2 Seconds Or Less

While studying food security in college, I founded 2 Seconds Or Less, an internationally recognized nonprofit dedicated to eradicating malnutrition in Zimbabwe through sustainable hunger solutions. It was in Zimbabwe that I discovered my passion for community development, and although I started undergrad as a theater major, I quickly applied to Teach For America with the hope that I’d soon understand the role educators play in transforming vulnerable communities. After 3 years of teaching English and Global Studies in rural North Carolina, I finished my Masters in Education Entrepreneurship through the University of Pennsylvania, where I focused on designing curriculum to help churches more healthily approach student mission experiences. When I’m not studying or grinding away at 2SOL, you may be able to find me on a long hike outside or solving a Rubik’s cube in under a minute. I currently serve as the full-time Executive Director at 2SOL.

Zimbabwe has one of the highest levels of poverty and hunger in the world, with more than three quarters of the population living on less than US $5.50/day. Women are most susceptible to the consequences of poverty—starvation, prostitution, and death. Our agro-scholarship program allocates funds enabling women to become small business owners, providing resources for them to upend the narrative by growing much needed food for themselves, their families and their communities and creating an income to pay for health care and other necessities. In 2020, we funded scholarships for 250 women and at present funding projections will increase to 1000 per year by 2022. Some of these scholarships go to women with disabilities, women released from incarceration and single mothers. Dramatically increasing our impact with greater funding would impact the entire country through sustainable food and employment solutions.

A UNICEF press release from July 2019 stated that “world hunger is still not going down after three years” and reports that as many as 820 million people worldwide did not have enough to eat. The report continues to say that “situation is most alarming” in Africa. A 2020 United Nations report suggests that Zimbabwe has one of the “world’s top growing food crises” with more than 4 million rural Zimbabweans going hungry. These statistics illustrate a global problem, with a very startling impact in Zimbabwe, which has been the exclusive recipient of our efforts for the past 9 years. The government is ineffective in dealing with the economy, corruption, loss of agricultural producers, and now, the COVID-19 pandemic. Foreign aid is political, and unreliable, and can solve the immediate need for food. But the only real solution is locally produced sustainable food sources. By focusing our project on women, who are the backbone of the family in Zimbabwe in both urban and rural communities, we will empower those most likely to suffer food insecurity with the resources to succeed in producing agricultural products to feed their families and neighbors and to sell the remainder to urban communities.

2 Seconds Or Less partners with Harambe Trust, an organization based in the capital city of Harare, Zimbabwe, on the Women’s Agro-Scholarship Initiative. Harambe Trust solicits applications from women throughout the country working on agricultural programs of varying sizes and types. Applications are reviewed by the Harambe Trust team and they determine the recipients best suited for the program. Week-long classes are offered to each selected woman depending on their project and their interests in other types of agriculture. The women are also able to apply for small-scale grants throughout the project year to support their endeavors. A hired Field and Monitoring Officer conducts site visits to all projects and reports on their challenges and successes. This data will allow continued growth of the program and restructuring in future years when needed. With our present funding, our goal is to be able to fully support 1000 scholarships per project year, by 2022, and to provide additional opportunities for grants to support their projects to grow their production or businesses, as requested. With an Elevate prize, we could empower more women by the thousands to be self-sustaining.

The feminization of poverty refers to the fact that women are much more likely to be impoverished than their male counterparts, and this is evident in Zimbabwe where nearly 68% of female-led households are living under the poverty line compared to men. It is also these women who are caring for children, orphans and other community members, meaning additional mouths to feed. By providing women with the opportunities for their agricultural projects to be supported, we’re equipping them to not only break the cycle of poverty but to feed greater numbers through their production. A portion of the scholarships goes to women with disabilities, a group that has been even more disadvantaged. We also intentionally work with women being released from the prison system as their incarceration is often gender-biased and at times, unfounded. All of the scholarship recipients connect with the Harambe Trust team throughout their courses and the field monitoring, allowing us to know their stories on a deeper level. By supporting their agricultural endeavors, we are supporting their businesses and their role as women in a male-centric society that refuses to acknowledge their value.

