Empowering refugees through business
Noora Sharrab is the co-founder of Sitti, a social enterprise business committed to the self-reliance of refugee and displaced communities. In this episode, we explore how years of experience working with refugee communities gave Noora the inspiration and insight to go beyond a non-profit model to create a thriving business that gives women dignity and stability through steady employment. She walks us through the need for such business models and the deep impact Sitti has made for thousands of individuals.
For more information and to check out Sitti’s product check out their website or watch this beautiful video of their work.
Imperfect Show Notes
While these notes are not perfect (computer transcription is still a work in progress), they give you the gist of the conversation. Enjoy!
My conversation with Noora Sharrab:
Morgan Bailey 0:02
Hello, and welcome to the profit meets impact Podcast where we explore the intersection of doing well and doing good in the world. I'm your host, Morgan Bailey, and I'm excited to bring you the wisdom of entrepreneurs and thought leaders, they're using business to create sustainable and meaningful change across the globe. Hello, and welcome back to the show. I hope this week finds you well. And I just want to take a minute to acknowledge the conflict in Eastern Europe with Russia invading Ukraine and creating the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two
is I'm sure with many of you. My heart goes out to the people Ukraine and the everyday Russians who have been pulled into this meaningless war. The responses refugee crisis has been resounding with the world reaching out to support those who fled the violence. And unfortunately, the the plight of refugees is not uncommon in this modern world with over 80 million refugees in the world and counting. And this is a poignant topic today because we're going to hear from our guests, Nora Shahab who supports refugees through business. She's a talented businesswoman who built a business around supporting Palestinian refugees in Jordan, creating jobs, empowering women, strengthening the community. Nora is a really accomplished woman, she was an advisory council member for the Canadian United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She's also a she co venture winner and received the Muslim Award of Excellence for Women of the Year in 2021. And I'm also particularly excited to release this podcast with such an amazing woman on March 8, International Women's Day. Nora has been working in support of women for over a decade and co founded an NGO in 2009 called hope for women in education. She worked for several years with the United Nations agencies in Jordan. She's also fundraise and built a women's center, and the guys who refugee camp in giraffe Jordan, she's a powerhouse of compassion and inspiration. And during her work, supporting women through education, nor realize that education without job opportunities was just simply not enough. And this is one of the things that really drove her to co found a social enterprise called City soap or SI TTI. With the purpose of empowering refugee communities become self reliant through employment, and to help enhance their opportunity to become financially independent and self sustainable. This was a deeply inspiring conversation where Nora shares success and difficulties and going beyond the nonprofit model to create consistent and sustainable wages for refugee women. And to build a thriving business at the same time. I left this conversation feeling truly moved and inspired. And I really hope you do as well. So with that, let's jump into it. Nora, I've really been looking forward to this conversation, you're up to some amazing things. Welcome to the show.
Noora Sharrab 2:50
Thank you for having Well,
Morgan Bailey 2:53
when you sent me over your bio and just reading about you, I was just like, wow, this this woman is a powerhouse. You've done so much impacted so many individuals. I would just tell us a little bit about your story. How did you end up where you're at? Where does it begin?
Noora Sharrab 3:12
Yeah, I mean, I'm a Palestinian immigrant, living in Canada.
So I guess my journey with refugees really started on when I was doing my master's research, I was I was studying identity politics. And that's kind of where I was actually doing my thesis on intergenerational differences of identity. And as an, you know, a daughter of immigrants and a Palestinian living in the diaspora. I always wanted to connect with my heritage. And I was like, you know, I wanted to know more. And studying about refugees. I knew that, you know, although I didn't physically experience being a refugee living in a refugee camp. I wanted to understand more about like, how do Palestinians that ended up, you know, exiled, living in, you know, living in a refugee camp, essentially, how did they associate? How do they reflect in terms of their identity, and that's kind of how my journey started. And I took a trip to Jordan. It was, you know, after the advice of my my professor, she's like, you're not going to read this out of a book, you're going to have to feel it and experience it real hand, you're going to have to go and see it for yourself. And so I booked a ticket to Jordan. And I said, Alright, I'm going to go I connected with with a widow that lived in her camp, and I lived with her for about a month. And that's where my journey started. It started in a refugee camp in Jordan, trying to understand who I was and trying to understand who they were. And then slowly it started to kind of unpeel that onion to kind of discover there's more here than just issues of identity.
Morgan Bailey 4:51
So it paints
a picture a little bit, right. I mean, I think the idea of like a refugee camp and what you're experiencing, you know, because you spent you know your You're, you know, a lot of your life up until then in Canada, correct? Yeah. Alright, so going into this very different scenario. What was that experience? Like? What did that look like? What did that feel like?
