02:59] So I'm very grateful that you invited me to be on this podcast today so that I can do what I think I do best and be their voice when they're unable to show up and represent them the best way I can and get enough people around the world to know who they are.

[00:03:20] And think like I think that giving back is the privilege we all share and think about ways to come on board to support these women and girls in Africa. Fantastic. And the Global Giveback Circle, it's all about women empowerment. But when we talk about women's empowerment, the conversation, as you know, can sometimes become more framed around social issues.

[00:03:48] But if we see millions of women who cannot access skills, finance, employment or markets, I guess that also becomes an enormous economic problem. So from your perspective or the work that you're doing, what do African economies lose when women, particularly say rural women, are unable to participate fully in economic life or economic activities?

[00:04:15] Most people don't know this, but on the African continent, rural women make up 50% of the population. That's a big chunk of change. So, you know, you use the word economic empowerment and that's what we do.

[00:04:33] But if I look closely at the continent, Africa's economic growth strategy should be its women's empowerment strategy with 50% of those women being rural women. So the two are very closely linked.

[00:04:53] And when you don't focus on the empowerment of those rural women so they can lean into the economic growth of a country, you're giving up a whole lot in agriculture production. You're giving up a lot in human capital, in talent, and also in new business development and innovation.

[00:05:18] So that is what is lost by not focusing on this critical segment and thinking about what resources do they need to help lift the entire economy on that continent. As you mentioned earlier, you've been in this space or doing this work for two decades.

[00:05:38] So over that time, what have you come to understand about the barriers that actually keep a young woman in Africa economically excluded? Well, we all know that the research has been done for years and it hasn't changed that much. The boy child still comes first. If the family has one shilling left, who gets educated? The boy child gets educated. That is not changing fast enough.

[00:06:07] But when you take a deep dive into that rural young girl or rural young woman, it's more compounded. Because she comes from communities where, unfortunately, harmful cultural practices still exist. Girls are still married at the age of 12. They still, in certain communities, go under female genital mutilation, even though it is against the law.

[00:06:34] By the time they are 18, they have on average five or six children. It is very difficult to take an 18-year-old who has suffered so much and has so much responsibility at home. It is really difficult to integrate her back into some form of education and job skilling and get her into the new economy. So that's the challenge.

[00:07:00] But it's not something we can't address and fix, which is what we've been doing at Global Giveback Circle. A huge challenge, but so doable and fixable. And that's what excites me every day and the team that I work with. I think one thing that stands out for me about the work that you do is the idea of instilling dignity. And with that, dignified and fulfilling work.

[00:07:28] When you speak to the young women themselves, how do they tend to define, say, a dignified or good job and a successful life? It's interesting that you zeroed in on the question about dignified and fulfilling work. Our partnership with MasterCard Foundation is based around understanding that. And what we did is we started asking the young women back in January how they define that.

[00:07:56] And with the launch of our new website, we are dedicated to sharing with the world research you can't typically get in rural areas. And we've created a publication which we branded as Beyond the Numbers. The very first learning question that we addressed is this question. How do marginalized young women in rural Kenya define dignity, fulfillment, and respect?

[00:08:26] And how do these definitions manifest in their professional and personal goals? You can read all of the research if you go to our website. But the top line findings were interesting. 80 plus percent linked fulfillment to having a good job and earning money. 99 percent want to participate in paid work. I guess 1 percent was fine being a volunteer.

[00:08:53] When we asked them to recall a moment when they felt respected, 40 percent cited appreciation and recognition. And when we asked what matters most in the workplace, participants ranked respect and value being number one, even above salary. So that's, you know, the best we've done so far to kind of dig deeply into what dignified and fulfilling work means.

[00:09:22] And we will continue to delve into that as we continue with this journey with these young women. I guess a challenge that you've probably encountered often is that young women can acquire qualifications but still find themselves without access to a job. And that seems to be one of the problems one of your initiatives, HerLab, is designed to address.

[00:09:47] Could you give us a bit more information in terms of HairLab, in terms of the objectives and what you're aiming to achieve? I think of HairLab as an ecosystem. If you were in an airplane looking down at the two rural areas where HairLab is located, there would be a lot of green around, a lot of trees. And then you're going to see these beautiful colors, sherbet colors, and they're repurposed containers. And one of them is a tech hub.

[00:10:15] One of them is an area where the girls learn plumbing skills. Another is an area where they learn electrical skills. There's a storytelling area. There is a risk tank where they learn to play poker because that is their leadership program that comes to us from a fabulous team in Chicago,

[00:10:37] operated by an entrepreneur by the name of Jenny Just, who believes that women actually get their seat at the table when they learn how to play poker. HerLab also has about six repurposed containers that are full of sewing machines where the young women are learning tailoring skills. There's a container dedicated to beauty. They're learning beauty skills. And there's a community center. And there's a crush for their babies.

