The Long Way Home

A JAMAICAN PAN AFRICANIST

As a Jamaican- born during the era of Musical pro Giants such as Bob Marley, Burning Spear and later Buju Banton. 

Africa was never an abstract place to me. It was an inescapable inheritance.

 I grew up knowing that I was carrying hundreds of years of African history with me. 

 From my paternal grandmother- I was specifically told we were Ashanti Koromantees from Ghana . 

Growing up in Jamaica our history was never hidden from us. The heroes who dismantled Slavery and Colonialism sit prominently on our money. 

Confronting us and reminding us everyday that freedom was never given to us by anyone sitting comfortably on a throne thousands of miles away.

 We had to fight for it and sacrificed for it and to many Jamaicans-the job was only half done.

Many  expected not to be released into semi freedom in a land that was designed for our oppression with laws making our existence illegal on the same day of emancipation.

– Many expected repatriation to Africa and reparations for our captivity-both were denied through years of silence and neglect. 

So I prepared myself in my own way.

 From the Rastsfarians, I learned that Haile Selassie was an African King of Ethiopia who had permissioned Jamaicans with the right to return  to Ethiopia. 

Jamaica also produced one of the first philosophers on Pan Africanism, our own Jamaican National Hero- Marcus Mosiah Garvey whose back to Africa philosophies influenced the musicians in Jamaica and politicians in Africa to elevate Africa.

Through simply existing in Jamaica

– I learned that Africa was not a place that existed in the annals of history, to be forgotten about and glossed over during history class as a place that contributed nothing to the western world. 

Africa in my young Jamaican mind was not romanticized about as s ficticious elsewhere heaven-but a living breathing place, that had produced Western Civilization- through its enslaved peoples who contributed over 400 years of free labour  and use of African Agricultural technology in the Caribbean and the  Americas.

In Jamaica I sat next to girls at Wolmers who were born in Shashamane land in Ethiopia.

In Jamaica our African  heritage was visible in the food we ate, the stories we told, the patois language we spoke, the way we played our music and the things we believed.

In Jamaica Chinua Achebe- That Great African Author from Nigeria- his Book Things Fall Apart was MANDATORY reading in my High school.

By the time I was born my Jamaican forefathers had built a strong spiritual, bridge for me to walk over to return to Africa and I decided I would return.

In Jamaica, I knew Africa wasnt somewhere I had to go searching for- I am Africa.

JAMAICA ALSO SHAPED MY ENTIRE WORLD VIEW ON TRADE

As a teenager in he 90s-I had seen Jamaica shift from an agriculture economy to a tourist economy.

I had seen the decline of Jamaican sugar, pineapples and banana to the United states. Because Jamaica  had entered into an agreement with the IMF- which prevented Jamaica from entering the American market with competing crops.

I had seen privitization- where all of our Government assets were sold off to pay our debts leading to mass layoffs and unemployment

Instead of exporting agricultural  products to America, Jamaica; an English Speaking Island less than 600 miles from the United States- became the number one exporter of its greatest product to the United States

Its young people.

By the mid 1990s-staying in Jamaica was not a viable option for education or employment for young people.

I was one of those  young people- trapped between the decline of a great past and the realities of an uncertain future.

I exported myself to the United States.

– I heeded the words of our Prime Minister and decided  to study tourism very early on.

IN AMERICA

By the time I stepped off the plane and touched African soil. I was 42 years old. 

I had spent 25 of those years working  corporate America in business development running corporate projects in Global Meetings, Events Conference and Corporate Groups -a sector of corporate travel requiring multiple skills including sales, technonoly, logisics, finance and visa.  all while -trying to navigate a society that had never fully reconciled itself with its own racial history.

America-was not it.

I was living in a post colonial society that decided to completely move on, without Africa and its peoples in its context as a contributing factor to the success of its society and rarely if ever reported the news from Jamaica or anywhere else for that matter.-but I was determined not to forget.

Meanwhile I moved people and their Goods year after year after by the thousands – I kept my eye on Africa, I kept my eye on trade.

I had to find my way back to the bridge -and cross it.

I loved my career-but I didn’t feel as if I was living in the true expression of myself.

My mental escape had always been Africa.

-studying Africa from behind a screen. I read anything and everything coming out of the continent. I indulged in her newspapers, marvelled at her cities, dug into her past , craved her fashion and tried to understand- how could I fit there, and where would I go?