Noora Sharrab 5:14
So, I was, I mean, again, I am a daughter of a immigrant parents that came to Canada for a better life. For us. I was born in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. And when I was younger, about you know, grade two, we came to Canada. And that's all I knew. That's all I knew, in terms of my life, I knew that, you know, my family came from a city that they, you know, left, they had to go to Egypt, and then from Egypt, we grew up in the United Arab Emirates, and somehow, you know, our life was never really connected. Our connection to our country was always distant, because, you know, we were always going from place to place. And so when I'm when I thought of going to a refugee camp, again, I had no expect, I didn't even know what to expect, I didn't know, you know, you read these things of these distraught communities. And I remember, when I was telling friends and family, like, Oh, I'm going to go visit, they're like, don't, they're gonna rob you, they're going to take advantage of you, you're going to be harassed. Like, you can't go as a girl on your own, like, this is very dangerous. Like, there's all these stigmas around, like going to visit this camp, and like trying to, you know, figure it out. And it was nothing even close to anything of like knee deep being taken advantage of, I felt like, there were people that were opening up their homes for me, and just giving me everything and wanting nothing in return. And it was a polar opposite of stigmas. refugee camps, particularly within Palestinian refugee communities, whether they're 1948 camps or 1967, camps, literally started in, you know, usually what people imagine like white tents, well, you know, the white un tents that you imagine when you think of a camp. But when you think of a community that's been protracted, for decades, upon decades, those camps almost become ghettos. They become, you know, the the families that live in them, start building structures, whether it's out of, you know, 10, whether it's out of mud, or whatever they're doing, but eventually that camp that once held, you know, these tents for these families, they start to grow into these, like micro, micro cities almost on their own. And it becomes this representation, and even the boundaries of like, if you want to think of it as the boundaries of the camp are no longer really distinct, because you start to know, particularly in Jordan, when there's like, you know, nine official refugee camps amongst Palestinian refugees. And then, obviously, with the Syrian crisis, you saw the rise of other refugee camps that came to be built. And I mean, you think of the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, which is now considered the third largest city in the country, a refugee camp being even compared to the, to the size of evidence higher city. So these are conditions where, particularly with protracted refugee situations where the average life cycle for refugees over 20 years, you they're not going to live in a tents for years, right? Like they build, they kind of build their life over time. But they're stagnant in their situation, because of, you know, their status, you know, their, their identity, that citizenship that they hold, and where they where they can, you know, go at the end of the day. So, entering the camp was really just about, you know, figuring out, you know, there's still people that have, you know, they go to school, they might work, but the confines of the camp becomes this representation of who they are.
Morgan Bailey 8:41
Yeah, I mean, it sounds like I mean, you creating these little micro cities, right. And the people, you know, it sounds like that you have to develop lives. Right? Like, it's not it's not that you're not putting everything on pause. Right. And I imagine is well is in an economy creates within the refugee camp, as well.
Noora Sharrab 9:04
And I would say that within refugee camps, there is this dependency on charity, this dependency on international organizations coming particularly when an emergency crisis happens, right? We've seen this multiple times, you know, in Sudan, in Bangladesh, and you know, with a Syrian refugees in the Middle East. You see it where there becomes these makeshift huge humanitarian missions come in with a lot of aid that is poured in to support the communities but what ends up happening and a lot of the times the case, aid starts to diminish when the emergency is no longer at the core of being a top priority emergency funding that was available is no longer available, and families and communities that were relying exclusively on charity can no longer rely on them. And so, this is kind of like this makeshift, like conflict, I would say With this dependency on charity, exclusive to supporting refugee communities, I'm looking at the refugee crisis worldwide, like you mentioned, you know, there are 84 million refugees, and growing worldwide today, the solution is not going to be solely on charity to solve their their problems, we have to find other solutions to help protect and navigate, you know, dignified work and employment generation for these communities to move on and build new lives, essentially.
Morgan Bailey 10:34
And I mean, you've done a lot of work in this area, you've worked in both, you know, now having a for profit business, which which works with refugee populations. And also, you know, working with nonprofits and Korean at center. So what was that? I mean, talk to me a little bit about the transition in your thinking from saying, you know, just simply like, I want to help and support refugees to, you know, this is perhaps a good way to help. And this is perhaps something that's, that's more harmful, long term.
