During a recent visit to Malawi, we visited some of our growth programmes for an extensive interview with the entrepreneurs about their company, their lives and entrepreneurship in their country.

Kwithu Kitchen is one of the largest producers of honey and tomato products in Malawi, but it is much more than that. What started as a way of providing nutritious food for local children has grown into a whole ecosystem under the watchful eyes of Dr. Anna Keys. Her mission: to feed, educate and empower children and women in Mzuzu, Malawi. Kwithu Kitchen is the business part of this ecosystem and exists alongside Kwithu CBO - a full-service community center - and Mzuzu International Academy, the first international school in Northern Malawi. The story of Kwithu Kitchen and Anna's legacy is a strong example of social and economic impact in Malawi.

Part 1: Work

Can you tell us a bit more about Kwithu Kitchen and what you do?

Anna: It would be hard to talk about Kwithu Kitchen without first reaching out to our community project, Kwithu CBO. We work with the communities here, about 23,000 people. First we started our feeding program. We were getting aid from people, feeding the kids, but one of the things that I was thinking of is that people [volunteers] get tired. Then I started thinking that we needed to build something that could commercially help us in future. If these donors say, we can't give you any more money, we have to be able to do something. But it was hard. As you know, Malawi is very, very poor. So we looked for something that we can do without heavy machinery. That’s when I thought that we need tomatoes to feed our kids, so let’s preserve tomatoes. This way, if we don’t have oil or other ingredients, at least we have tomatoes for the kids.

Once we started preserving tomatoes, one of our board members from the US ngo Maloto visited [Dr. Anna Keys founded Maloto to raise funds in the USA for feeding and educating Malawian children]. We were driving to Mzuzu, and she saw pyramids of tomatoes on the side of the road. She asked if we have tomatoes all year round. I said no, and in the rainy season there are no tomatoes. Then she asked if I wanted her to teach the women how to preserve tomatoes? I said yes of course, but I told her it would be hard for us to invest in the machines to preserve the tomatoes. But she came to teach us without needing machines. She taught five out of the 20 women at Kwithu CBO, and I was just intrigued because when I took those tomatoes home, it was like I was getting fresh tomatoes from my garden. And I'm like, can't we sell this? So I went to a local hotel, and I gave them two bottles and asked them to test them for us and give us feedback. The feedback was simple: where can we get this? Then I realized that it's something we can actually do.

We decided to start a business in tomato processing to be able to, if we made a profit, give to the school, use the profits for the children and continue that way. In 2013 we officially founded Kwithu Kitchen. We did very well, but it was very hard to break through to the market. We had a lot of imports from South Africa and our tomatoes were more expensive. But I still felt I'm not a quitter, I still wanted to do this. So instead of just dropping it, I decided to diversify. And that's how we started doing honey. The whole reason why we started Kwithu Kitchen is really to be self-sustaining. I realized that we were feeding 350 kids every day and providing them with scholarships, all being helped from the outside. I just saw Kwithu Kitchen as the perfect vehicle for us to be self-reliant, and that’s what we did.

You’ve talked about the support from Maloto. Can you tell us a bit more about the organization?

Anna: So I first started Kwithu CBO with $250 of my own money. I started working with people internationally to get more funding and bit by bit, it took off. When it started growing, I decided to start Maloto in the United States. I was living there at the time with my husband John [Keys, also a big part of Kwithu Kitchen and Maloto] and I realized that you can't just raise money like that, without people knowing whether this money is really being put to good use. So I had to create Maloto as an umbrella organization to help me raise funds to build the school and build the community programs I started. Kwithu Kitchen wouldn't have been here without Maloto, which has invested about a million dollars in Kwithu Kitchen. We are heavily indebted to Maloto and want to make them proud, and grow our profits to be completely self-sustaining. They’ve done a lot for us and one of the things that I want Maloto to continue going forward is supporting the scholarships of the kids that you've seen here at Kwithu CBO. I would rather do that than have them help me with the operational day to day of things.

You say Maloto has done a lot for you, but you are Maloto as well, right?

