What I learned from a powerhouse entrepreneur from the “periferia” [Lessons from my entrepreneurial jouney]
I recently connected with a good friend that I lost touch the past few years, and haven't heard of my entrepreneurial stories. Since we both love journaling and reflecting through writing, I decided to share with her my insights from these past few years as a social entrepreneur.
As a people person, definitely my learning always happens by connecting with others. So I’ll share with you the story of a couple of incredible people that I’ve met in this journey that inspired me greatly.
About Daniela Araujo
My first character is Daniela (Dani), a charismatic 41-year old black woman entrepreneur. We helped her build the third licensed unit of our education venture (Cantinho do Brincar) and pursue her dream of becoming an entrepreneur in her community. From the honor of this interaction, I learned so much from her tenacity, resilience and faith in herself.
Here are the main things that I picked up from her:
Don’t accept no for an answer
Dani has almost all the characterizations that lead to prejudice in Brazil. She’s black, a single mother, daughter of northeast region migrants and lives in a violent suburban area of São Paulo (“periferia”). This characterization led to many “nos” in her life. However she never accepted the limitation others imposed on her.
After finishing her high school studies, she looked for a vocational course that could prepare her for the job market. She found a manufacturing technical course, even though it was far from her house and a male dominated environment. During the course, she suffered prejudice from her colleagues that constantly bullied her as the only black woman in class, and even physically assaulted her once. With the support of a friend, she found the strength to fight the circumstances and graduated. However, she could never find a job on the manufacturing floor, and had to move to a secretarial career, where women were more accepted. Even though she grew fast in secretarial roles, she still suffered prejudice for being a black woman, where she was asked to straighten her afro hair and put makeup to “fit in” the environment. She constantly pushed herself to go beyond, and finally graduated her first higher education degree at the age of 40, as a single mother and entrepreneur. There are no limits to what Dani can aspire and the energy that she puts into getting there.
Connect with your purpose
Dani was always connected with her community, and started working with children as a volunteer every Sunday. She understood the impact of her work in the families, and found immense pleasure and realization in her social activities. After recognizing the fragility of life when she successfully cured a cancer, she decided to give up the stability of her secretarial work, and pursue her passion working with children. She started working as an autonomous art educator in NGOs and entered a Pedagogy degree. When I met her, she had the dream of becoming an entrepreneur and having her own educational space in her community. Even though she didn’t have access to a proper location (which originally was a criteria for us to support her as an entrepreneur in our network), she was so driven that we opened an exception and started looking for a partner to help her open her venture. She found a school that accepted the partnership, and restored the space herself. The partnership didn’t work after all, but she persevered and found another space, having the courage to start from scratch even amidst a very uncertain scenario during the pandemic.
Believe in yourself and follow your dreams
Dani had always an incredible faith and confidence to pursue her dreams, even in the worst circumstances. During the pandemic, when we had to close our operations, she was still working in one of our units, while trying to find a new partner to restart her venture. We engaged her in other activities, and advised her that it would be very hard to reopen her own unit due to the crisis and unemployment in the “periferia”. She, however, never gave up on her dream. As soon as she found a new partner, she risked it all and opened her new location. Today she’s thrilled that her educational space is almost full, and she’s even hired a new educator to work with her.
These are only a few among many lessons that I learned from Dani. Watching her powerhouse attitude towards everything always made me feel that my problems were so meager. Especially coming from such a privileged background in Brazil, with such a wonderful support network to back me up.
That was exactly what we wanted Cantinho to be: a network that would be the support system and inspiration to many women entrepreneurs in communities. And even though we had to close our operations in the “periferia”, we are proud that some of this mission was accomplished. Our dream now lives on Dani and two other entrepreneurs that reopened their units, and are now independent in their communities. They are still in touch with us, and still share best practices among themselves. And I am eternally grateful to everything I learned from them and what we built together.
