Kajol's Peace Corps Blog

One month of service down, twenty-three to go. The time has been flying in this paradise, called Tokerwa, where I reside and work.

For safety reasons, I will be referring to my place of work as Tokerwa. This is not the real name of my organization, but for this blog, we will pretend it is.

Here at Tokerwa, I am an Economic Empowerment Volunteer. What does that really mean? For my first three months here at site, I have been tasked with answering that question. As a Peace Corps volunteer, one does not walk into an organization with a predetermined or structured role for their two years of service. Rather, we observe, integrate, and learn how to shape a role for ourselves in whatever way our organization deems impactful. For the past month, I have been observing and appreciating all that Tokerwa is. So, let’s start there, what does Tokerwa do?

Tokerwa, Artisan Production

Tokerwa, founded in 1992, is an NGO that works to empower rural women in Namibia. The core business model of Tokerwa is training women to produce artisanal crafts that are sold for a profit at the Tokerwa shop on site. Products are produced in the following four departments:

Sewing & Embroidery

The Sewing and Embroidery departments at Tokerwa produce a large majority of the products. Many of the women employed in this department are external contractors who work from their homes, in rural areas, and send in their embroidered patterns to be assembled into full products. The signature embroidery at Tokerwa, known as the village embroidery, tells the stories of everyday life of rural Namibians. Tokerwa encourages peer group learning for women who attend the embroidery workshops, incentivizing them to share and teach their embroidery skills to other members within the community. This creates a win-win of empowering more men and women in embroidery skills while also bringing in more production to Tokerwa.

Batik Painting

Batik is the art of applying specialized dye to fabrics, that later creates beautiful and colorful designs. Here at Tokerwa, Meme Vicky creates the Batik paste using cake flour and water. She then hand dyes designs onto fabric. Once the Batik paste dries, she paints over the designs, washes off the paste, and is left with patterned fabric that gets sewed into aprons, tablecloths, tapestries, and more. The Batik designs are my favorite. Sometimes during the process, the Batik dye with crackle during the drying phase and will allow paint to seep into the fabric, giving the art a very rustic aesthetic.

Glass Beading

The glass beading department at Tokerwa if focused on empowering women who are hearing impaired. Meme Olivia runs the glass beading department and has been teaching me Namibian Sign Language (NSL). This department produces goods using 100% upcycled materials. Beads are formed from recycled glass bottles that are crushed, melted and molded into authentic jewelry. Meme Olivia and her team also use recycled rubber from bike tires and paper from old magazines to add dimension to the jewelry. I know both my jewelry-loving-Jen’s (from home and from my cohort) will love shopping around in this department when they come to visit.

Ceramics

The last production department at Tokerwa is the ceramics pottery department. Here, the women used to craft beautiful plant pots, bowls, dishware, and more. Sadly, during the pandemic, this department had to shut down and has not been recovered since. As Tokerwa works its way into a better financial position, we are hoping to reopen the ceramics department. Currently, Tokerwa still has stock of previously produced pottery goods that are available for purchase.

Fun Fact: Artisan craft remains the second largest employer in developing countries worldwide and is one of the main sources of income for both men and women. Apart from its income-generating and creative aspects, practicing crafts are an antidote to the stresses and pressures of everyday life.

Tokerwa products are sold through a number of channels including the on-site shop, the online store, a number of weekend markets in Windhoek, and a couple of global online platforms that showcase handmade goods produced in Africa.

Tokerwa, Additional IGAs  

Now you might be thinking, what brings customers in to Tokerwa? Is it simply a shop that tourists and locals can buy products at? I assure you it is much more. Although the handmade goods were the original idea behind Tokerwa, after the 30+ years of operations, it has expanded its offerings to include several additional income generating activities (IGAs) across the premise.

Restaurant

The Tokerwa restaurant sits atop the beautiful reservoir. All are welcome to come enjoy a meal with a beautiful view. The restaurant also offers catering to events that are hosted here at Tokerwa.

Outdoor Venue Space

With how beautiful the premise of Tokerwa is, it is no surprise that locals choose to host birthday parties, baby showers, and even weddings here at Tokerwa. Every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, Tokerwa is fully booked out. The venue space is located right outside my bottle house, and all the exposure to Namibian music has my Afro Beats playlist getting a lot more love than my Pop Country playlist these days.

Conference Room Rentals

Tokerwa has an indoor conference room available for bookings for corporate events, church gatherings, or any other indoor function. The Tokerwa restaurant often provides in-house catering for events hosted in the conference room (a huge synergy)!

Backpacker Bungalow Units

There are six Bungalow units on premise available for backpackers and tourists interested in spending a few nights at Tokerwa. Our hospitality team caters to these units.

Vegetable & Herb Gardens

The garden projects ensure food security and improve the health of meals for the Tokerwa women and families. Over time, the gardens have grown to supply the restaurant with fresh produce and herbs as well. To my bro at home, I cannot wait for you to come and check out these gardens – I know you will fall in love.

Educational Playground

Tokerwa’s latest development was the creation of an educational playground. The playground incorporates the use of various recycled and free-issue materials with learning themes around the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The playground can be booked for children’s parties or field trips.

