The economic and social consequences of the pandemic have disproportionately challenged young women throughout the world. Many face double and triple burdens of looking after children and the elderly whilst working from home to produce needed goods and services.
During our Special COVID Competition last spring, the HERA team learned how young women entrepreneurs in Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine have devised creative strategies to keep families, ventures, employees and communities afloat during lockdowns. Such strategies included selling online, providing home deliveries, changing products and services (e.g., mask and protective equipment), and developing new lines and businesses to address emerging market demands generated by the pandemic. HERA’s Competition awards, ranging from 100 to 300 euros, were a small recognition of the women’s creativity and resilience. More importantly, women told us that they appreciated the HERA team reaching out beyond our own national concerns to show that we cared how this pandemic had affected them.
In June the HERA France Association went ahead and launched our Annual Grants Competition. Although the initial judging already takes place online, this year the HERA France teams also volunteered many hours to judge the finalists’ ventures virtually as well. With basic survival issues at stake for many in our own countries, our funds were limited this year. Although we awarded only 30 grants (12%) out of 251 applicants across the four countries, 100% of our funds (excepting bank fees and transfer costs) went directly for grants for the women’s ventures. A brief snapshot of each country programme follows.
Armenia
Armenian women entrepreneurs faced two pandemic waves, attendant shocks to the Armenian economy, and war with Azerbaijan. Although the Russian Government recently brokered a cease fire, Armenians are now resettling an estimated 90,000 refugees. Several women entrepreneurs and their spouses were on the frontline during the hostilities. Many ventures, particularly in Nagorno Karabakh (Artsakh), shut down from the bombing and mass destruction of critical infrastructure in Stepanakert and outlying communities.
Armenian applications constituted 137 (54%) of this year’s applications. With limited resources, the team could only fund 12 (9%). Looking ahead to 2021, however, the team provided awards to the two Armenian HERA volunteers to continue their coordination, mentoring and support to many young women entrepreneurs. One of our volunteers is also actively helping resettle refugees from Nagorno Karabakh.
Amongst many good Armenian applications this year, the team funded the Society for Orphaned Armenian Relief (SOAR), a social venture. SOAR, run by three women, provides transitional housing for young women, 18 – 25 years of age, after they leave orphanages. SOAR currently houses five young women residents. During the day, they offer vocational training, sewing, embroidery, life skills, and day-care for many young women and their children.
The SOAR team also helps refugee children in Nagorno Karabakh and provides stipends for scholarship students in Yerevan. SOAR has received funding from charitable organizations in the US and Germany. Because they help vulnerable young women, who are at risk of trafficking, the HERA team provided a grant for additional sewing machines and scissors for SOAR’s entrepreneurship and vocational training.
Georgia
Out of 20 Georgian applicants, the team funded two (10%) this year. One of the ventures is a small café/restaurant in a Kist village in Pankisi Gorge. The Kists, a Georgian ethnic minority, originally came from Chechnya. Over the past decade the Pankisi Gorge population almost doubled with an influx of Kist refugees fleeing across the Chechen border. Western governments have launched raids and/or pressured the Georgian Government to crack down on international terrorists (e.g., Al Qaida), who have infiltrated the region. With periodic anti-terrorist operations, the region has remained quite volatile and at times dangerous for its rural civilian population.
Diana, the young woman owner of a small café/restaurant, has been providing home deliveries to surrounding villages in Pankisi Gorge during the pandemic. With her family’s help, she decided to open a bakery and employ one to two other young women. Diana studied economics in Tbilisi and could easily find work in the city. However, she and her husband chose to return to their village to develop their community. HERA provided Diana with a grant for an industrial mixer and freezer to store the dough for her new bakery operations.
Moldova
On 15 November, Ms. Maia Sandu from the Action and Solidarity Party become Moldova’s first woman President. The incumbent, Mr. Dodon, was openly backed by President Vladimir Putin.
Ms. Sandu, 48 years of age and a former World Bank economist, favours closer ties with the European Union. Her priorities are to tackle corruption and unite the country.
This year, the HERA team awarded nine grants (29%) out of 31 applicants from Moldova. Nadeja, a HERA grantee from 2019, used her first grant to purchase a dehydrator for a dried fruit business. Starting with two machines at the time she now has six dehydrators and has hired two women. When coffee shops closed, she lost her main sales’ outlet during lockdown. She made up that loss by selling through drug stores, which had remained open, and obtained the nation’s leading drug store as a distribution point. Nadeja also opened new product lines, including dried fruit teas and gifts for holidays, religious occasions, and care packages. With the increased sales, she reported working harder than ever during lockdown.
Nadeja recently began producing nut butters and secured an interest from Transnistria’s largest supermarket chain. The supermarket needed a guarantee that she could supply large enough quantities to meet their demand. Her home machine was not sufficient and she needed to hire another woman. Nadeja observed, “at the moment I sell from 50-70 cans per week. In order to sell more, I need to increase production capacity. Now we are working on a professional blender, but it has very low performance. If I can get this grant, then after completing all the documents for nut and peanut butter, I will be able to offer my products to a large supermarket chain in our republic.” HERA awarded her a grant for the nut blender.
Ukraine
In Ukraine, the HERA team funded seven (11%) of 63 applicants and provided a mentoring award for our local coordinator. Iryna, one of the grantees, runs a children’s business school in Cherkasy. Parents pay monthly tuition, which allowed Iryna to continue paying salaries to five teachers, aged 22 to 30 years old, and two trainers, paid by the hour, during the pandemic. Her school has one classroom in a shared space in the city centre.
Through online interviews with entrepreneurs in the four countries, the HERA volunteers heard first-hand how the pandemic is affecting young women and their communities; and creating conditions that even now are leading to dangerous migration and trafficking. Armenia has faced both political conflict and economic instability, which has the potential (with outside involvement) to spread to other Eastern European countries. Despite these uncertainties, young women are operating impressive ventures and creating employment. A woman leader, who has vowed to tackle corruption, has become Moldova’s first woman President.
In 2021 we hope to support many more women entrepreneurs to help rebuild hard hit economies and to visit the entrepreneurs and their ventures once again. We thank all our contributors, who have made these grants possible during the pandemic, and wish all the best for you and your families and communities in this season and in the year ahead.