 Meanwhile the mainstream American  news only reported Ebola outbreaks, HIV spread, Africanized killer bees, wars and widespread famine. 

-I knew this wasn’t the true Africa.

I needed to build my own bridge from where I was standing in time and space.

 At 25  I created a Pan African print magazine – the Watchman’s World Journal. Because at 23, I developed an unpublished manuscript. An Answer to The British Pocketbook of “patritosm.”  And I was assured by friends that no one would read it-becsuse “blacks didnt like to read.” 

At 35- In in the age of Facebook I started the Atlantic Bridge…and suddenly a swarm of identical publications similar to mine showed up from nowhere.

I began working on media, visibility and visual story telling. 

Not because no one was talking about Africa-but because the children of the Diaspora was being left out of the  AFRICAN conversation.

I studied television production and on screen  presentation to position myself to tell better and more inclusive Pan-African stories while navigating my 9-5 job.

– A job which was preparing me with the  infrastructure to step into a new arceer in trade.

In  enrolled in programs on food security, community development  and trade, to better understand the geopolitical and socio-economic position of individual African countries to draft a better narrative of our shared heritage.

And then in 2012 Former US president Barack Obama introduced his US-AFRICA trade Initiative. 

” TRADE AFRICA.” 

I was waiting. I was listening. I was ready to cros the bridge.

there now a developing system, a platform-

A legitimate trade initiative called AGOA– The African Growth Opportunity Act- in which I could fit my Pan African aspirations into.

but one thing stuck out to me, what was missing was a crossborder trade platform which many experts said was the needed portal to facilitate trade.

 A digital platform in the modern age that the average business person who wanted to buy African goods to bring into his community did not exist.

 So I built it. 

  I wasn’t So sure how ready African countries were to participate in selling goods to America.

I began a closer inspection of AGOA a Bi-lateral trade Act  which on the surface seemed marvellous.

Was I really going to be able to walk into a Supermarket in Idaho or Wisconsin or anytown USA and pick up the African equivalent of Cocoa Cola?

– Or  was AGOA the vehicle to sell millions of dollars worth of  Coca Cola to Africa?

What were the systems in place to ensure African companies could legitimately enter the American markets to participate in this bi-lateral trade? Was this a raw materials deal? or a finished product deal? If so-was funding in place for African companies to navigate American trade systems?  What about when American companies begin to compee for market share wih African companies building their lives aroun trade wih America?

You see-Jamaica had sensitized me to understanding something others overlooked.

trade agreements were always designed for the benefit of those who created the legislation and unfortunately the global south was more often the recipient and less the  authors or beneficiaries of these agreements. Bilateral trade wih Africa  sounds delicious on paper-but harder to execute in reality.

Nontheless, AGOA had presented an opportunity for me to test cross border trade wih Africa in my own way.

BACK TO JAMAICA

In 2014 -After building this App;  I needed to  eturn to Jamaica due to a family matter-but I kept working on and promoting my Trade-Africa App called Proudli -because if nothing -I was Proudli African.

To keep the bills paid and give me flexibility in Jamaica- I created a National Radio Show on Hot 102 called My Business Breakfast, a Business Development program introducing Jamaicans to opportunities in cash crops and engaging the business community and Women in Business. 

But I kept working on my Mobile App .

With the support of  Pan African Jamaicans such as Mutabaruka-I bootcamped  with my project  Proudli at Oasis 500 in Amman Jordan to get the technical insights I needed to succeed.

Returning to Jamaica from Jordan in 2015, with fresh eyes – I realized that though I was neitther in America or Africa,  I didn’t need to have my first model be the last model. 

I could PROVE MY CONCEPT with what I had available using existing trade  partnerships from Jamaica.

CHINA

 I tested my concept  of cross border trade on one of Jamaica’s longest migration and diplomatic  partnerships-

In May of 2015 I travelled with the University of Technology to China and pitched my platform to Plug and Play in ZhengZhou.

My company was successful at Plug and Play  in Zhengzhou.

and I was invited to subsequent rounds at Camp Unicorn in  Beijing.

and a closed door investors meeting in Suzhou.

I was invited to the Camp Unicorn Campus to begin incubation. I learned business Mandarin at Sias International University in Henan province.

I inspected China’s trade policies- China is arguably- the worlds supermarket, manufacturer and top exporter- but what did China need that the Caribbean or Africa could offer?

The Answers were surpirising.

 China requires vast amounts of foods imports  from the world to support its food requirements and they needed ir from the Tropical countries- The Caribbean, Latin America and Africa.