Anna: Yes, I founded Maloto. But I couldn't have done it alone. I found very, very good people who believed in me. All the people that have helped me, most of them are not Malawians. They will never be able to come and see what they've helped us create here. And so I look at it and know that yes, I might have started this, but there's this whole team that just believed in the project. We believed in each other. We believed in us, and that's why we've created what we've created.

Kwithu Kitchen, Kwithu CBO, Mzuzu Academy,… You’ve generated a lot of social impact. What are you most proud of?

Anna: When we started Mzuzu International Academy, we decided to follow an international curriculum. I was very aware of that social responsibility, because many of the kids that I wanted to come here, don't have an international background. But I had this belief to say, if you're smart, it doesn't matter where you go, you'll make it. Last year, we celebrated the 20 year anniversary of this program. To be able to see the kids that I started with when they were seven years old, they've gone full circle. They've gone to university. Some are teachers here, some are medical doctors, some are pilots. I'm 63 now, and to actually see that circle, those effects, in my lifetime… I’m very proud of that. It was important for me to be able to help build Malawi's leadership and I never thought I would see it happen in my life. I expected to start this and have someone else finish it. But we’ve done it. I’ve seen kids grow up to be colleagues, teachers. I've helped train my own teachers, who have come back to teach their friends. There are many things I can talk about, but just to see a kid who maybe would have never been able to make it if I didn't give a hand, to see them now, sitting at the same table as people from the US, the UK, Norway. They're able to discuss their future, and talk about where they want Malawi to go. I'm seeing it happen before my eyes, and I don't have words for it. I'm very, very proud.

Can you tell us a bit more about your ambitions and long term goals for Kwithu Kitchen?

Anna: Obviously my number one goal is to make sure that Kwithu Kitchen becomes and remains profitable. The second goal is this school, Mzuzu International Academy. I think for Malawi to grow and be self-reliant, for Malawi to break this cycle of poverty, we will need to do something. As a Malawian, when I was growing up I always wanted to be a fashion designer, and my mom just broke it down to one thing: where have you seen a tailor make money? That has pushed me to say these kids can be anything they want to be if they put their heart in it. With this energy, I want to make sure that we have a two year vocational skills training college that really is hands-on, teaching kids whether they are good academically or not – most Malawian kids are very talented. We have artists, we have people who are good with their hands, and we need a state-of-the-art vocational school where they can learn to do woodwork, plumbing, electrical work, so when the two years are over, they can be productive in their communities and get jobs. One of the other things is that I want to have a multipurpose hall where we can host activities and talk to all our teachers at the same time. We don’t have this in Mzuzu, and it rains a lot. We’re already building the hall, and I was lucky enough to have great people supporting us. I ask God to keep me here, if only to complete these things, so I can say I've succeeded. I'm tired, yes, but I still want to wrap it up like that.

You've worked in Mozambique, Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda and Malawi of course. How do you look at the non-profit sector in Sub Saharan Africa?

Anna: There are many, many differences, especially in culture, but our issues are the same. Rwanda left a mark on me. Rwanda made me come home and do what I'm doing because I saw so much devastation and just felt like there was so much strength in seeing people come together regardless of the hurt to build their own country like that. I've done so much in Rwanda, and I've been part of rebuilding Rwanda. When I look at my own country, Malawi, when I see how poor we are, I am grateful to Rwanda, because my time there showed me that I can do something in Malawi, and nobody will destroy it. Rwanda is a country that has lost everything, but they want to rebuild even if they don’t know that it will be there tomorrow. But here I am, I'm from Malawi. We've never been at war with anyone. And I think we'll never be. We don't have a bush for people to hide. And I can build something that will still be there twenty, thirty years from now. Why can't I try?

And I'm very, very grateful for the people who helped me achieve what I've achieved. Sure, there are differences in the countries where I've worked. But when you go to another country, what happens on the ground is so different from what you learn in school. In every country that I went, the first thing that I did was listen. How do they do things here? That taught me a lot about how to look at Malawi and work on positive change here. That has given me so much courage and I've learned a lot from these other countries.