[00:11:06] And there are dormitories. And there's a dining hall. There's a soccer pitch. So HerLab is a skilling campus. But it's more than that. It's an empowerment campus as well. Because these young women are coming from very, very far away rural areas, from Turkana, from West Pokot, from Baringo, from Samburu.

[00:11:31] The HerLab that we have in Kujedo is, you know, working with all the young Maasai women and refugee women from around that area. So you have this incubator where there's joy and learning. But then around it, there's an ecosystem. And that's all of the other rural women who can't come and live at HerLab. They just don't have the time to come there for a year. But they do want to learn. And they do want to get into the workforce.

[00:12:00] So they're day students. And some of them only come on a monthly basis because they live that far away. So HerLab is in the center. That's our nucleus. But then there's this ecosystem that permeates, that allows us to bring skills and new ways of thinking to all of the women from all of the areas surrounding HerLab.

[00:12:25] So your question, I think you were getting to, it's more than skills. And you have to focus on behavior change when you're working with young women who have such a small frame of reference when they come into this ecosystem. A small frame of reference about what is possible. But they also have been told that they live in the margins.

[00:12:53] I mean, and if they haven't been told, living in the margins is something they've been pushed into because of the culture. So to get these young women to really believe in themselves and lean into the new economy, their behaviors have to change. They have to have the courage to be rich.

[00:13:19] I know that sounds crazy, but it takes courage to say, I want to be successful and I want to be a wealthy woman. So we've done some things that are a little bit non-conventional, like I said, teaching them how to play poker. There are Texas Hold'em poker tables at HerLab, three at every HerLab. Through this game of poker, they learn how to take risks.

[00:13:45] They gain extraordinary confidence. They learn how to bluff. A critical skill that men have mastered. These young women are mastering that. So we're working on that edgy side. But then we also have another partner who is my mentor. And her name is Susie Orman. And I'm sure you know who she is.

[00:14:09] She is world renowned for helping women all over the globe have the courage to be rich and also to know their value. And Susie personally designs workshops on a quarterly basis for the young women in West Pokot and Cajedo.

[00:14:29] And for these workshops, we have 700 women show up and they learn things like how to say their name with confidence and own it. So they'll spend an hour screaming their name for the world to hear. They learn about the eight qualities of a wealthy woman. And do you know what? Not one of them has anything to do with money.

[00:14:59] So when they leave that workshop, they know they are already wealthy. They actually learn their new truth about money. And they go home every morning and they say it to themselves so they remember it. And a critical skill they learned. And I know it's not, it's something none of us would have thought about. But these women work really hard to make money.

[00:15:23] And the minute they make money, everyone has their hand out to take that money, including people very close to them. How do you teach these women how to say no? But how to say no in a caring way? And Susie teaches them how to say no because you're actually helping that person who's asking for a handout.

[00:15:47] And gets them to think about when someone said no to them when they asked for money, but they had to then learn how to go out and make that money, how that person was really helping them. So these are the things we work on that go beyond the plumbing skills, beyond the sewing skills, beyond the tech skills.

[00:16:07] It's those skills to know your value, understand that when you start to think like a wealthy woman, the money's going to come. I like that. I like that. So you mentioned in terms of training women in areas such as plumbing, electrical installation and overoccupations that are traditionally considered male professions.

[00:16:32] How much untapped economic opportunity would you say exists simply because women are socially discouraged from entering those type of industries? We're just in the beginning stages of understanding what that answer is. And through our research, what we're starting to learn is what are the barriers at this point?

[00:16:57] So we do do baseline with these women before they sign up to, you know, take these courses. And especially for those women who opted to go into beauty, for example, as opposed to plumbing and engineering. Why did you not choose plumbing and engineering?

[00:17:17] What we're learning now is there's still social stigmatisms behind taking a job that was traditionally male-dominated, and especially a male-dominated blue-collar job. But we also uncovered something we didn't think about, but it makes sense now. Safety. Yes. They said to us, you know, okay, let's say I'm a plumber. Is it going to be safe for me to do house calls on my own?

[00:17:45] So what we learned through that is we guarantee them that when they finish that course, they will be placed in groups. And in those groups, we will bring in a young man who is also a plumber to work with them for that safety factor alone. A lot of times when you start initiatives like this, you have like a initial thesis or a initial idea of what you're aiming to achieve.