So I asked:

How can African and Caribbean Goods successfully enter China?

I inspected the customs policids-The  Chinese  import system is strict but not impossible.

 I did the research, I visited the trade shows, and I met with CCPIT. 

The Chinese  consultants said there were opportunities for the Caribbean market but my biggest opportunity was the African market.

And they were  specific. Yes-  I must prove my concept with what was available- but I should shift my focus on Africa, specifically East Africa.

But how will I get there? Where would I go?

I wasnt African didnt know anyone in Africa and never set foot on the continent- let alone bring goods from Africa to China.

So I did what I could do- researched and gathered knowledge.

 I asked the questions, What was the path of least resistance, what were the products in highest demand? 

What were the customs and  trade rules?

I Got the answers and returned to Jamaica in January 2016 , after a short stop in Philadelphia to Deliver my daughter.

 In Jamaica -I immediately went to the Chinese consulate, obtained our Business class visas and met with the Chines trade envoy to ensure I wasnt missing anything.

The Chinese trade envoy to Jamaica confirmed what I had learned in China. There was a need to establish counter trade from Jamaica to China and the word he used was “ashamed” that the Jamaicans did not sell back to China.

We were  invited to Chinese New Year Celebrations – but there was work to do.

I immediately began working on positioning Jamaican companies to enter the Chinese market.

I realized  that trade with China was the needed support Jamaica and Africa needed to sustain their agricultural  economies.

I met with producers of Jamaican foods, many of whom I had met previously while interviewing for my radio show. 

Many could not believe the words coming out of my mouth

– Their responses:

 “SELL GOODS TO CHINA?? ” Me: -yes.

“CHINA HAS EVERYTHING.“Me –no they don’t. 

WHAT DO WE HAVE THAT CHINA WANTS?  Me: everything 

“WE ARE A SMALL COUNTRY- WE CANT FEED CHINA”-Me:  its called the gourmet market, small supply, high quality= high demand/ gourmet. 

The Jamaican business community- could not get over the idea that China was in need of food and water. 

Furthermore who was I -as a Jamaican black woman, from America- to tell Jamaicans they could sell products into China?

It seemed I was the wrong shade of Chinese to sell the idea.

BREXIT

During the years when the United Kingdom was a part of the European Union, Caribbean nations which were former colonies of the U.K. had preferrential trade agreements to get their products into the .U. K. market.

When the United Kingdom became a part of the European Union, that trade became a part of the package. Small Islands such as Jamaica had a direct pathway in-But with Brexit the trading opportunities would adversely impact tiny islands like Jamaica.

I wrote articles in the Jamaica Observer to Use the Brexit loss of preferential trade opportunity to engage CHINA .

READ FULL ARICLE HERE

and took out Ads in the Gleaner, promoting the tradE opportunity.

Admittedly- The Jamaicans were not an easy sell– because though Jamaican companies could pass readiness, the philosophy or imaginings that Jamaica could sell China anything seemed like unheard of fantasy and pure blasphemy. 

During my Jamaica-Africa Campaign, only one company signed on to my program- but all I needed was 1. 

PROOF.

I will not say my Jamaica campaign was without  success.

One of the most valuable meetings came out of my meeting with Jeffrey Hall, the Director of Jamaica producers- A company founded in the 1920s by banana growers who realizes that if they were to have successful trade, they needed to own the shipping line which carried their bananas to the international market.

Mr. Hall is also the Chairman of Kingston Wharves – the main import-export artery of Jamaican shipment of goods.

To have a meeting with him is like sitting down with the early morning sun-warm, familiar, energizing and powerful.

To my surprise, Mr. Hall understood my project very weĺl and he too impressed upon me to sharpen my focus on Africa as his shipping conglomerate was already doing so from the UK and following the Chinese  1 belt 1 road initiative into Rotterdam.

-Finally, someone who didnt just get it-but was acting on it.

I felt seen.

I left that meeting with purpose and determination- to get to Africa.

I engaged African trade missions in Kingston through their respective embassies to learn specific details on market readiness.

In January 2017, I won the Jamaica Stock Exchange pitch Challenge with my cross border trade platform. 

The Jamaican newspapers enthusiastically announced my winnings of $300,000 not 300,000 JMD – a simple typographical error, that shifted everything.