Noora Sharrab 11:03
Yeah, I mean, like I said, My journey started almost 15 years ago. And right after university, I, I founded an organization called hopes for women in education. And the sole purpose of the organization was to ensure that no refugee women would have to choose between going to school and not going school because she couldn't afford it. I grew up in Canada, where the thought of continuing education was not a privilege, it was a right, and whether I couldn't afford it, or could afford it, there were opportunities to take out school loans, or whatever it is. But again, it was never a question in my mind that I wasn't going to go to school because I wasn't going to be able to afford tuition. But this is at the core of a lot of the women, a lot of the girls that leave high school that end up choosing not to or their families simply cannot afford to put maybe even multiple siblings in school at one time, if they're close in age together, I met twins that took them about 10 years to finish a three, three and a half year bachelor's degree because they had to take turns together, each one taking one semester, taking a break, and then another taking a semester taking a break. So imagine having taking so long, but also having that dedication to like, spend almost a decade trying to finish a bachelor's degree. And I was like, how unfair is it that they had to go through that experience because their families just couldn't afford putting them in school together. And so when I co founded hopes for women education, it was about providing economic opportunities for women to have the scholarships to access higher education. But not just that, but like, also work with them on you know, mentorships, and skills development and language training on, you know, looking at opportunities to connect them to the workforce post, post graduation. And then five years into working on this organization. We saw that, you know, as women were graduating, you know, it was, you know, they these degrees are just being hung on the wall. And then what, at the end of the day, they needed to put food on the table, they needed to bring an income for their families. And so while it was fantastic that some of them were coming in, and now they have a qualified degree, there was still high unemployment rates amongst, you know, use in general, but also particularly for refugees, because there becomes this marginalization of, you know, do we choose to hire you or choose to hire someone that is a citizen in the country. And there's always a priority of hiring, you know, a Jordanian over, you know, a refugee. And there becomes a stigma when they find out that they live in a refugee camp, or they come from a certain background, and then there's this, okay, do we hire you or there's limitations in them accessing the workforce. So it became evident that the issue wasn't just, you know, getting a degree on the wall, the issue is that the an ad then, at the end of the day was generating employment.
Morgan Bailey 14:00
That sounds really poignant. And I think I keep coming back to I keep thinking about in this is, it's around that this stigma piece, right? Because I think, you know, what you're talking about is, you know, when you when you're, I'm just trying to imagine what it's like to be a refugee. Right. And literally having no safety, security, feeling like you have no rights. You don't know what the next year is going to bring? Right? Like you're, it's like you're trying to build a foundation on sand, so to speak. And I imagine that's gonna have a big mental health impact on individuals. Right. And I'm wondering, because you're talking about, you know, individuals going out getting an education and things and things of that nature. But also like, talking I'm curious, just to hear a little bit about how that that stigma, right? Is, like makes an impact on people's livelihood, and what they believe is possible for them.
Noora Sharrab 14:55
This the stigma is real. It's the big elephant in the room. chronic illnesses and depression is so elevated in these communities that it actually impacts people from actually being able to go out and get, you know, effective livelihood. job insecurity creates such anxiety amongst these communities that we see it, we see it head on, we see how it impacts people's ability to be able to, you know, maintain a good job. These people are reliant on daily employment opportunities, you know, you work one day and you get paid, you don't work the other day you don't get paid. And so And an example of how drastic that is to is when COVID hit and you know, immediately, you know, there were lockdowns that were, you know, instituted everywhere, people that were reliant on daily wage are freaking out, they were like, What are we going to do? How are we going to feed our families and there was this call, I remember getting text messages saying, like, we have over 3000 families that are immediately out of work because of the lockdowns. And so what do you do in communities where you can't rely on Social Security, you can't rely on you know, an employer, that's gonna let you work from home, because if you don't put in that work, you're not getting paid. So chronic illnesses is on the rise, mental health health is definitely on the rise accessibility to, you know, effective care is not even there, because they have to choose sometimes, and we work with refugees all the time, where we see they have to choose between getting the care that they need, or, you know, buying a meal, at the end of the day, you know, buying that medicine that they might need, or, you know, supporting their daughter's education school, and they have to make these difficult decisions where they'll sacrifice their health to a degree where it's too late to even reverse back, you know, any elements and it's, it's almost like, you don't have to make these, you know, you don't have to be subjected to make these decisions, there needs to be better advocacy to support these communities that are already vulnerable. And this is kind of like where cities like where, you know, that nonprofit element comes in. And in that in that relation of like development organizations coming in supporting work, I don't want to I don't want to create this like negative stereotype of like, oh, development organizations, organizations are not good, or the work that they do is not good. On the contrary, I think it's it's needed. But it can't be the only solution. There needs to be other players in the game to really help, you know, navigate and work with these communities, both from the private sector and the non and you know, that nonprofit and governmental institutions coming in, everybody has to play a role.
