Woman in Business Helps Others Step Out of Poverty:
by Diane Broncaccio
GREENFIELD - Amber Chand grew up in Uganda, a member of a prosperous family with roots in India. But in a single radio broadcast, Ugandan dictator Idi Amin changed her life.
"He said everyone of Indian ancestry must leave the country within three months or they will be shot on sight," Chand told a packed audience at Greenfield Community College.
"We left within three months, but we lost everything we had built up - our assets, our property. My father died a few months later. I lost everything," she said. "I realized then, that life will come and slap you on the face. But if we are to take every challenge and become depressed and unforgiving - which is our choice - then we will lead that particular kind of life. At 21, I realized I was not going to take that choice. At 56, I have the perspective I had at 21, so I've come full circle."
The former Ugandan refugee spoke in honor of International Women's Day at GCC. Her talk was on "Sisterhood in Our Community/Sisterhood for Global Change," to highlight the connection between local, national and international efforts on behalf of women's rights and social change.
Chand of Williamstown runs an online gift business called The Amber Chand Collection: Global Gifts for Peace and Understanding. She sells handmade crafts and jewelry made by women in war zones and refugee camps, with the pay helping the women to raise their standards of living and support their children.
She says she is the only retailer doing business in Dafur, with craftswomen who fled their war-town villages and are living in refugee camps. She has also set up business ventures for widows living in Afghanistan, with Mayan widows from Guatemala, with craftswomen from Sudan, Cambodia and the Middle East.
This year, Chand received the Eve Ensler V-Day Award for her work in helping women survive in conflict zones around the world. She is also a board member of the Women's Fund of Western Massachusetts.
Items she sells online include colorful grass baskets woven by Dafur refugees, hand-carved faceted fluorite bracelets and necklaces made by Afghani women, most of whom are war widows. Their jewelry comes in pouches sewn by Iraq women with a silver charm made by women in Jordan. Another collaborative gift item is what Chand calls the Jerusalem Candle of Hope, which has components made by Israeli and Palestinian women.
Chand's gift-wrapped boxes include what she calls "Cambodian peace bells" - small bells that were made from melted-down land-mine fragments in Cambodia.
In 1999 Chand was a co-founder of Eziba, another online retail program that generated international press, and sold handicrafts from around the world. But the enterprise, which attracted $40 million worth of investment from dot-com companies, grew too fast for its own good and collapsed after six years.
"I got my MBA through forming that company," Chand now says of Eziba.
Chand said a lot of companies' business plans are based on fear and greed, which creates a sense of scarcity, intense competition and a focus strictly on the bottom line.
She said her new business is set up on a more "feminine paradigm" for success.
"There's a triple bottom line: how is it growing financially; what is the social bottom line, and how well are people doing," said Chand. "Business can be a powerful means of transformation in the world."
Beyond looking at money profits, Chand said she is looking to measure whether the business is creating a sense of well-being for the craftswomen. The social bottom line, she explained, includes whether women can better afford to feed their families or send more of their children to school.
"I'm not interested in (being) anti-war," she said. "I'm pro-peace. I take women who are the victims of war and give them a capacity, through business, to support themselves and their families with things they can make.
"I didn't want to have a nonprofit company. I didn't want to go to Dafur and give them charity," said Chand. "To many, enterprise is dignity. When you work and get paid for it, you feel valued. These women don't want handouts."
Chand pointed out that 13 months after Mayan women began selling bracelets and necklaces in the Chand collection, 60 of their children have since started attending schools.
"How do we expect to grow businesses - or lives that are meaningful and deep - if we don't come from a place of love," she asked. "It is our birthright to be joyful, to lead lives of meaning."