Social Entrepreneur Spotlight: Patricia Mtungila
Tell us briefly what your organization does and how it makes an impact.
I am Patricia Mtungila. I am the Founder of Purple Innovation for Women and Girls. Purple Innovation is a social enterprise that provides creative ad, marketing and market-linkage services and training services by women to women and girls.
Our mission is to promote the well-being of girls through innovation and entrepreneurship in order to reduce vulnerability to gender-based violence.
What inspired you to start your company?
Purple Innovation was registered as a Trust in October 2016 soon after I moved to Mzuzu following my family. My heart was touched to see the lack of jobs and lack of college opportunities for young women and girls in townships across Mzuzu. Back then, the quarter system of selecting people to colleges was in force and many girls with excellent grades were left behind in the Government University selection system. These girls ended up as sales girls in the open market, Mataifa market. So, I wanted to share my skills in marketing, baking and ICT to assist in providing employable skills training to fresh female graduates and vocational skills training to enable out-of-school girls and teenage mothers to still earn a living while waiting for more permanent opportunities.
Thankfully, I was selected to participate in the March-April 2016 DELab training by Flame Tree Initiative on development entrepreneurship at Mzuzu University. I was inspired to meet other young entrepreneurs, like Trinitas Kunashe of Tina Pads, who had registered their own social enterprises. During the DELab, I learned all that I needed to know about starting an organization in Malawi.
How has Flame Tree Initiative helped you so far?
Flame Tree Initiative not only gave me advanced knowledge and skills in starting up but has been very instrumental in coaching me through being a leader in my business.
I have had the opportunity of learning from amazing American business coaches like Wayne Decker and Lauren Simonis. Through Flame Tree’s recent DEStudio Programme, I have also been linked to various relevant networks such as with the US Embassy in Lilongwe and World Connect. I’ve also had the opportunity to become part of a useful network of local entrepreneurs who can supply just about any product or service that I might need to procure for Purple Innovation. Every now and then, I knock on Flame Tree asking for some tip on marketing or a business recommendations for Purple Innovation and Chifuniro, the Programme Manager, is always there to recommend me to organizations in the US and other places because Flame Tree knows us and has taken this entrepreneurship journey with us from the start.
What advice would you give to other people who might want to become entrepreneurs?
A development entrepreneur is a social animal. I think being in a network of other startups like Flame Tree is so relevant because you learn to avoid mistake that other entrepreneurs made without making them. Also, you access opportunities that you wouldn’t normally get if you go it alone.
So far, how many people have you supported directly and how? What greater impact has that had on the community?
About 100 women entrepreneurs have been supported by Purple Innovation with business coaching. At present, we are supporting a community of 70 creative women with disabilities thanks to funding from the United States Agency for International Development through World Connect.
What are the biggest challenges you are facing as an entrepreneur?
The economic landscape in Malawi needs to be assessed to ensure that it provides a supportive environment for young social enterprises. Issues like taxes on import of raw materials imposed by the Government are causing many social entrepreneurs to struggle to attain sustainability or even forcing them to close. Also, local organizations need to be deliberate about working with youth-led startups by removing some conditions on business and grant agreements such as demonstrating many years of experience.
What goals do you hope to accomplish in 2020?
Having already started seeing the impact of investing in capacity-building of young women and women with disabilities, we plan to scale our entrepreneurship support to more women in more rural areas of Northern Malawi. Apart from our core services, we also plan to have deliberate income generating activities for the sustainability pf Purple Innovation.
Anything else we should know about you or your team?
I have an amazing team of hard-working girls who assist in implementing our programmes. It is a great opportunity to be able to invest in building a team of girls who are willing to be harbingers of new and innovative ways of serving women and girls.