We see this oftentimes, where development organizations will come into communities, they'll run this training, this entrepreneurial training, or this business training on like, how to make bracelets or how to make so right, and they'll come in, they'll run this training, they'll spend 1000s of dollars, they'll bring in these trainers or involve hundreds of women. And then the training is done. These women have these really cool skill sets. But then that's it. And then they're expected, like, Okay, now you know how to make bracelets, now you can bring in money to the table, now you can support your family, the solution is solved, what we don't realize is, you know, businesses in general, let alone businesses out of a refugee camp, you know, not at nine out of 10 of them, on average will fail. Right? We know that, you know, based on statistics based on people that decide to start businesses within the first year, majority of them will not survive. Why do we expect that this is going to survive in this this solution is going to work in refugee communities? Why do we not see that this is a flawed, you know, solution to just hand over to them to say, Okay, you have a skill set, good luck now. And that's kind of where city evolved. That's kind of how the birth of city came where there was an institution that came in, they provide a training for women on making soap. And then there were these women with hundreds of soap bars on inboxes. And they were trying to sell them for pennies on the dollar. And they realized that, you know, they couldn't make it work, they were spending more time trying to sell the the soaps and actually trying to make it work. And I remember, you know, my co founder was also working in the community at the time. And the, one of the core volunteers with helps her with education was also a co creator with with city, you know, came to me with a box of soap to my house and was like, Can you help us sell the soap. And one thing led to another and we're like, this is more than just women trying to sell soap. This is about a story of resilience, of economic resilience of dignified work for these women that are really trying to step out of relying on charity, and finding a solution through their craft through the skill sets that they were taught, then now they can rely on it to create sustainable income for their communities, because they know they're not going to leave this camp anytime soon. And we have to find solutions for employment opportunities for them. And this, you know, whether it's a single bar of olive oil soap that they were going to create, it started with that and that's kind of how the birth of city came to be where we saw that there was this need from the community that was like, you know, help us really get our message out there. Yeah,
Morgan Bailey 20:01
yeah. Wow, what a what a powerful start to that and just yeah, obviously I we spoke before on on soap as a soap maker I'm always like, alright, business on soap. Okay, so So you know, one point, you know, you went to Jordan to visit Palestinian refugees, you work with them, you helped around the education piece you originally thought there's this gap that there, you can have an education but you, you don't have work, right. And there's this stigma between hiring a Jordanian versus a Palestinian refugee. And you've seen all these groups come in and provide these like one time solutions kind of like, great. Alright, now you're good to go. You've, you're an entrepreneur now. Good luck. And it just wasn't working. And so you find yourself with these women and a bunch of soap. Right, in essence, and, you know, and then you're, you know, I think you casually say, so we just started business. But like, what happened there? I'm kind of curious, like, did you just take a bunch of soap go home? Like, what was the inception from that idea of, hey, I can make an impact here. I don't want to do it in a nonprofit model. You know, where does it go from there? Yeah, I
Noora Sharrab 21:17
mean, I started a not for profit didn't happen overnight, right. And initially, it was going to be this like umbrella out of our nonprofit organization, and the women were going to sell soap, and then the soap was gonna fund scholarship opportunities. And that was kind of the idea behind it on. And then I remember Jacqueline, she took a bunch of soap samples to the United States, and she was selling them to friends and family. And there was like, all this interest. And then we kind of started working, you know, on the branding, and then on the story, and then the packaging, and kind of really bringing it together. And I remember, there was this idea of like, you know, who's gonna buy soap out of a refugee camp like nobody. Nobody wants to buy soap, but they might buy it once because they feel bad. They have this pity of like, okay, I'll buy it because I feel bad. But like, who's gonna want to actually buy it? And I remember thinking, Why can't the soap bar be just as good as an expensive luxury so far in Paris? Why is it that this immediately like, the ingredients we're using is top notch, the process that we're doing is, you know, the same if not better, potentially, than triple milk companies? Why is it that we have to look at this as like a devalued so far like, or just, you know, something cheap. And we really wanted and that was really kind of at the core of like our branding and our identity that this isn't just about women making cheap soap, this was really about an elevated brand that sold something that provided dignified employment. And the branding, which I was, which is important to mention was at the core of it. So like, I remember us spending a lot of times on like, packaging, and making sure that our packaging really told that story that won people over where it didn't feel cheap, it didn't feel like it came out of a dirty refugee camp. Right, we wanted people to feel elevated. And I remember just, you know, a couple years just jumping the gun here. But like, a couple years later, when we got featured in a luxury department store in Canada, you know, almost equivalent to like Nordstrom, in the United States. That was a big deal. Because it was like from luxury from you know, refugee camp to luxury boutique, because it really just elevated our ability to speak to our customers and say, This isn't just about this generic. So this was really about creating social impact with high high quality made products that really had something to give people, whether it's, you know, through impact, and through these high quality products that we were bringing to market. And it took time, right like it, we kind of had to build the blocks slowly.