Women make up 50.7% of the population in Zimbabwe. Gender equity is an issue for the large majority of women, given the socio-cultural practices and traditional attitudes of society. Women are faced with many issues in a male-dominated society including limited access to education and employment, as well as problems arising from traditional cultural practices that tend to seclude women from public life. Our program works with women with disabilities of all forms as well as women leaving the prison system. We believe in their ability and power within society and aim to not only honor them but empower them.

Upon learning the statistic that every 2 seconds or less, someone in the world dies of a hunger related cause, our organization worked in its first 8 years to learn about the causes of hunger and poverty in Zimbabwe. We worked with Zimbabwean partners to plant nutrition gardens at government schools that were completely sustained by members of the community. Our thinking was that by feeding children, we were helping to solve the problem. The more we learned, the more we realized that if we wanted to truly help change the narrative of hunger, we had to work with the women directly. They are ultimately the ones caring for their families and neighbors and raising the children that the gardens are meant to support. The Agro-Scholarship program seeks to find women already working on projects and to provide them with ways to grow and sustain those businesses. We partner with Harambe Trust in Harare, Zimbabwe to find the recipients and to monitor their projects' progress. The program currently supports 250 women, of the programs 1000 total recipients and provides education and funding towards their projects, as well as continued monitoring and support. 

As a woman growing up with a robust support system of family, friends and church mentors, a lot of my success can be attributed to that support. I have been able to get several degrees, learn from exceptional leaders and work in fulfilling jobs, largely because others believed in me and provided the needed encouragement for me to pursue my goals. When I travelled to Zimbabwe, I recognized all of the amazing women I met and how they were not afforded the same levels of support that I had received. It didn't seem fair that simply because of where I was born, that I should receive what they could not. Of course, I'm also passionate about women's issues as a woman. While the world may have come a long way in the last few hundred years, we still have a very long way to go as gender bias permeates every aspect of life. For women in Zimbabwe, the bias is truly unfathomable, often abusive, and never fair. By supporting women's projects, I hope to provide the support and the care to others and to ultimately empower women to rise about the limits that have been placed on them.

As an organization founded by women, we truly believe that women can do anything in this world. However, so often they are undervalued, marginalized, mistreated and afforded fewer opportunities. 

While our team has experienced that in some ways living in the United States, the women that we support in Zimbabwe face it daily and in some of the most oppressive ways. Harambe Trust, the Zimbabwean organization that we partner with, know firsthand the challenges facing the country. Unopa Makanyanga, a pastor, leader and fierce advocate, acts as a member of their staff and as our direct connection to everything happening within the program. Her leadership skills truly equip us in ways that we have not even fully realized. By partnering with someone so invested in the work of women entrepreneurs, we feel that we have the best teacher possible as we continually learn more about the power dynamics and economy of Zimbabwe. Additionally, our founder recently received a Masters Degree in Educational Entrepreneurship from the University of Pennsylvania, which she has already utilized in planning educational opportunities for local students to learn more about how to do sustainable work in other countries and how to teach students about systemic injustices, both locally and abroad. When you gather intelligent, hard-working, compassionate and fired up women together, you get an organization that truly wants to see other women succeed. Their success is our success. 

While our organization has faced its share of ups and downs, especially as a non-profit with a limited staff, nothing has challenged us more than the recent coronavirus pandemic. 2019 was a hard year for us, with a data breach of our website and bank account as well as some major strategic changes. We came into 2020 full of energy and ready to dive in with both feet. However, in March when everything shut down, we had to evaluate our goals for the year and lay them aside for something more pressing: making sure the communities in Zimbabwe had food during the shut down. In partnership with Unopa Makanyanga at Harambe Trust, we determined ways to provide boxes of supplies to the most vulnerable members of the community. We ran a full campaign to our supporters and ultimately provided 100 boxes during this unprecedented world crisis. Nevertheless, we still were having conversations about strategy and how to continue our agro-scholarship program in spite of the shutdown. Those talks continue but have allowed us to see new challenges and innovate around ways to solve them. 