Kwithu CBO is implementing an HIV and AIDS program as well, something you are personally involved with. Could you tell us a bit more about the state of this crisis and how this has evolved over the last years?

Anna: You know, I wish my sisters didn't die, because it did evolve. I lost my generation. I lost so many friends. I lost some of the guys that I dated. And I always say, maybe if I didn’t get married to John, I would be one of the statistics. Every family in Malawi, somehow, somewhere, was affected by HIV and AIDS. We've come a long way since, because it used to be a taboo, we couldn't even talk about it. I lost four sisters, but at that time I couldn't even say that my sister died of AIDS. I think the minute we accepted that there's a problem, things changed. Because there was a lot of stigma, and there were all these myths around it, because there was very little civic education. But I am very, very proud of our country, because if there's something that we’ve done well, it's handling HIV and AIDS. And I am also very grateful to George W. Bush with the PEPFAR initiative. He saved so many lives, and you can choose not to like him, but he did a lot for us on that front.

We started the program and it was very difficult for people to come to us. I tried so many things. Before I built the center, there was a mobile track where they would do testing at first, and maybe a few people came. And even now that the program is working well, there's always an advantage and a disadvantage. We have medication, and because of this, some people feel like they can do whatever they want, because there's medicine. That’s why a lot of new infections are from younger people. It is our desire to have kids be born HIV-free, and we’ve managed to have HIV-free kids being born from HIV-positive parents. So when I look at that, there's hope. The kids that I started working with 20 years ago, they themselves were orphans of HIV and AIDS. Who better to talk about that? I can tell you, I have teachers here who can dream of having a family, having their own kids. And so I think we've come a long way and I think the future is bright for this country. But it's something that we can't afford to stop talking about.

Your slogan, which all of the Kwithu-oriented organisations work towards, is ‘Feed, educate, empower’. Was this always the plan?

Anna: I would lie to you if I said that everything I did was planned. I think when I started the feeding program, I was just thinking, what's next? I can feed these kids all I want, then what? So then the education approach came, and then I looked at the women that I was working with, and I'm like, these women have families of their own, but they've dedicated their lives to helping even one more child here. What can I do for them? And then that's how the empowerment came in. I just thought, bingo: Feed, educate, and empower.

Part 2: Exchange

What has your experience with Exchange been like so far?

Anna: I wish there were many more organizations like Exchange, because money is useful, but there are some things money cannot buy. And I think that's what Exchange has done for us. When I just started Kwithu Kitchen, I worked with Exchange to help us with growing tomatoes. But now, to be able to have Exchange help us with our business plan and our model, the pricing, methodology, all these things… it's not something that we can afford as an organisation. What I'm really grateful for with Exchange is that it's a true partnership. When a volunteer comes here, it's not like they’re just helping us. They are so passionate and so committed. I think we need more expertise like that. What Exchange is doing, they shouldn't stop. I think especially in Sub Saharan Africa, we need that kind of expertise and technical support. It's more than just giving money. You can have all the money; if you don't have the right expertise, it won't happen. I can't emphasize this enough, Exchange is our lifeline. We hope we can continue working with Exchange, helping us with all this expertise, because I think that's how we're going to succeed. When people ask me how we did this, I often tell them ‘Oh, there's this organization...’. We’re very, very grateful.

Can you tell me a bit about the relationship you have with your coach?

Anna: Marcel [Christianen] has mostly been working with our business advisor, John Keys. I've met him, but I'm not a numbers person. I think what I like most about him is that when he comes to us, he doesn't come as Exchange. He comes as part of Kwithu Kitchen. He fits in and he talks to us. Sometimes when you have consultants, they just tell you what to do and then leave. But with Marcel, he’s like ‘Guys, you can't do this. Let's do something else.’ So we have a very close relationship, and we love Marcel at Kwithu Kitchen.

What is your next goal with the experience and the expertise provided by Exchange?

Anna: We always wanted to build our own factory. When Marcel came over, I showed him the space where I wanted to build the factory, and I looked at the money that I needed to raise to build it - we're talking about around $700,000. And I thought okay, this will not happen in my lifetime. And then someone found a factory, and I took some time to go and see it. It was like it was built for us. The space is there and it's intact, but we now need the expertise to help us design that building. I would like it to be done right, and I can't see a better partner and friend than Exchange to come and help us do this.