[00:18:15] So now that you're on this journey of working with these young women, what are some of the most interesting things that you've kind of discovered and found that you didn't initially anticipate? We didn't anticipate the fact that even though we were giving them, through her lab, it's a scholarship,

[00:18:38] that they were giving one year to come to her lab and live in a beautiful environment and learn and grow and be with, you know, other young women and create networks. But we didn't anticipate that some of them still will prefer to go home and be married off.

[00:19:02] Even though we've introduced them to what could be their comfort zone was still the traditional way they grew up. And in some cases, they actually went back home and on their own accord said that they wanted to go through the right to passage, which is female genital mutilation. So that's something we didn't anticipate.

[00:19:30] We assumed that the minute that they had this opportunity, they were going to, you know, jump on it. But there will always be, I think, for years to come, a small percentage that are out of their comfort zone, that are much more comfortable just going back to the village and leading the traditional lifestyle that they were brought up to live.

[00:19:55] In other cases, some of the young women, they really miss their children. You know, they miss their children. So we had to adapt her lab to, in some cases, put their children and their husbands in a little cottage near her lab. And that's where that young woman lived. And it's still a learning process for us.

[00:20:19] But we're learning to do what it takes to give her the resources she needs to get into dignified and fulfilling work. So if it takes moving her family close to her lab so that she can get that education, then that's what we do. Interesting. So I guess you've highlighted areas of economic empowerment that spreadsheets don't always capture.

[00:20:45] I think I read something as well that you discovered that some women were missing training because spouses were concerned about domestic responsibilities or even uncomfortable with the changes participation was creating. So what did that teach you about the limits of designing these economic empowerment programs in terms of maybe some of the assumptions that you make before the program starts? You're right.

[00:21:09] In the beginning, we found that the husbands in particular weren't happy that their wives were coming to her lab because that meant that there was no one to do the household duties, the chores. And that was the rhythm that they were both used to. And these were the day students we're talking about. These are women who really couldn't live at her lab and they come as day students. So and rightly so, the husbands were concerned.

[00:21:38] Who was going to do the laundry? Who was going to do the cooking while their wives were learning skills? So in the beginning, it took some good faith and a lot of really good conversations with the husbands. And I need to say it wasn't conversations with me. These are our partners on the ground to implement and to understand, you know, what needed to happen. To make this work.

[00:22:06] And in that case, it was stipends. Not paid to the husbands, but paid for another local woman, maybe another, you know, mama to come and do those household duties on the days that the wife was at her lab gaining critical skills. In some cases, it meant that the wives would bring the children to her lab. So we created a creche and a daycare center for those children.

[00:22:35] But that resistance did not last long because the minute word got out that these women were making money, saving money, starting businesses, husbands from very far away, I mean, very far away came and said, if we come together and rent a cottage near her lab for our wives,

[00:23:02] would you take wives, for instance, women from Baringo, which is very far away from West Polkot? So there you have it. The husbands now recognize the importance of it. They were grateful that our local partners thought about a solution with the stipends. But more so, they're now putting skin in the game because they're seeing that, you know, an educated, a skilled,

[00:23:28] a financially empowered young woman can bring a whole lot more to the household than just doing household chores. Interesting. I know from my experience working in these programs, there is often a tension between respecting local culture and challenging social norms that often restrict economic opportunity. So how did you go about navigating that challenge? Yeah, well, we have local partners.

[00:23:58] So you don't do this as an organization, a 501c3, you know, based out of New York City. You have to work with local partners on the ground. And in West Polkot, we work with Pure Rays of Hope. And in Cajeda, we work with Helga. And when you design a program, especially a 10-year program, you have hypotheses. You have to. Otherwise, you don't know what to benchmark against, what to measure against.

[00:24:27] But they're just hypotheses. But in those hypotheses, you are going to make assumptions. And you are going to need to try things differently because what's worked in the past hasn't worked. So there's a lot of innovation and new things. It takes a local partner to work with the community on the ground to get buy-in on those new things.

[00:24:53] And then to come back to us and say, a bit too edgy. This is not going to work. So our local partner is the buffer. But it is up to those who design the program to challenge it with good things. Like the poker power, for instance. That's a really good example. That was reassisted in the beginning until our local partner met with the local chief. And he had never heard of poker before.

[00:25:23] And he liked it. And he said, OK, I will let you bring poker. And it's not betting, by the way. Poker power has nothing to do with betting. It's all about strategy. I will let you bring this poker power to our community under one condition. I learn how to play first. So it's those kinds of stories that allow us to build on the hypothesis. Some of the things are too edgy.