And, you know, we we started out I remember, we, you know, gathered some of the women together and saw like, they were making soap out of their, the corners of their home. And I remember this is a funny story. But I remember looking at all the sample soaps that they had made. And they were all like irregular shapes. And I'm like, what mold are you guys using? Right? Because you need a malt to pour yourself if you're if you're familiar with soap baking. And so obviously, they couldn't afford mold. And so what were they using, they had old juice boxes from their kids, that they would cut up, wash and then use the soap box, the juice boxes that they had recycled to become their soap molds. And so that's why the the shapes of the soap was like a little irregular. And I was like, Oh, that's not gonna fly that competitive market like i You can't be making soap out of recycle. I mean, it's it's kind of smart. But I also like, if you want to push this product out, you know, to the Nordstroms of the world and you can't be making you know, it has to be an integral Clean, certified environment, right? Like we had to be using particular equipments that could be commercial grade. So we came to them, we're like, okay, that's not going to work they can't be making, we need to be able to provide them with all the resources, all the equipments in order to make this effective. And so we started out with a small crowdfunding campaign to ensure that we just set our base, you know, we built a center that house to both the programs that helps for women education was doing but also developed this like soap workshop, in a sense. And I remember we couldn't really afford building this place, I suppose it was going to cost us a lot of money. So while we did crowdfund some money, we wanted to ensure that we raised enough money to cover on a minimum part time salary for two years for the women, because we knew it was going to take us time to get started. And we didn't want to compensate the women based on like, every so far we sold, we wanted to ensure that we established job security from the very beginning. And so fundraising their salaries in advance was at the core of what we wanted to do. It was it was very important that we did that. But even like the structure of the business of the structure of the workshop itself, I remember knocking on the doors of like, companies across Jordan and saying, we're, we're building the center. You know, do you want to donate your services, you want to donate? Paint? Do you want to donate tiles that we can use in the room? Do you want to donate? And I I kid you not Morgan, like people, companies were so generous, they were like, What do you need? Here you go. And it's funny, because when I started my journey before, like, no one's gonna hand things over to you. I'm like, watch, they will, because people underestimate others ability to give. And I always say that, like, people want to give, they just don't know how. And it's not always money related, right? It doesn't have to be like you handing over a big check. It could literally be like, you know, I had this extra inventory. You might, you could use it. And I'm like, Yep, I could use it. 100%. And so there were companies we were reaching out to, we weren't asking for money. We're like, this is what we're building, what can you donate to make it come to life, and they're like, I'll donate paints, a build a kitchen for you, we'll build you your workstation. You know, I'll I'll donate equipments. And literally, you know, if I was to even put $1 value, you know, I think it was like over $100,000 worth of like, donations that were just given in materials and costs of equipment that we ended up using. And it goes back to just involving the community that we were in, not just in the refugee camp, but like also the Jordanian community that we were working in just reaching out to like private individuals and companies and saying, you know, this is really what we're trying to achieve. This is the transparency of it all, do you want to help us make it happen, and so many people were willing, and I and again, this kind of goes back to like, always being told, No one's gonna hand you over money. And I'm always like, you just have to be honest, you have to kind of be sincere. I think. We forget that, like, sincerity can go a long way. Because we're so fed up of like, superficial stuff that's all around us that we don't even know anymore, right? And there's more, I think more intent to give, right? There's like, people are more likely to want to do something good. We underestimate people's ability to to want to do that good. Right? We always shy away from wanting to ask, and I will say you're not going to lose anything. The worst I'm going to get is a big no. And then it's okay. Right. I
Morgan Bailey 28:31
think that's that's such an important thing that I'm sure the listeners can resonate, there are so many people who want more people want to do good, they want to do bad. They often just don't know how and it sounds like the kind of the the wisdom that you're bringing here is, is in believing that and having the courage just to simply ask what sounds like was it was really transformational and being able to bring the resources that you needed to, to bring this this vision to life.
