Source: The Telegraph
As the first global Women's Entrepreneurship Day launches, Emma Sinclair reminds us there's no 'typical' image of a female entrepreneur and says that - for women in remote parts of the world - being self-sufficient in business is a matter of life or death.

Today is the inaugural Women's Entrepreneurship Day.Part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, it will be the world's biggest celebration of female innovators thus far. From those who launch start-ups to women who bring concepts to life and help drive economic growth.

But today is not just focused on the Western world. It's not just about to sort of entrepreneurs we see every week on television's Dragon's Den. There are 144 countries involved in all and a sustained push to shine a light on the 250 million girls living in poverty worldwide - and what can be done to help them.

Personally, I can think of no better way to honour the first Women's Entrepreneurship Day than by telling the story of Mary, who I met a few weeks ago in rural Zambia.

I know. You might reasonably wonder what on earth Zambia has got to do with entrepreneurship. But there are many things we can all learn from Mary on a day like today.

Are all women designed to be entrepreneurs?Recently, Building Young Futures, a programme run by UNICEF and Barclays, invited me to get involved as the partnership's first ever 'Business Mentor'.

Established in 2008, it teaches financial, as well as basic business skills - offering training focused on helping young women (and men), start their own enterprise, or find a job.

With youth unemployment a global problem, this INGO and financial powerhouse have teamed up with the aim of tackling it.

They wanted to take an entrepreneur to remote, hard to reach villages to actively participate in training sessions and provide one-to-one advice to existing business owners.

64 per cent of Building Young Futures graduates in Zambia are female, meaning a total of 3,327 women have so far been helped. The programme also links up with the Government, encouraging and enabling women to think bigger and access the loans that will enable them to do it.

I signed up without missing a beat.

But, as my trip to Zambia approached, I asked myself a few questions.

I wondered: are all people actually capable of being entrepreneurs? Would the women I was going to meet - many of who have not completed their education, through no fault of their own - going to have the capacity to start businesses? How do you launch a start-up when you have so little?

Add to that gender issues, which are rife in many corners of the country. Domestic violence and early marriage are a problem, exacerbated by poverty and low literacy rates.

And here was me – a stranger in their world. A female in business (a fact often seems to bother the men I meet in Central London - so surely that would ruffle a feather or two in rural Zambia?)

I'm tall, white, young and I had never visited Africa before. What on earth could I offer to help women set up a business in remote, rural corners of a vast country with a small but dispersed population?

What had I let myself in for?

My fears weren't allayed on first setting foot on Zambian soil. One look at my immigration form gave me an inkling of what could lie ahead. Where you might expect to see tick boxes marked male or female – there were instead just two options: 'self' or 'wife'.It made me realise: it isn't easy to be a young woman in Zambia, much less, assume the access to assert one's rights.

And that was before I'd even set foot outside the airport.

Entrepreneurship as an equaliser

My travels took me into the homes, shops and villages of many amazing women.

Women like Mary: a single mother in a very remote community made up of very small huts and a sprinkling of livestock.

Bringing a child up alone carries a huge stigma here. Despite living next to her parents and brothers, Mary is alone with her seven month old baby girl and needs to find a way to feed them both.

Desperate to attend teacher training so she can work in a school, Mary became a student on the entrepreneurship programme.

So, I asked, what has it done for her?

Previously with nothing to do, no skills and no prospects, Mary now has business confidence and knowhow. She has taken-out a tiny loan, bought seeds and has a small but growing vegetable garden.

Not only does this provide her with food but she also knows to grow what her customers want (okra, it turns out) and how to market surplus vegetables for sale. This allows her to save-up for soap to wash her daughter, as well as the fees for her teacher training. She - along with others in the village - is even planning to start supplying a local supermarket.

Mary is a very young woman who, in difficult circumstance, is earning the respect of her family and community as she works towards independence.

That's a woman to be celebrated on a day like today.

In many cases, women like Mary also support their fellow youths, friends, neighbours and families.Women like Isobel. One of the first participants in the Building Young Futures programme, she has used the training to establish a small but successful tailoring shop in the capital city, Lusaka, where I met her.

Isobel left her village behind when her parents died. Having built up a steady stream of customers and slowly expanded her business, she now wants to help other women stuck at home.

Zambian women want to look their best. On one visit to her village, Isobel noticed her fellow women had to travel up to 53 km to get their hair done. There was nothing closer available.

Having learnt about supply and demand, she realised that she'd found a niche and now intends to fill it. She's diversifying, setting up a second business - a dress shop and salon in one, where she can teach and employ family members, in a region where there are few jobs available.

Now, not only is Isobel training her cousins in a valuable craft and joining hands with other girls in her community to help them succeed, but she's also had eleven pupils work for her in her tailoring shop.

Teach a woman business acumen and she'll actively distill her learning – sharing it with a wider network than we could ever imagine.

Let's All Use Our Voices

When women use their clout, experience, or voices to break down barriers - as I hope I did just a little in Zambia - people like Mary and Isobel have one less reason to limit themselves; boys have one more woman to see in a positive light; and girls can emerge from the shadows into opportunities that no one else is currently able to create for them.

Entrepreneurship is a means – and in some places the only means – to ensure survival.

And that's why, on Women's Entrepreneurship Day, it's vital to remember that the lessons of running your own business can go far beyond our own small worlds, beyond our understanding of what's possible with limited resources - and way, way beyond the Dragon's Den.