[00:25:53] We have to scratch. But also, it's a co-creation process. So year one of her lab, we sit down with MasterCard Foundation. What worked? What didn't? What do we have to change? But what do we have to co-create to make stronger? So, yes, we start with the hypotheses. It probably looks very much Western world when you look at it. By the time it actually rolls out, it's been sensitized to the culture.

[00:26:23] But we don't give up on making it better every year. The philosophy is once it is working, we need to break it. We need to break it and we need to redo it. Because once it's working, it's become too homogenized. From the conversation we've had so far, it seems that changing attitudes is a big part or a big theme here in terms of the success.

[00:26:48] And there is some fascinating evidence of attitudes changing within the program. I think I read before the program, only 19% of women in the community considered construction equally suitable for men and women. And afterwards, that figure reached around 94%. How do you explain a shift or a change in attitude that is that large?

[00:27:13] It doesn't surprise me that the shift was that large because their frame of reference was that small when they started. They had never seen a woman, plumber or electrician. So when you have a small frame of reference, the moment it is opened up, especially with role models, you can have a dramatic shift like that. So in the case of that, all it took was us bringing one role model woman who has succeeded,

[00:27:43] sitting down with the young woman, explaining how much she loves her job and how easy it would be for them to have her job to shift from 2% to 90%. Fantastic. So do you believe changing what a community believes women are capable of becoming is an economic intervention in itself? It is definitely an economic intervention.

[00:28:10] And I have to say that for us, that community shift is intentional. And the way it is done is on when her lab before her lab even opens in a community, we bring all of the community leaders together, all of those fathers and uncles and brothers, you know, who really believe that young women should, you know, stay at home, have children, take care of all the

[00:28:39] chores around the house. We bring them together and explain the vision of her lab and the whole ecosystem around it to get their input. And they're very, very happy to provide inputs. Once her lab starts on a quarterly basis, they are convened and we share with them the success and the results. And we ask them for inputs on how to make it better.

[00:29:06] When they come back the following quarter, they receive a report that shows the action we took on their inputs on how to make it better. They love her lab. It's not her lab. It's their lab now. And when I tell you it was intentional, it was and it will continue to be intentional. So as we co-create, as we rethink how far that ecosystem can spread, it's not our thinking.

[00:29:35] It's their thinking. And they're thinking together with us. And I guess with the success of what you're doing, there's plans to scale. I know through the Economic Empowerment for Hair partnership with Mastercard Foundation, there are plans to expand what you're offering further. So what have you learned about the difference between, say, proving that an intervention works and also proving that it can scale?

[00:30:02] When we started with Mastercard Foundation, it was several years ago. We started with a pilot, a her lab pilot in West Pokot. And we definitely learned what works, as you said. You know, checked all the boxes. This works, this works, this works, this works. But then we put on our thinking caps and thought, how do we scale this? What are the proof factors?

[00:30:30] What do they look like if this is going to go to scale? And as we thought them through, it was things like, how strong are those processes and implementation methodologies? And will they hold up? And are they transferable? And also, how easy is it to pivot? Like, how nimble is the her lab model?

[00:30:56] And how will we rate ourselves on being nimble? A critical proof factor was the cultural carry through. Are the pillars evergreen? Is there a culture? Will it carry through? And then oral history. What will the oral history of her lab look like?

[00:31:19] Does her lab have her unique African story that will be told 50 years from now at her lab and at future her labs? And also, a very important element is, is giving back to the community just words? Or is it really practiced? And is it seen as a privilege we all share?

[00:31:42] So in going into scale up, we believe that by focusing on and strengthening these proof factors, we know we have a model that's scalable. And part of that scale up or scaling program, it depends or relies heavily on local organizations and partners. So how important is local ownership to making development programs such as this, you know, survive beyond the funding cycle?

[00:32:10] As I mentioned, we do partner with two terrific grassroots partners, Helga and Per Race of Hope. And when we work with them, it's not like we're giving them a blueprint and saying, you know, follow this. We're getting them to realize that this is not a development program. People may call us a development program, but we're not a development program.

[00:32:41] You are a critical part of the economic growth strategy for Africa. And we have to ask ourselves every day, why does Africa need you? And they do. So it's helping our partners get out of this mindset of always looking for grants and thinking of themselves as, you know, a development project.

[00:33:07] Instead of looking for partners that will help them do Africa's work. So when we work with our partners, it's getting them to think with commercial purpose all the time. And I personally mentor the two managing directors with our partners on the ground and reminding them that at the end of the day, we're all saleswomen.

[00:33:35] And we need to be fabulous saleswomen. And we need to think with commercial purpose. And we need to always be thinking, what do they need from us? And it puts us in a much better position of negotiating at the table. Fantastic. I know in development there is often that pressure to demonstrate scale by reaching as many people and countries as possible.