Noora Sharrab 29:02
And I think when when I think of my journey, I always think of those individuals, that normally people will be like, Oh, how did you get there? Or how did you, you know, how did you place yourself in that big department store? And I was like, I just asked, I just reached out. And I think it's just putting ourselves out there. I think we're always scared of rejection. We're scared of people who tell us, it's not gonna work or you're not big enough, or you're, you have to kind of be on that same level. And I would say like that person that got to that level, they were they were down there at one point, right, they got they got up there for you know, they had their own journey. We talked about this before the call, right? Like, people have their own journeys as, as they go through the path of like, oh, wow, you know, you've gotten to a point of power or, you know, professionally for example, and a lot of the times those people it's, it's, it's in that opportunity that they can really give back. Right, whether it's procurement decisions or buying decisions or whatever it is in the company that they've read. that that's the time where they're like, Okay, now I really want to give back now I want to show that impact from, you know, our level as a company or a corporation, for example. Um, and don't underestimate it, like don't don't undervalue yourself and say, like, You're not worth it to ask, because you might get a no, and then you can just move on to the next.
Morgan Bailey 30:21
Yeah, you know, one thing I find, you know, I've thought about a lot is, you know, when people are willing to support, the idea is important, but a lot of it is just trusting that, you know, sometimes like, this individual is coming to me and asking for this. And regardless of where they're going, they're going to move forward with this. Regardless, it's less about the plan, it's more about the individual saying they're going to figure it out somehow, right? And developing, engendering that trust in others, really, I think really helps be able to, to garner that support from others. Right. And I think there are certain I think that that's the aspect I think, as you mentioned, ever, all of us at one point, you have started somewhere. And then individuals who like I'm just going to continue piece by piece, right there, the Turtles and the tortoise of the hare sort of thing or the tortoises, right? Like, I'm just going to continue to plot away, you know, every conversation, every phone call, and eventually, you'll get there. And I think I think your story is just is evidence of how that plays out.
Noora Sharrab 31:23
There are so many days where I'm like, I don't want to do this today. And then I realized midway through and I'm like, no, just show up, that's the least I can do is show up. So at least I can do. And it's like, oh, you know, it's like these meetings and these networking's and you're trying to make it work. And listen, I'm not going to deny I have bad days, and we've had our slumps, or we've had to give bad news to the community because we couldn't afford salaries or, you know, like, it's happened in the course of our journey. But at the end of the day, for us, it's about showing up, and pushing forward with that mission. And like you said, there are those in our journey that will decide to jump on board that ship and be like, let me help you, let me lend a hand, let me connect to you. You know, I want to be part of this story, I want to be part of, you know, what it is that you want to push out. And, again, I always say it's not, it sounds a little cliche, like, it's not just about soap, it's more than just, oh, you know, I want to buy some soap or I want to, you know, evolve it was, it's really about involving yourself in that impact and that element of giving back or that element of like, How can I contribute to a community. And, you know, I'm sitting here in, in Canada and Toronto, you know, wherever you are in the world, wherever, whoever the listeners are in the world, sometimes we feel very disconnected with these global issues. We read these statistics, and we're like, what am I gonna do? How am I really making a difference? And it goes back to, we have a purchasing power that we can really move the needle with, right? We can make decisions as company owners, as leaders in our companies, as individuals, and how we, you know, buy what we buy, live the way we live, right? We don't realize that there's a ripple effect, that domino effect that really creates that link between communities globally, these communities, most of them marginalized. And it's in those decision making those small decisions that we make, that really reflect how we contribute to that larger impact piece, where sometimes we feel disconnected, right, again, statistic based, like how do I fit in this big? This ball? So yeah, I would say like, you have more power than you think you do.
Morgan Bailey 33:49
Yeah, absolutely. You know, and I think, you know, just highlighting that it, it's every, every little decision, right? Like, we have a choice and essence, you know, we're choosing by our values from what we buy, to what we pay attention to what we give our energy to. So I think that's just such an important reminder. Because we're faced with it every day, even even this past week, I was buying some, I was like, I'm gonna buy some pillows. And I'm like, I wonder I wonder if what's around the idea of sustainability with pillows, and I was like, I, all of a sudden, I went down this rabbit hole on how they're produced and, you know, off gassing and chemicals, and I'm like, okay, and I was like, alright, well, I'll make it. I'll make a conscious choice here, as opposed to just going and grabbing whatever's on the shelf. Right. And so I think it takes it takes a level of dedication, but ultimately, it feels really good. It feels really good to be like, Oh, wow, I'm actually being more conscious about this. I'm aware of what it is that I'm putting in my body or I'm putting around me, I think is really critical. You know, one thing you know, kind of going back to some of our previous conversation that I'm curious about, is we talked about the stigma when we talk and and we talked about the fact that you know, city is is creating jobs and I'm kind of getting How have you seen the evolution of kind of, of the women that you employ in terms of, you know, what they're able to generate in in their livelihoods based on kind of the opportunities you've helped create?
