Creating Opportunity through Sustainable Jobs

In South Africa, I have been privileged to work with Angie. Angie is a single mother of two children and she felt fearful and hopeless. Angie followed a boyfriend to the rural village of Uta, where she had no family and doesn’t share a culture. Her relationship ended, but she stayed there to keep her children away from the dangers of the urban slums.

Angie was lost in a community where she did not have the same ethnic background looking for help wherever it was available.

When ThinkImpact began working on building social businesses in this community in South Africa, Angie introduced herself to Sarah, one of our Scholars. Angie was eager to learn what we were all about. She was inspired to do something remarkable.

Two years later Angie is leading a committee that has built a community center that is now a market hub in a village that had no gathering space. She runs it as a business, and preschools, churches and families rent the space for special events. A dozen women are generating income and now an internet cafe, a food store and an exercise room are in development. This is the result of dreaming big.