I had only won JMD 300,000 which is the equivalent of 2,300 USD. –but many people did not know that 

The doors which were once closed were flung wide open, the bankers came calling, the investment companies flocked en masse, the congratulations from the business community rolled in – so did the criminals. 

My house was broken into twice in one week and I was robbed at gunpoint while holding my daughter in my arms- trying to get inside my home. 

It was time to get out of Jamaica.

and so I did- but I wasnt properly prepared for Africa, insead I went back to America. 

The mission was interrupted, but not denied. 

While raising my child in America, I continued  consulting  privately, quietly, preparing strategies and market entry opportunities for companies and individuals, in between naptime, playtime and storytime. 

I began to prepare myself for Africa. Slowly, Quietly, Intentionally.

the Bridge Finally Appers.

 I was finally ready to make my move once and for all to Africa-but I needed a walking stick, something to lean on.

Something more powerful than a trade App which would encounter the same market readiness issues as I did in Jamaica.

I at least knew that African goods may be available to the local marke but not be ready for international exports of finished food goods.

  One cannot venture to Africa without a stick that can stand up to the unknown.

 I chose documentary filmmaking – an excellent stick. 

In the winter of 2019, I was admitted to the New York Film Academy.

By March 2020 our classes were online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

 To me this was an opportunity.

I was ready to cross the bridge.

 By June 2020, the wheels were in motion. And in July 2020 during the height of the Pandemic,

  I had made a complete break to the only African Country Still Open. 

TANZANIA. EAST AFRICA.

I chose Dar es Salaam over Zanzibar -because Dar was revealed to me in a dream. 

I chose Bahari Beach over the City because again, it was revealed to me in a dream. 

 In Bahari Beach, I found an abandoned Villa at the Beach and restored it.

 Creating a repatriation gateway for anyone else who was coming to Africa  behind me to make Africa not so foreign and unfamiliar to the Diaspora- I started a Youtube Channel to show tanzania  as a developed country-contrary to what the Western Media portrayed.

SEAWEED

 While restoring the Villa,  I saw seaweed flowing from the sea…seaweed so familiar it seemed to have followed me directly from Jamaica…waiting at the shoreline in front of my home. 

I decided to invest in this seaweed, to process it and package it in Africa for the benefit of Africans and the Diaspora.

I needed to test the African market for readiness myself. Its one thing to tell a company to trade from Africa -it was another thing entirely  to actually DO IT.

 SEAWEED WOULD BE MY PROOF PRODUCT.

 I will use seaweed to test market readiness, trade strategies and pathways for African Goods to enter international markets, but it had to be a consumer packaged good. 

I was not going to join the Africa as exporter of  raw materials bandwagon, leaving out the real benefit of what finished goods provided-employment to local people.

But this was much easier said than done. 

 BUILDING THE BUSINESS 

Seaweed in Tanzania was exported primarily as a raw material to feed the large food processing ingredients industry with Carrageenan. 

Seaweed or Mwani in kiswahili as human food was not a common thing locally used- which was in contrast to how Jamaican used seaweed or “Irish Moss”  as a traditional food used over centuries.

 In 2021 -There were also non classifications for seaweed  in the Tanzania Bureau of Standards or the Zanzibari Bureau of Standards.

 There was no proper protocol for species identifications, there was no proper protocol for drying, storing or packaging seaweed for human foods. 

this was TERRA INGONITA. 

There was nowhere to go with the seaweed- Only to export it as a raw commodity,

Whatever infrastructure was needed- I had to build it myself.

• I had to build from memory my grandmothers Coffee and Cocoa drying tables and modified them for drying seaweed. 
• I had to build seaweed drying sheds to keep off birds and animals. 
• Seaweed was farmed in remote villages by women with no access to transportation, internet or bargaining power. I had to build my own transportation lines.
• There was no fair trade certifications for seaweed. I had to come up with my own fair trade policies.
• There was no B-Corp designation in Tanzania. I had to engage with the NGOs to support the humanitarian side of seaweed for our CSR positioning.
• There were no labs to test Seaweed packaged for human consumption.  I had to get the nutritional content myself.
• No Labs to test packaged seaweed meant no export market for packaged and finished goods into the European, Chinesd and American Markets. 
• No Tanzania Bureau of standards designation meant no local Supermarket Entry closing us out of the East Africa trade Block and the wider growing AFTCfTA opportunity-an opportunity I had sold to investors.

As the first company in tanzania to receive tanzanian Invesmen Center Cerification for Seaweed processing-this informaion was not available ot us prior to beginning.  

