Community College Initiative Program: Global Impact - South Africa

Sharon's story is part of the CCI Global Impact series—a collection of videos that showcase the impact of Community College Initiative (CCI) Program alumni projects and contributions in their home communities. To create this series, a small team of filmmakers from StoryCenter traveled around the world to film the stories and projects of CCI alumni.

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DIRECTOR'S NOTES
Allison Myers, StoryCenter

Sharon says there are no jobs and no new ideas in Limpopo, a rural region in the northern part of South Africa where she grew up.

But she is changing all of that because new ideas—and bringing them to life—is her superpower.

“Growing up, I thought I didn’t have a talent. I couldn’t dance or sing. I was terrible at sports. I felt like an outcast.” Sharon said during our interview.

She’d always had a talent, but she didn’t realize it or have a name for it until she interviewed an entrepreneur in the U.S. for a class assignment.

“Being an entrepreneur isn’t just about starting businesses or pitching a new project idea,” she tells me, with a beautiful confidence that seems rare in young women. “You know you’re an entrepreneur when everything sparks new ideas for you. And when you have an idea it takes hold of you, and you think about it all the time until you can do something about it.”

“That’s me! I’m always wanting to put things together to bridge a gap or solve a problem. Then I research, develop my ideas, meet people, then I take action.”

She makes it sound easy.

Sharon is always starting something.

When she came home from the U.S., she and two other CCI alumni started the New Dawn Foundation. They went into the villages and created a spelling bee program. They trained teachers, prepared the kids, publicized it, and last year was the 4th year of a national competition recognized by South Africa’s National Education Department.

Then Sharon started a small consulting and marketing agency, branding other people’s business. And she was good at it. She started teaching her clients how to start and run their own businesses. That’s when she decided she could combine the things that were important to her—her passion for entrepreneurship, taking care of the environment, serving her community, and making a sustainable impact—and start her own social enterprise.

During the CCI Program, she volunteered for ASHOKA, the founders of social entrepreneurship, and wanted to take those ideas back to South Africa.

To start Triple Shine, she needed capital. She had some money she was saving for her three little girls, but decided to take a risk and use that money to develop a prototype of a micro-franchise for her refillable detergent idea. She studied online micro-franchises and felt that it was a good model to take people out of poverty. And other people were doing it. So why couldn’t she?

She initiated a crowdfunding campaign to help people start their franchises, since most couldn’t afford to buy into it. When we met in Limpopo she had already raised enough to fund 14 women with the Triple Shine business-in-a-box, and her plan is to fund 100.

Production was another challenge. Sometimes the quality of companies’ products changed. So now she’s working to develop her own products and eventually, her own factory. Producing her own products in the region will keep the prices down for franchise owners, and provide factory jobs for the community. She wants to make sure that women and people with disabilities in particular have opportunities that currently don’t exist for them.

“I realized in the U.S. that economy is community centered. People need jobs near where they live, and spend their money where they live. In this way communities can thrive."

While we were visiting Sharon during a workshop where she trained franchise owners on marketing, managing supplies, accounting, and basic business skills, she received news that she had been awarded a spot in a JP Morgan Chase/GIBS Small Business Boost Program. The yearlong program provides mentoring, business training and Enterprise Supplier Development (ESD). She also received Green Business modeling to promote green energy and carbon free production technologies and methods in business. At the end of the program Sharon achieved a viable business plan, and now has a contract underway with one of the biggest Hotel Amenities Suppliers in Southern Africa for an ESD opportunity. She is well on her way of meeting her goal to produce green products in environmentally friendly, reusable containers and build a business that serves both the community and the environment.

Her enthusiasm and belief in her ability not only to make things happen, but to make a significant difference is contagious, and I find myself thinking during our interview that I hope she runs for president of South Africa one day.

I’ve already decided she has my vote.

I tell her what I’m thinking.

She laughs, and actually quite seriously says, “Maybe I will.”

Who knows what she’ll start next?