Noora Sharrab 35:15
Yeah, I mean, it's been fascinating. We're almost in our seventh year as a social enterprise. And we've seen actually the evolution of some of our artisans that have been able to pull themselves entirely out of debt, you know, coming in working for us for the first time, maybe even the first company they've ever worked for. And then really being able to not just be the sole breadwinner in their family, for some of them actually. But also being able to then become debt free as a result of having stable employment, and stable job security. And knowing that they could get up and have work and rely on, you know, that employment at the end of the day, and we underestimate, like, stable employment, like we've, I mean, again, I mean, if anything, it's this pandemic has taught us anything, it's how you know, that job insecurity is huge, and how it really impacts people on so many levels, right. And knowing that, like, I remember, we made a decision when COVID hit were like, no matter what we go through as a company, we are not letting a single person go, we have to make sure that even if we were raising the money, you know, whatever it is, we have to make sure that the paint that it'd be the salaries of these women are going to be prioritized, because they're always the first to take the hit. And we want to make sure that they're not going to be taking the hit as a result of these, you know, big global changes. And so the evolution of just seeing how job security and it's, you know, ultimate means creating self reliance, and financial independence is huge, right, and then also being role models for their children's showing like I, you know, we have grandmothers that work with us and mothers and mothers that support multiple generations in one household, that, again, are the sole breadwinners of their family. And so like to them to show that, you know, that that almost the empowerment of them coming out and being able to support their families and not rely on aid exclusively, is is is beautiful. And I wish we could even do more like and again, like it's just that makes you feel like, if only we could do more, right? Like, it just excites you to thrive even to do more.
Morgan Bailey 37:35
Yeah, and, and we've talked about in a previous conversation, right, because I think there's this because you're a for profit organization. Yeah. And you're doing things that a lot of other nonprofits are doing as well. But there's a balance. Right? So how is it that at? How is it that you make those decisions on where you can fund or what you can give based on you, you're in there because your heart is in this? And you're trying to run a viable business? So how do you manage those decisions and trade offs?
Noora Sharrab 38:06
I mean, sometimes my co founders, and I have to remember that we are a for profit, and that we have to take off the nonprofit lens. Because when you're working in a very vulnerable community, you always want to do more, you're always feeling like, Oh, if only we could like extend our programming and you know, do food packages and you know, things like that. But then you realize, like, that's not the that's not the mission of the company, like we have to kind of like steer the ship in the direction that, you know, we can't be everywhere at once we can't employ everybody as much as we want to be can't serve everyone in the potential that we can, we have to be able to, even as we scale, I'm always so conservative. Like, even as we scale, we scale conservatively so that we can, you know, not raise expectations and be able to deliver effectively. It also means making decisions that are not just solely based on our bottom line, right, like not just what's going to maximize profit, because although we are a for profit, we're also a social enterprise. And so it can't, we can't make business decisions that are going to negatively impact our community. Whether it's taking a cut, you know, we're with our employer employees at the end of the day. And so that's, again, we're constantly kind of having to wear these different hats on of looking at the community that we're working with from a social aspect, but also running the company and making decisions that are competitive enough in the industry that we're working in.