There you have it, Tokerwa and all its lines of business. It is the kind of place I only ever dreamed I would get to work for one day. So, let’s get into that part – where do I, the economic empowerment volunteer, fit into in the world of Tokerwa?

My Role at Tokerwa

When I first came to site and saw all that Tokerwa offers, I felt overwhelmed that the role assignment was way over my head. I expressed openly to my counterpart that Tokerwa seemed to be a very well crafted and strategic organization, building synergy, on synergy, on synergy with all their offerings.

For my non-business folks reading this blog, you can liken a synergy to the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. In the context of Tokerwa, the sum of all the separate business offerings is what creates the magic. Individually, the Tokerwa shop or the restaurant might be successful, but together they are able to reduce expenses through economies of scale and boost revenues through an overlap of markets, creating a very strong business model. Observing this solid foundation, I was honored to be at such a cool organization, while simultaneously felt underqualified to offer any real help, thinking Tokerwa was already miles ahead as an NGO.

Long story short, as the month went on, I got a little more clarity on where Tokerwa needs my assistance. The current financial state of Tokerwa is suffering. After seeing all the revenue streams at the organization, it does not seem like breaking a profit would be difficult. However, as I understand the problem at hand, the empowered women of Tokerwa have never gotten trained on how to run a business. With the external grant funding becoming scarcer, Tokerwa has a two-year goal of working towards transforming from a non-profit to a social enterprise, meaning they want to be 100% financially sustainable and not reliant on external grants.

After understanding these challenges and goals a little deeper, I shifted my mindset to stop undervaluing what I can bring to the organization. There is no doubt that helping build the business capabilities of the women of Tokerwa to enable them to run this organization as a business, is a huge task. However, I am setting the mindset to not underestimate the power of small changes, which I am confident I can bring. For now, I am still in my observation phase, but I am writing down all the little opportunities for change or growth that I observe, and slowly I am developing more confidence in the role I can play here to empower these women and achieve their goal of becoming self-sustainable.

Looking Forward

My plan is to wait until January before I start actioning on observations. For now, I am keeping a list of the ideas I want to bring forward when the time comes. Here is a foreshadow at that list below!

Increased Financial Transparency

As Tokerwa gets through these next few months of financial distress, I think it is important that everyone stays in the loop on where we are financially. At the last firm I worked with, they showed by example the value of transparency with employees. This is a takeaway I plan on implementing here. I am going to pitch we display a monthly recap for the women of Tokerwa that shows the flow of money broken down between revenue, grants, expenses, overhead, etc. I am hopeful that doing so will keep everyone in the loop on the monthly profitability of Tokerwa and give a objective standing we can rely on to continually strategize and replan our approach, together.

Expanded Product Lines

Currently Tokerwa sells products at a luxury price, and does not target a large portion of the local population with their products. An initiative they are looking at expanding into is the development of sustainable and reusable period products like reusable period pads. This would be especially impactful in the northern region of Namibia where period stigma still prevents many young girls from attending school during their menstrual cycle. I have been tasked to work on developing this initiative with the team, and look forward to discovering if this is an area that Tokerwa can be successful in.

Workplace Culture

I am noticing a low morale at work. People are overworked and disheartened at the financial state of Tokerwa and the bad news it brings when it comes to raises and bonuses. In the interim state when motivation cannot come through monetary incentives, I want more initiatives that spread positivity and highlight people’s hard work. One simple idea I plan to pitch is to start collecting feedback cards from customers that include a section for positive kudos for any employee they interacted with during their restaurant or tour experience. I would love to share these kudos out on a weekly basis to show the women that they are seen for the work they are putting in.

Global Channels

Tokerwa is looking to expand the channels where they push products. In the states, at my old job, we purchased corporate client gifts from “Gifts for Good.” This was a corporate gifting platform that connected big corporations with non-profit and social enterprise vendors all over the world. My goal is to get back in contact with Gifts for Good and see how we can start the process to get Tokerwa to showcase their products on this platform and maybe expand to markets within the states. 

Trainings

The main way to build business capabilities of the Tokerwa women is seeking out professional training in the categories of Hospitality, Customer Service, Leadership, etc. My role is not to deliver or create these trainings, but rather help reiterate the learnings and ensure the education sticks.

General Structure of Processes & Procedures

The last skillset I am excited to bring to Tokerwa is a little more structure and organization of their processes, roles, and procedures. This is where my management consulting background can shine through, and I am looking forward to bringing Frameworks, Excel Data, and PowerPoint presentations to the org. First on my list is building out a RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, Informed) for the roles and responsibilities here at Tokerwa.

Alright fam, that is life here at Tokerwa so far! I want to quickly state that although this blog focused on the ways I am here to help the organization, I do not want the message to be misconstrued that this is a one-way relationship. For every one thing I bring to Tokerwa, I gain at least ten in my learnings and my growth.

I will use my next blog to dive a little deeper into the relationships I have formed with all my oomeme, ootate, and ookaume (women, men, and friends) here at Tokerwa. Oshi li nawa for now!

Peace & love,
Kajol