OKC hosts Rwandan businesswomen

Journal Record, The (Oklahoma City), Jul 15, 2008 by David Page

Angie Hendricks has been part of the travel agency industry in Oklahoma since 1972.

Her father started Bentley Hedges Travel Services of Oklahoma City in 1970 and Hendricks joined the company two years later and now serves as president and CEO.

Elise Umulisa Milenge owns Easy Travel Africa, a travel agency in Rwanda. She is among 15 women from Rwanda who arrived in Oklahoma City on July 3 for lessons in operating a business and capitalism through the Institute for the Economic Empowerment of Women's Peace Through Business program.

The Rwandan women will study at Oklahoma Christian University's Academy of Leadership and Liberty for three weeks. Each of the women will then spend a week with an area businesswoman mentor. They will also live in their mentor's home for a week. The Rwandan delegation leaves Aug. 2.

Hendricks will be the mentor for Milenge. The two women from different parts of the world have the travel business in common.

"I think I may learn more from her than she will learn from me," Hendricks said. "Our whole staff will learn from her."

During her week as a mentor for Milenge, Hendricks said they plan to spend about half of each day at the Bentley Hedges office.

"She wants to know about selling vacations outside of her city and country," Hendricks said. "At Bentley Hedges we do things like Las Vegas trips and destination weddings and we will tell her how we do it."

Easy Travel Africa has been open for a year. Although Milenge has no professional training in business management and finance, she has managed other companies. She is a board member of Rwandair Express, the country's national air carrier, and vice president of the Chamber of Tourism in the Private Sector Federation.

"She has a lot of background in the Rwandan travel industry," Hendricks said.

The mentorship relationship will continue after the Rwandan delegation returns home.

"Part of the curriculum is for us to stay in touch for the next year," Hendricks said. "I would like to go visit her in Rwanda."

Milenge will spend her last week in Oklahoma staying in the home Hendricks shares with her husband and a small dog. Hendricks said Milenge had already mentioned the swimming pool in the backyard.

Cultural exposure is part of the staying-in-an-American-home experience for the Rwandan delegation.

This is the second year the Oklahoma City-based Institute for the Economic Empowerment of Women has provided training for women entrepreneurs from outside the U.S.

Last summer the IEEW, working with the U.S. State Department, arranged for 12 women entrepreneurs from Afghanistan to come to the U.S. for lessons in operating a business and capitalism.

The IEEW's Peace Through Business program included three weeks of courses at Norwood University in Midland, Mich., and a week with a mentor - an American woman business owner. Five of the Afghan women had mentors in Oklahoma City.

In September, shortly after the 12 women returned to Afghanistan, Terry Neese, founder and CEO of IEEW, was contacted by Mike O'Neal, president of Oklahoma Christian University.

"He asked if next year we would replicate what we did with the women from Afghanistan with women from Rwanda," Neese said. "I said we probably could and got it going."

Neese's efforts resulted in an expanded Peace Through Business program this summer. In addition to a second group of women from Afghanistan, this summer's program includes the delegation of Rwandan women.

The 15 women from Afghanistan will again attend classes at Norwood University and work with mentors in Michigan while the Rwandan women are in Oklahoma City.

Kathy Durham, owner of Triple D Design and Diverse Design, was a mentor in Oklahoma City last year for a woman from Afghanistan - Habiba Ibrahim, an engineer.

"Our mission was to help them build a business plan," Durham said.

The process resulted in some long days.

"We would start at 5:30 a.m. or 6 a.m. every day and did not get finished until about 11 p.m.," Durham said. "Then she would want to sit at the kitchen table and talk and take notes."

Durham said the mentoring process created a two-way cultural and entrepreneurial street.

"It made me realize how blessed we are here in the United States," she said. "We think we know about the Taliban and other countries but I learned so much from the women from Afghanistan. There are so many obstacles they face that we do not have."