Morgan Bailey 39:40
Now, you know, running this business as a social enterprise, right, you said you know, you're not just thinking about the monetary profit. How does making decisions that are aligned with the community or that benefit the community benefit your staff actually To increase or to the sustainability of the organization
Noora Sharrab 40:07
I would say the community is at the heart of what we do. I mean, the structure of the company can, like everything can go away, and things can be replaceable. But at the end of the day, you know, the well being of our community is important. If the artisans that we work with are, you know, impacted in any way, or if their well being is not being prioritized, it could mean that we're just we're undervaluing them. And we also don't want to like whitewash any of the things that we're doing, we want to, we don't want to come in and say, oh, you know, we're an impact company, but not really put impacts at its core. And we you see a lot of that, right? Like, you see a lot of like, um, you know, the, the big name like the, you know, the big words that are used, like sustainable and ethical and impact based but then when you dig at the core, like, is it really sustainable? Are you really ethical? Are you really putting the community first? Is it community centric? Like Are we are we inclusive of the community's opinion are we just, you know, having this top down approach and how we deal with them, these are things that really matter at the end of the day, and especially when you're working with communities in the long term, right, like when you're working with them for years upon years, and you really want to maintain this, like trust within the community, when COVID hit, and we had a check in with one of our staff members. We actually, unfortunately, during COVID, we lost an artisan, who passed away, and it really impacted our team. And immediately we thought this was this, like our team was down, they were not, they just weren't feeling right. And so we were like, you know, what, we need to put together a mental health workshop for them, we need to step up. And you know, we can't, we have to not just talk the talk, we have to, we have to actually do it, we have to do something. And so we started doing monthly mental health check ins with our leadership team there. And then we put together this wellness retreat for them. And at the end of the wellness retreat that we held. They their response was like, wow, we've never experienced anything like this or like, nobody's ever cared about our well being, nobody's ever put us at the forefront. You know, when when we're thinking of these communities, were always thinking like, you know, they need a blanket, they need a bag of food, are they right? We don't think of their well being we don't ask, we don't really ask that question. Like, are you really okay. And putting together this retreat for them? was life changing for some of them, because they're like, we've never, at any point of our life ever had that chance to really reflect and it got us to think like, we need to do a better job. Like even when we think we're doing a good job, or like, no, no, we have more work to do. And there's always looking, there's always more work to do. But you always have to dig deeper, like, you know, why are we doing what we do? How is it that like ensuring the well being of your team really going to go a long way about, you know, creating that loyalty and really wanting them to go that extra mile to make sure that we succeed as a company holistically. And so as a social enterprise, I would say like, it's not enough to say, Oh, we created appointment, we're done. Our jobs done. There's always more when you're working directly with with vulnerable communities, right. There's other factors that come into play, other elements that that are there. And you have to look at it from that holistic aspect. You can't just, you know, you can't just look at at it from one element of oh, I created jobs. I'm done here. Right.
Morgan Bailey 43:39
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it sounds like, ultimately, I mean, it's, you've stepped into a more complex business situation. Or you're, you're I guess, you're accepting more of the complexity, right, a complexity to an individual's economic, the stigma, and you're taking responsibility over kind of taking all of that into your business model. And I imagine, you know, that it probably increases the resilience of your organization, because you're investing in your staff, you're investing in their well being, which, which means that they're happier. And they're probably more loyal to your organization as well.
Noora Sharrab 44:18
We've seen models like this being replicated in other communities, right. But what we often ask ourselves, the city is what are we doing to to work with them? Are we just having this top down approach where, you know, we're sourcing materials where, you know, getting these products and promoting them as artisanal, but then have like zero to no connection to the community on the ground? And that's something we're always that we're actually just organically building in terms of a structure like how do we work with community based organizations? How do we work with the community, you know, on those long term aspects, how do we ensure that they're, you know, continuing on their professional development, but also contributing to the growth of the company and really thinking of it from an inclusive approach because At the end of the day, if we're going to advocate to be like a social enterprise, it's important to look at it from that inclusive approach. We don't live in silos, we don't work in silos. And, you know, if they were to disappear tomorrow, we wouldn't exist as a company. And so the livelihood and the well being, and just the putting them first, you know, kind of thought, is, is at the core of how we do business. And I think if it wasn't, then I don't know, maybe people could see through it. I'm not sure. But yeah, I guess. And we've seen, we were trying to replicate that similar model in other communities, right, like, we're refugee communities don't exist solely in Jordan, they're all over the world. And, and we're always thinking of ways that like, okay, how can we take the model that we've created, and then now you and then now facilitate it and other communities where we can also work with artisans and people with technical skill sets that can be contributed into consumer goods? You know, in our in our, in our company, so
Morgan Bailey 46:05
well, really appreciate all the work that you're doing this model that you're providing, right, like you're out there, you're entrepreneurial, right, like you're exploring, really appreciate that. If, if people want to learn more about about city or find more information, how can they go ahead and do that?
Noora Sharrab 46:22
Well, you can go to city soap.com. Si TTI soap.com. And follow us on Instagram, again, at Citi. So and, yeah, I mean, I would say if you're a company leader, or a company that wants to create impact, you know, directly on the core, get in touch with us find out how we can partner together and kind of really bring impact at the core of how you do business with you know what we do so that's it.
Morgan Bailey 46:52
Nora, thank you so much, really appreciate this. As you're talking about this, you're beaming the the audience can't see that but just really appreciate your energy and your everything that you're doing out there for these individuals and for the world.
Noora Sharrab 47:05
Thank you so much, Morgan.
Morgan Bailey 47:08
Thanks for listening to another episode of the profit meets impact podcast. If you enjoy this experience. Please subscribe wherever you find your podcasts and leave a positive review. You can also find out more about the podcast at www.profitmeetsimpact.com
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