SheFound’s 2021 reflected and the future hoped for.

A reflection of what was and the hope of what is to be.

I would like to take a moment on this last day of the year 2021 to thank the partners and supporters that have enabled us to serve our mission, mentors/coaches we work with, and the women entrepreneurs that have trusted us with their journey this year.

It has been only by grace. I believe everything is built-in hard work, unity, diligence, and faith. So in a special way, I thank God for the end of this year.

I’m not sure about writing this but looks like everyone is giving an overview of 2021, just like everyone puts down their plans at the beginning of the year. The thing is, I’m not sure if I need to but looks like I have to anyway.

2021 has been a journey for us that we may have never imagined, definitely prayed for it but I guess when we pray we never account for the environment created to facilitate the answered prayers.

It has been a journey of endurance, unity, and painful resilience that has stretched us as a team and has given us perspective and time to think, rethink and reevaluate everything that we had on the table.

The year has granted us the opportunity to grow, redefine and rebuild in ways that we have grown to appreciate the process.

Closed some great strategic partnerships with both local and regional partners that have been and will be of value and impact to the future we are building;

• Our partnership with Good City Foundation for the rainmaking event on “investment and business in Tanzania” and for the Future City Summit for the “Africa Forum on African Trade, SMEs and Technology”.
• Our partnership with Fingo, UNFPA Tanzania, and Felm for International Women’s day.
• Our partnership with ImpactHER for the digital for the business program, which was a pilot program that we are expecting to expand further next year.
• Our partnership with Buni Hub, AMCET, Ambitious Tanzania and EEC for one of the Female Founders Marketplace build-up events.

Some of the confirmed partnerships mean stretching for SheFound, these ones we will disclose and announce next year, hope to have you joining our journey.

On another turn of events;

• We got shortlisted for the EUTECH SDG Awards 2021 and were among the finalist in the Gender Equality Category. It was such a humbling and honoring moment for us.

It made us realize how much work we need to put in to have the impact we are looking to have in the first place and be able to provide the support we hope to provide to the women and girls we work with.

We made a decision that when it comes to results, we are looking for quality than quantity, so for those who know our organizational pillars, we decided that we will invest in as many girls and women as possible in advocacy and capacity building. But when it comes to the growth stage ( technical support), we are taking on max to 5 businesses in a year for further support.

This is an approach that we have already done a pilot on, started with 12 businesses at the beginning of the year, to the 1 business that we have been able to see results of what it means when you fully invest in people and their dreams.

• We have been able to run three technical programs this year on Business Visioning, Customer Discovery and Business Financing with 23 women entrepreneurs and women-owned businesses.

We can not thank enough, the mentors and partners who have supported our efforts in the technical programs. We are seeing over 70% growth impact to the entrepreneurs we have worked with.

We have also been able to work with a little over 102 entrepreneurs who are within our community and those who joined some of our events and programs this year, both virtual and physical programs.

One of the things that we have committed to do is to encourage the increased number of women-led businesses raising funds from the VC/PEs in and for the Tanzania ecosystem and Africa in general, we are happy to say, in 2021 one of our entrepreneurs, Irene Enock, founder of Mrembo Naturals, fundraised 50,000 USD at the Sahara Sparks Marketplace and got an investment lead.

We are hoping to see more of that happening, even more at the Female Founders Marketplace, coming next year in Feb.

P.S | We started to work with Mrembo Naturals in 2019 as part of the SheFound Brilliant Accelerator, an intervention for women-led businesses in Tanzania in areas of personal, financial, and business development. The program was funded by the Kingdom of Netherlands Embassy in Tanzania, implemented by SheFound and Brilliant Entrepreneur.

What is Next?

While the vision of SheFound is one of the craziest you have ever seen, hahaha trust us, it is. We believe that women and girls are the keepers of our communities, hence if the gatekeeper is well kept ( socially and economically), our communities are safe and can focus on growing.

For that reason, we envision it to be the backbone and the support for the keepers.

We are still at the infancy stage, though started in 2018 as an initiative, SheFound has operated in full support of different partners who shared the same vision with us, Sahara Ventures ( has been our biggest supporter and partner to the organization and the programs we have run), the Netherlands Embassy in Tanzania ( through the SheFound Brilliant Accelerator) and UNWomen in Tanzania ( during the Sahara Sparks 2019 and the Innovation week 2020). In end of 2020 we became a legal entity and in Aug 2021, we became full fledge independent entity.

So we are currently working on settling in our office, implementing the programs that we have in the pipeline, and working with as many partners as possible to support the women and girls in our communities to be economically independent.

We are expecting to provide more technical support programs for the entrepreneurs and businesses in different regions in Tanzania and other African regions.

So we are looking forward to working with you.

I would be wrong if I do not share my sincere appreciation to the team, the SheFound team has gone through massive change, transformation, and growth forcibly. We lost of few people from the team this year because just like any journey, you gain some and you lose some. I could not be more appreciative of the team and everyone who has joined the team this year, you truly have guts hahaha.

Next year is exciting for us, our partners, and the community we are serving.

We wish you a happy new and prosperous year.

For the details of our upcoming programs and anything that you can be part of please visit our website: https://shefound.africa/

For partnership please contact us at communications@shefound.africa.