What I'm Learning in the JoyCorps Fellowship

by Divya Chowfin Diedrichs,
JoyCorps Fellow Since 2019
Co-Owner of Himalayan Haat

Divya and her family have farmed their land in the mountains of northern India for more than four generations. She and her husband, Steve, moved to the farm in 2014 and soon realized that rampant alcoholism among men in their rural mountain community was leaving women highly vulnerable to abuse and neglect. Divya and Steve began to train local women to make gourmet preserves, sauces, juice concentrates and herbal teas from organic farm produce that was being wasted. The result was Himalayan Haat, a business that turns a low-cost commodity (farm produce) into high-value artisanal products. Their aim is to help local village women become financially independent and mitigate the trend of migration to cities by creating work close to home. Himalayan Haat now employs 25 village women, who are able to support their families. Steve and Divya’s goal is to employ four times that many women.

Being part of the JoyCorps Fellowship has been good for our business, for our community, and personally for us as business owners. My husband Steve and I feel so encouraged to be part of a community that is for us and wants the best for our business. As entrepreneurs, it’s amazing for us to know we have a team behind us that is as excited as we are to see our business grow. I have highlighted four main areas where the JoyCorps Fellowship has been indispensable in helping us.

Business Coaching

The coaching we’ve received has helped us take our business more seriously, to create more structure, and to be more intentional about our growth and impact. Personally I do not have a business background, so the tools Sam (our coach) has shared with us have helped us to gain a better understanding of our own business on a more holistic level. We had not even thought of some of the things that came up during the 360-degree review of our business. Sam has helped us to understand what we’re lacking, where we’re doing well, how to measure our growth, and how to be accountable to the standards we have set for ourselves.

Learning and Encouragement 

We created our business because we wanted to empower women. But after a while we wondered this was bad business sense. At one point last year, I was struggling with self-doubt about not doing enough ads or sales. But as we learned more about redemptive entrepreneurship at JoyCorps’ summits and gatherings, we continually felt reaffirmed in our mission to create jobs for women in our rural community. No longer are we comparing ourselves to what other businesses are doing. JoyCorps has encouraged us to continue being a people-centric business, defining our growth in terms of job creation and not just efficiency. That kind of thinking is counter cultural, but it’s had a direct impact: we’ve added more women each month all year.

Access to Resources

Without the JoyCorps Fellowship, we would not have had access to such incredible resources and expertise, not only because they’re beyond our means, but because we are located in such a remote area. The single biggest thing that has led to our growth has been access to service providers, tools and grant funding we didn’t have before. Morgan led us through a rebrand, Sean is doing our market research, Mel helped us articulate our vision statement, and Sam has been coaching us. We also received a grant from JoyCorps recently, which will be huge in helping us grow this year, because for the first time we will be able to buy more fruit to scale up production. As with any small business, cash flow struggles have always been the biggest thing holding us back. And this year thanks to JoyCorps, we’re actually going to see good growth.

Community

Since we moved to the farm a few years ago, it’s been a fairly lonely journey for Steve and me. We’ve felt cut off from community for a while. So to be plugged into a community of people who thinks like us has been one of the biggest benefits of the Fellowship for us personally. For the first time we feel like we actually have someone speaking into our lives and into what we are doing. We have someone to turn to with questions. To encourage us that what we’re doing is okay. We belong to a group and no longer feel like we’re out here in the jungle all alone.