Northampton, MA — Every year, Smith holds The Draper Competition for Collegiate Women Entrepreneurs for undergraduate women to share their novel ideas and business models, as well as to connect themselves with other women entrepreneurs. Originally from Sierra Leone, West Africa, Hawa Tarawally is a Social Impact Winner and Fan Favorite prize winner in the Draper competition of 2019. The Sophian invited her for an interview to talk about her project in the Draper competition and her advice for future Draper participants.
The interview has been condensed and edited for length and clarity.
The Sophian: Tell me about your project for last year’s Draper competition. Where did you get the inspiration for it?
Hawa Tarawally: My project was Tongo Wata. It’s a social impact venture designed to bring safe drinking water to communities in Tongo Field, a village located in Sierra Leone, West Africa. The inspiration behind that is my own story because I grew up in Tongo Field.
Growing up in Sierra Leone, I never had access to adequate safe drinking water. As a result, I used to walk about four miles a day in search of water.
Before coming to the U.S, I started a nonprofit that helped to promote girl child education in my community by paying fees for girls in my village. The goal was to use such educational incentives to discourage families from subjecting their children to Female Genital Mutilation or cutting.
As a result of the rapid global warming that our world faces, girls in my community now spend about six miles a day in search of water, missing school, and being exposed to sexual violence along the way. This clearly undermined my effort since the girls I had striven so hard to support were performing poorly in school because of the long walk in search of water. This is when I realized, “this is my reality.” I hadn’t even thought of the challenges that still exist in my society with regards to house chores.
The inspiration behind Tongo Wata is to make education accessible for young girls by renovating existing wells in the center of town, so that girls do not have to walk long distances in search of water.
TS: It sounds like lots of the girls are suffering from these conditions at your home. Where did you find the support and how did you learn the necessary skills to help them?
HT: Honestly speaking, those are the skills that you don’t learn. They are these skills that we all have in ourselves and making a difference is definitely not rocket science. All it takes is standing up for what you believe in and defining it!
It’s crucial to understand what is going on in your communities. Once you do, identify with an issue, even if it doesn’t directly affect you. Always see yourself as a potential solution. That is what I did.
Don’t do things just because your mom or dad wants you to. Listen to your inner voice, think of it and see if it could be better. Because we don’t live in a perfect world and almost everything can be better. You might be someone that changes the entire story. In fact, it doesn’t take that much. It just takes one act of kindness. It doesn’t hurt at all. I wasn’t born with an activist medal. You don’t have to be born with it either. You don’t need to go to school to become an activist, you just have to be willing to do something to impact change.
You will never understand the issue until you expressed interest in it. Express interest if it doesn’t seem right to you. Just do anything.
A lot of things are going on wrong now. We should be vigilant about them. When you see things going wrong, just act straight off. Do it anyways. If you lose, you lose, but you did try.
TS: During your experience of activism, what have been some of the biggest obstacles?
HT: I don’t know how much of an obstacle this might be, but I feel like it comes with a lot of resentment.
Find something that you believe in, not something that people want you to believe in, because it will eventually undermine you. Activism shouldn’t be about yourself, or just the individual. It should be about something bigger than yourself.
Even though you do it for others, your actions usually come with a lot of resentment and unpopularity. My advice to young people is that if you are thinking about activism, be aware that it comes with a lot of resentment at first. It could be scary, but it’s never impossible!
At the end of the day, what matters is having a purpose to which you place yourself as a sacrificial lamb, a purpose that is greater than yourself. As an activist, you should be willing to hear what people have to say. Just don’t let it break you, because when you give them your ears, they will tell you things that you don’t want to hear.
TS: Do you have any advice for prospecting Draper Competition participants?
HT: Believe in what you do. Whatever it is that you present in the Draper Competition, you have to convince yourself first. This is key in winning the Draper competition. However, be aware that you can never succeed in this life if it’s always just about you. You have to know that your own success is tied to somebody else’s improvement.
I want Smithies to know that they’ve been given an enormous opportunity to transform the world and still make money. Whether it’s inside or outside the Draper, always think of yourself as a gift to the world. Think of yourself as an achievement for the world, as a success to the world.
Some people go into the competition just to win the money. That’s fine. However, always remember that for you to succeed in a business,the business has to give value to others. So make your business an impact-driven one.
TS: What are some of the opportunities that the Draper Competition has provided you?
HT: Draper brings an enormous opportunity to anyone who participates in the competition.Whether you win or not, Draper will make you think about yourself in ways you’ve never done before. Especially on how to bring value to other people’s lives.
It’s a learning process for everyone. It teaches you skills that you need to know about life and about business. Whether or not people are planning on participating in the real competition. There’s no such thing as losing in Draper. Everyone’s a winner. Let people try it. The earlier you try, the better.
It’s also a good way to think of ourselves on a bigger scale, and how we can impact the real world. Draper introduces you to entrepreneurs from different parts of the world, like visiting alums. Conway also has great resources that you can benefit from.
When you win the grand prize, you get to go to Silicon Valley for two weeks and get trained by the heroes themselves. They call it “heroes’ training.”
If you’ve come to Smith and you’ve learnt amazing skills, how about you going to the world and create jobs for others, instead of you working for someone? If you can, then why not? Why not give someone a job? Why not empower someone? Smithies have the power to do that.
So everyone at Smith and beyond should be an activist, entrepreneur, and feminist.