Partnerships with organizations in Zimbabwe have been part of our strategy since inception. We spent 8 years working with an organization that helped us connect with government schools to plant nutrition gardens. 8 years is a long time to build a relationship, but within the last year, that relationship had to end. When we learned of unethical behavior being carried about by their leadership, we did the single hardest thing in our history: we called them on their behavior and then parted ways. Not only was this partner our connecting point to the work in Zimbabwe, their members had become our friends and colleagues. However, we have always believed in authentic, transparent work and when faced with unethical management, we knew we could no longer continue. Ultimately, this decision meant that we had to find other partners within Zimbabwe if we wanted to continue the work we had started. Choosing to remain ethical and true to our founding beliefs was one of the hardest things we have had to do, but ultimately demonstrates what we value in a leader - honesty, trust, and true partnership. 

Zimbabwe is a country that views women as lesser members of society, as it is a highly patriarchal country. Lack of education, abuse, systemic injustice are some of the many issues facing women as they try to live, work and survive. Our program provides women with support for projects that otherwise wouldn't be noticed or funded. Many women are able to use their agricultural outputs to feed members of their families and villages. We believe that by supporting those in the country who have traditionally been left behind, we are working to disrupt the patriarchy and empower women. We currently are innovating by looking for ways to provide educational content to women in villages where electricity is lacking and literacy is not a guarantee. We look forward to how we can provide dynamic ways for engagement in the years to come as we tackle these issues around access and sustainability. 

Currently, we provide funding to 1000 women, 250 through our direct funds and 750 through our partner organization. We hope to increase our direct funding to 1000 by 2022 and hope that the number will increase continually. However, these numbers only are women who receive agro-scholarships and continued support through the program. This does not account for how many people are fed by their projects. We estimate that for every woman's project, the output of food could be anywhere from 10 to 100 people depending on the scope of their business. 

Our practical goal is to increase the number of scholarships we can provide each year, with a goal of 1000 directly funded by us by 2022. We want to strategically plan and implement ways for learning to occur given the limitations of technology and literacy among the population we are serving. Our biggest goal of course is to see women's businesses become sustainable staples of the Zimbabwean economy, ultimately changing the political, economic and social systems of the country. 

We are an organization of dreamers. We want to support as many women as we can. We want to provide education in agricultural topics to as many women as we can in whatever means best fits their experience. We want to do all the work we can physically do. However, financially, we are extremely limited. We have passionate donors who support us but those donations come and go. Our events bring in funds, but with a global pandemic, we don't know how many in-person events we will hold for the foreseeable future. The more we work to dig into systems of oppression within Zimbabwe, the more likely it will be that we come up against opposition to that. Our hope is to continue to fight, for sustainable donations, for equality, for women, in spite of the limitations we may face.  

We work with Harambe Trust, which is based in Harare Zimbabwe. They seek the applicants for the Agro-Scholarship program and ultimately accept or deny the applications depending on the criteria for the projects. We work with Harambe Trust directly to connect with the women and provide the needed scholarships. We work with their Field and Monitoring Officer to make sure the projects are going well or to provide grants if they are needed. 

All of our funding comes through individual or church donations. We have a wide network of individuals who provide one-time donations or monthly support. We have several churches who provide monthly funding to us as well. We host several events which generate revenue through ticket sales and donations. However, as a non-profit we utilize all donations to support our programs and our operating expenses. 

We are applying for the Elevate Grant because it truly seems to fit the work that we are doing by elevating the status of women in Zimbabwe, providing opportunities for marginalized groups and ultimately, building leaders in the community. We hope that the Elevate Prize team recognizes our heart for women entrepreneurs, as we were founded by two. Our foundation ignites the fire that we have for others. We also believe that any funding we receive will be able to dramatically upscale our project reach, as it would go directly to fund additional scholarships and grants for the projects already in process. We could potentially fund the remaining scholarships for the rest of this program year which would be amazing. 

We would love to partner with other organizations that are focused on women's entrepreneurship, systemic injustice against women, and food insecurity in Zimbabwe.