Social Business Day is today. It's one of the two days a year that make me reflect on the work I've chosen more than most days. The other one is World Water Day. As you know this World Water Day we were able to give Yabi 300L of filtered safe drinking water. A dream I've held for 12 years and a project I've tried to launch for 3 of those years. But it has gotten very little support to continue operations. Some of you know that we had to stop operations for the short term to raise more money.
We also had to re-imagine how people will get water from us. Here in the United States and in other countries people are able to buy their drinking water in 5 gallon plastic bottles and have them delivered to their homes or buy in stores. That's what we envision the water depot to provide for people in Kumasi. It has been a learning experience watching a project I have thought about for 3 years to manifest. But plans are just that plans and real life often requires plans to innovate. That's what happened in Yabi when I realized my initial plan wasn't efficient and using a 150L plastic container was going to be. And when it became clear that most containers designated for household drinking water would not keep the depot water fresh and uncontaminated.
So far we've collected 15 5 gallon bottles and are expecting our initial inventory to be about 50 bottles. But that has meant that we have had to go back to our regular work to raise the money for that inventory.
Since returning to New Orleans in late March I've been taking several courses. I completed coursework on plastic reuse and the circular economy, social impact analysis for social enterprises and green infrastructure and rain/storm water management. It has been a busy couple of months. But invaluable to the social mission to help communities access safe drinking water and good jobs. Here locally I've been attending information sessions about Opportunity Zones.
The last session was about funding. But I left that session questioning how accessing capital will be different for the 99% of black women founders that haven't been able to raise money. The truth is more than likely it won't.
I just hope it gives me the opportunity to connect with the investors that are really committed to equity in entrepreneurship and business. Equal and unbiased access to capital is how equity happens. It's time to put your investments where your rhetoric is. It's time for it to happen here in New Orleans. Where only 2% of business receipts in the city is black businesses.
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