 All that I outlined above was learned over day ,by day, week by week and months after investing thousands of dollars of both my money and my investors money, severely damaging my reputation and credibility along the way. 

 As a foreign investor on mainland Tanzania you are encouraged to invest in Tanzania, believing that all the seams are ironed out and you can begin trading on day 1.

 The reality I encountered was very different 

We encountered a costly and highly bureaucratic operating environment 

Meanwhile in Seaweed Land: 

Tanzania allows community organizations to farm seaweed and the NGOS empower the farmers to process. 

the NGOs decided that it made perfect sense to also empower the seaweed farmers to become finished goods processors

-An excellen idea conversely speaking but when these same farmers cannot properly label, sanitarily package, store, warehouse, provide nutritional content, obtain lab testing, traceability or list ingredients on labels in percentage and quantities with values in batch and lot numbers or even reach the export market through obtaining proper licenses-we find ourselves in an industry operating in dysfunction.

New policies in Seaweed concerning who had access and how processors and exporters accessed seaweed meant essentially, there was no place in the value chain  or a foreign seaweed processor wih expensive overhead.

No need to buy land, no need to build  clean food safe facilities, no need to buy expensive equipment because  processors must compete with farmers for the raw materials. 

There was no point to invest vast amounts of money as a foreigner to compete with locals who are financed and positioned to dominate the market. 

I got it.

In 2022 We were also denied the opportunity to farm seaweed on an outer barrier island in Dar es Salaam, another decision that was deeply discouraging after the investments we had already made into infrastructure.

MWANI MAMA

In 2023, I opened my first proof-of-concept restaurant, Mwani Mama.

My thinking was simple.

If the existing standards framework could accommodate a restaurant, I could create a legitimate consumer-facing environment in which seaweed could be introduced as human food.

I could take this concept into new markets and provide finished goods a the poin of consumpion-I see Mwani Mama as the “starbucks of seaweed.”

I had found somewhere to take the product, Somewhere to educate the market, somewhere to test recipes, Somewhere to begin changing perceptions, and somewhere to provide Seaweed fsrmers to showcase their goods.

For a moment, I believed I had transformed what looked like a failed investment into a replicable African food concept.

But by then, my investors were losing confidence. And I understood why.

They were not sitting in Tanzania with me in an ever changing landscape. They were looking at a business that had required far more time, money and patience than originally anticipated.

Meanwhile I had to perform resilience in absolute uncertainty.

Without continued financial support, ability to borrow funds from banks as a foreigner- or access to grants because grant makers became specific about financing African owned companies only– I eventually closed the restaurant I had fought so hard to build.

I was devastated- I spent the next two years trying to recover  financially, professionally and emotionally.

I continued consulting,  I continued studying the market. but I was determined not to accept another dollar from a foreign investor unless they were actually in Tanzania.

I continued receiving interest in marine conservation, sea cucumber and other opportunities from the Tanzanian Government.

I was also engaged by the World Bank to be a panelist at the Global Seaweed Summit in Busan, South Korea as well as participate in the Seaweed Knowledge Week in Wando County South Korea.

But I became increasingly cautious about encouraging foreign investors to join me and  enter industries which changed so frequently  with unpredictable variables.

When European investors later came calling, I surprised even myself by rejecing funding- putting in stipulations that they must have presence in Tanzania- if they wanted to engage with my company.

I had to face the reality between what I could promise and what I could actually deliver and I could not in good faith take money from anyone until I figured out how I really wanted to proceed in Africa.

Not because I had given up.

Because I decided,capital should never be invited into a market before the pathway for that capital is properly developed.

 Furthermore, I no longer wanted to find myself sandwiched between policy, reality and someone else’s money. 

THE WOMEN.

I made a conscious and difficult decision- to focus my work on women in agro-processing.

because As I look back over my journey I recall  that the prize was never Seaweed.

I HAD COME TO AFRICA WITH KNOWLEDGE OF TRADE.

I came to seaweed to prove the readiness of  African countries to enter trade with finished goods.

my lesson was valuable, expensive and painful-but powerful non-the less.

Had I not venture into seaweed-I would have never really seen the true opportunity, women in agro-processing.

In seaweed I encountered seaweed farmers 90% of whom were women, many in remote villages with lack of transportation and no bargaining  power and I found this to be true for many other agricultural industries in Africa.

I signed the United Nations Social Development goals for life below the water and women empowerment, because it became clearer and clearer to me-

African women were the backbone of not only seaweed but the entire  African food systems.