[00:34:00] So how would you decide when, you know, say depth of impact is more valuable than geographical reach? Our strategy is narrow and deep. And we're very vocal about that. I come from, you know, private sector. And you don't deliver part of a product. You always deliver a whole product or you're not sustainable.

[00:34:26] Many, many, many, many funders have asked us to partner in a program that I always saw as sprinkling fairy dust. Doing something that impacts 10,000 women and girls. But once that fairy dust is dissolved, everything goes back to normal. Our focus has always been one of transformation.

[00:34:52] And we have stood firm on the fact that transformation takes time. It is a commitment, a long-term commitment. So we have been very strategic about the partners we work with. Because unless we are both aligned on transformation, then we're working at odds with each other.

[00:35:14] When we were introduced to MasterCard Foundation, it was clear that they also have a narrow and deep strategy. About 15 years ago, they made the strategic decision to focus on Africa. And they made the strategic decision to focus on youth in Africa. That's narrow and deep. Our strategy is also narrow and deep.

[00:35:39] We are focusing very heavily on Kenya at the moment to develop this model so it can scale up to Rwanda will be the next country. Uganda will be the next country. But we're, even in Kenya, we are not going to be in every rural community. Probably at the end of the day, we'll be in five rural communities. But we'll be doing it very deeply.

[00:36:07] When we work with these women, we just don't take them through the 12-month HR Lab. There's also a transitioning process where we help them either start a business or some of them will actually go on to university and go further. And then what happens after that? Once they start a business, we might help them come together as a group and have a small cooperative or a large cooperative.

[00:36:33] So narrow and deep, but focused on transformation in a very holistic way. And I guess scaling the model, it's actually happening at a moment where the nature of work itself is changing. You know, we're seeing increased use of AI, automation, digital platforms.

[00:36:55] As we see this change in terms of technology, the global economy, what skills would you say young women in rural Kenya would need to know today if we want them to remain economically, say, competitive in the next 10 years? AI skills are as important as tech skills. And we believe that. We've embraced AI.

[00:37:22] For these rural women, AI skills will give them a leapfrog advantage. So when I said we're always enhancing our program work, right now we're focusing on what are the AI skills they can be learning today? How will AI help, for instance, the women in our cooperatives? How is it going to help them with their bargaining power?

[00:37:51] How will AI skills help them communicate? How will AI skills help them with Swahili when they only know their local language? So the answer to your question, it's a critical part of our skilling strategy.

[00:38:11] We also believe that for us to scale in a good way, we have to take digital transformation and apply it to the whole HerLab process. And we're in the process of doing that.

[00:38:28] So if we continue looking to the future, if we were having this conversation in 20 years from now, what would you say has to be done differently about women's participation in African economies for you to feel that the work had fundamentally succeeded? Well, women would have to make up 50% of the workforce. So that means it will have succeeded. But more importantly, it's an attitude change.

[00:38:57] This will have succeeded if women are now bold and fearless about making money. But money does not define them. That they know their value. That they bring that, you know, to the leadership within the organizations that they work with. I also, they're going to know what financial freedom feels like because they've lived it.

[00:39:23] And their daughters are going to know what financial freedom feels like because they've learned from their mothers. But I think most importantly, the women are going to know their value. They are not going to be shy about it. Quote of the week. As people, we often have quotes, philosophies, proverbs that guide us through difficult or good moments. Is there one that stayed with you throughout your journey so far?

[00:39:51] There's one that I started my journey with. And now that we're focused on women's cooperatives and how they're going to change the economic engagement of women in Africa. My quote still is, when spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion. Fantastic. I've actually never heard that one before. So thank you for sharing it with us today, Linda. It's been a great conversation.

[00:40:18] I think what stands out is the global give back circle. It's demonstrating that these problems can always be solved independently. Certainly, you know, skills, finance, markets, mentorships, families and communities all have a part of the same economic ecosystem and all play a part in us moving forward together. So thank you for taking the time out today to share your experience, your skills, your knowledge with us today.

[00:40:47] Thank you for asking the right questions. And thank you for listening. Fantastic. I look forward to being updated and seeing how things progress with the initiatives, the projects, the programs that you're working on. Come visit us. Come visit us. We organize trips every October and February. I would love to. Thank you to everyone who has listened and stayed tuned to the podcast. If you've enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share or tell a friend about it.

[00:41:17] You can also rate, review us in Apple podcast or wherever you download your podcast. Thank you and see you next week for the Unlocking Africa podcast.