Wonder woman joins elite list

Published Nov 4, 2013

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Durban - Wonderbag, the simple but ingenious slow-cooking bag that has changed the way thousands of families in Africa prepare their meals, has also propelled its founder, Sarah Collins, into an elite list of women entrepreneurs.

This month, KwaZulu-Natal-born Collins was hailed as one of Fortune Magazine’s 2013 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs and attended the magazine’s Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington DC, where she rubbed shoulders with global business icons like Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx, Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook; Arianna Huffington, chairman of the Huffington Post; Ursula Burns, chief executive officer of Xerox; and Martina Navratilova, former tennis champion; to name a few.

“It was a great honour to be there and we had some honest and exciting conversations about the future and safety of our world,” Collins said in an interview from the US.

“We talked about how we, as women leaders, can play a significant and vital role in empowering more women to change the status quo and play a role in a safer and more sustainable world.

 

“I believe that attending the summit was a turning point in my career – and for Wonderbag – as it not only gave us a great audience, but it gave me huge confidence in the power of a strong community to make things happen.”

Wonderbag is a South African story that is, well, wonderful.

Collins, who grew up on a farm in the Midlands and was educated at St Anne’s in Hilton and the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, said she remembered her grandmother using cushions for slow-cooking.

She was also intrigued by the late Bridget Oppenheimer’s Wonderbox slow-cooker and began experimenting with heat retention eco-cooking.

Based on a different design from the Wonderbox, Collins decided to establish her own project incorporating an innovative business model based on carbon funding.

The Wonderbag was born, under the umbrella of Natural Balance, a social enterprise business she had set up in 2008 to introduce worm farms and vegetable gardens to communities.

Made of fabric and recycled polystyrene, the clever bag finishes the cooking process using heat first generated in the pot from a stove or fire.

The method is simple: boil it, bag it, slow cook it and serve it.

Today, the bag is improving the lives of many people in South Africa, not least owing to the creation of over 1 000 jobs, with a target of 7 000 more over the next five years. More than 400 000 units have been sold in South Africa.

Wonderbag, whose headquarters are in uMhlanga, with a factory in oThongathi, is now in Rwanda, Somaliland, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Botswana, where it helps meet energy needs and is hopefully reducing deaths from indoor pollution.

The latter currently exceed those from malaria and rival the number of deaths from tuberculosis. If it is used just three times a week, the bag can reduce a family’s fuel usage by up to 50 percent.

Because each bag saves about 0.5 tons of carbon each year, the Wonderbag has been recognised by the UN as a project that can earn and trade carbon credits.

Collins is now a recognised authority on carbon trading and spoke at the COP17 environmental summit in Durban in 2011.

To ensure its spread into the developing world where it is needed most, Collins has launched the Wonderbag into the developed world and there are offices or distribution depots in Turkey, UK, the Netherlands and the US, as well as in Rwanda and Kenya.

She aims to distribute 100 million bags by 2015. This will make a significant difference to the lives of millions of women who spend four to six hours cooking and who put themselves at physical risk each day by walking kilometres in search of firewood.

The powerless product has powerful appeal to the global audience.

“It is a hit wherever I go,” says Collins.

“It is different, simple and addresses the challenge of the vast majority of the developing world still cooking on open fires.

“Indoor air pollution-related disease is the biggest killer in the world, more than HIV and Aids.

“For the past 15 years, people have been looking for a tangible solution, with economic benefits as well as practical solutions to issues on the ground, and the Wonderbag provides that in a simple yet retro, trendy bag.”

Wholesome

It can also be used by women who want to feed their families wholesome, healthy meals without having to stand over stoves for long periods.

You can take it to picnics and parties, and it even keeps ice cream frozen on the beach, says Collins.

The Fortune Magazine summit provided a forum to meet potential investors and partners to increase production, to meet a growing need, but Collins is keen for investors from Africa to get involved in this distinctly African product.

 

A passion for the product and its power to change lives is what fuels Collins, who has spent the past two years travelling extensively and putting in 18-hour days. She has spent just 45 days at home in 22 months, she says.

The stories are rewarding. There are women in Rwanda who were starving to death, but who are now selling meals out of Wonderbags at a local hospital – and feeding their families.

Businesses have been created from the bag, sales agents employed, catering businesses launched, homeless shelters started and crèches are feeding children from the bags.

“More than 3.6 million lives have been touched,” says Collins.

“How can I not feel proud of my simple bag?” - Daily News

See: http://nb-wonderbag.com

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