I readied myself  to take what I learned from seaweed and apply to African women in African agriculture-and I needed to do it my way.

I needed to create the strategy before taking anymore money and I needed to do it alone.

I needed to shape the vessel how I saw it, how my influences and identity saw it, how my experience-saw it for the women who needed it the most. -I needed care and time and it needed quiet.

 I was starting over-but I wasn’t  starting  from scratch   I had gained valuable lessons from seaweed . 

I have real world hands-on experience in Agro processing in Africa.

 I had to build systems- where there was none.

 I had to use my education, my creativity, my skills and my exposure to create a system that had no books-I had to make the blue print from thin air while standing inside the building. 

I had lean into my lean and my six sigma. 

I had to unearth the shiny seed my ancestors planted in me and will it into a tree to build my own bridge- higher than the one they built for me.

I have experience in trade, I have experience in cross border markets. 

I have living experience of market readiness. 

I have long gone past the young woman reaching out to africa from behind a screen in America and the woman begging Jamaica to take trade with China seriously.

 I was now a mature woman living in the material world of Africa.

I now know what it is like for a Jamaican woman, an American woman and an African woman and I can speak to the fact that though our worlds are different, we are deeply connected.

 Africa had demanded that I stood inside processing systems, worked in project management and construction, human foods and navigated government systems.

Valuable knowledge I would not have- if I did no come by way of Jamaica and America 

By demanding processed finished goods from African seaweed  I stretched myself to my limit and stepped into rooms I could have never imagined.

“I  understand what it takes to prepare African and Caribbean processed foods for international markets—and, perhaps more importantly, what can prevent a good product from ever reaching them. 

 I now know that readiness is more than words on a page but translates to lost time, energy and money.

I now understand that for the global African Diaspora , though we desire and long for home-

Africa can be more painful and humiliating without the right guidance or support and that level of generational disrespect – is the hardest pill to swallow.

WHAt I KNOW ABOUT HER

 I know that it is Afro Diasporan women in America exerts an outsized cultural and commercial influence on mainstream industries like beauty, fashion, television, and music generating consumer spend in over a trillion US dollars.

I know that mature Black Women-are the ones who are leading their families back to Africa and boosting economies in Ghana, Rwanda, Nigeria and elsewhere, simply by showing up

– but  I KNOW she is hungry for more.

She wants to be more than a visitor in Africa, she wants to invest. She wants to build.She wants to manufacture. She wants to buy from African producers. She wants to create jobs. She wants to bring her skills and exposure home to Africa, She wants to participate in Africa’s growth. She wants to live, retire and raise her children in peace.

But she needs a bridge.

what I know abou African women.

 I now know that no matter what the industry, from seaweed to mangoes and every crop from the sea to the tree, women -black African and Caribbean women are present by the thousands.

As the backs that bend in the sun and hands that till the earth-they are planting, Processing, Drying, Trading,Selling, Packaging, Transporting, Exporting And feeding communities. 

but  she is often missing from the board rooms, bank statements  and seats of power which control her industries. 

Finally- I now know, that I am the bridge and the missing link between these women. 

My name is Renae Bruce-Miller- I am an investor and consultant in Agro- Processing based in Dar es Salaam Tanzania.

I am the Director of the East Africa Seaweed Company Limited and  The Curator of The Golden Era Platform.

HGE is an incusive platform designed for mature global black women to connect in business, wellness and investments.

We perform market insights, readiness workshops, and opportunities into African and International markets for women led Agro processing companies and their overseas black woman investors.

We speak to the whole mature black woman and her needs, through publications, social media, events, public speaking engagements  and podcasts.

We tell her unfiltered stories, explore her opportunitie, inspire her trade and personal growth  and cherish her Business Development for her Wealth, Wellness and Joy.

Our position follows  the African Union  framework under the Constitutive Act (Article 3q)calling for linkages to the diaspora and the AfCFTA  framework, to formalize and boost the participation of women and young entrepreneurs across the continent

HGE consultancy provides guided insights to market readiness and business introductions from the Diaspora into Africa and engage with legitimate financial partners to guide investments  towards women owned food based businesses.

Because no woman who comes to Africa with the intention of creating opportunity for other women- should have to navigate that journey without clear information, honest guidance and a system capable of receiving her investment.

And no African or Caribbean woman should have her business trapped in the raw materials producion cycle without proper infrasrtucture to scale.