Part 3: Life

Can you tell us a bit more about yourself?

Anna: People think I'm an educator, but I would say I'm a community organizer, a social worker. I work with people. I've always believed that you can be anything you want to be as long as you're passionate about what you're doing. So I went to school and worked as a secretary for two years - I hated the job. And then the refugee crisis happened in Malawi. We had 1 million refugees. One day, I was coming from Blantyre, visiting my parents in the village here in the north, and I met this white guy in a bus. I asked him, ‘What is a white guy doing in a bus? You're supposed to be driving a car.’ A stereotype, because all white guys are rich, right? And he laughed. He told me he worked for an organization called International Rescue Committee, and he came here to start a program to help the refugees. I asked him what his biggest challenge was, and he said to get local people to work for them. I told him I didn’t know anything about working with refugees, but I could work for him. I got that job and I've never looked back.

Whatever I've learned, I've learned on job. I went to Norway to school. I went to the US. If you want to know about Anna, this is who I am. Since I was young, it was my business to always help someone, to put a smile on someone's face. I just wanted to do the best for people in my community. Most people call me Dr. Keys now, and I'm very grateful for that. I never went to school to become a doctor, but as an entrepreneur, this was given to me by my local investor here because of the work that I've done. That was my ‘aha moment’. To be able to be respected and to be recognized by your own, it speaks volumes. It's a title I carry forever.

Would you say this is what inspires you in life?

Anna: Yeah, we all have our past, good or bad, and I just want to do something to make sure that these kids do not have the same limitations that I had. They don’t have to make the same mistakes. I'm talking to them about what I went through and showing them there’s a way not to. What also inspires me is to be able to tell them ‘Look guys, we cannot all be doctors, we cannot all be lawyers, whatever you choose in life, just put your heart into it, work hard on it. If you want to be a cleaner, be the best cleaner out there.’

If you have free time, how do you like to spend it?

Anna: I’ve been doing this for twenty years and I just realized that I don’t remember the last time I went on vacation. I think I need to give myself a bit more time off. Sometimes, when I had some free time, I’d use it to go to a workshop in the Netherlands for example and then take a few days to just relax, but that’s it. And my kids were up in arms because they've always gone on holiday with their dad; I'm just so busy here. I always told them look, if I die today, you will be fine. But those kids in Malawi, they would have lost a person who would have made a huge difference in their life. It was very hard to tell that to a six year old, but I'm grateful that my kids have realized that yeah, they were left alone with their dad so many times, but now they come here and bring their friends from the USA, they volunteer here… I’m very grateful for that.

As for free time, I’m very active in my local church. It feels like I’m home here, it’s a bit different in the United States. I also go to the lake [Lake Malawi] sometimes. Right now, I'm able to say 'I'm not coming to work today' and refuse things, which was not possible before. I’m not done working yet, but I can see what I've done, so I think people can cut me some slack. I always felt obligated to people who have given me money, some who had very little and just believed in me and this project. Some of them will never see what I've done, and so I always felt I have an obligation to make sure that I make this succeed.

Look, I had a very good job. I had a very beautiful arts and crafts shop in New York where I worked with seven African countries to sell the best African products. When I received my first donation, my husband looked at me and told me I had to quit my job and close the shop. And, you know, that's the best advice I ever got. Because whatever you see here at Kwithu Kitchen, I’ve built brick by brick. I have to do this. I'm 63 now, and I would like to travel a little bit. We have the best managers running these institutions, Mzuzu Academy, Kwithu Kitchen, and Kwithu CBO. So I think for me, it's time to let go. If things can't move without me, then there's nothing I've achieved in 20 years. I need to make sure that I can let go and let others take over and make mistakes. That's how they will learn.

Part 4: Entrepreneurship and Malawi

How do you look at entrepreneurship in Malawi? What do you think about the business climate?

Anna: Opportunities are huge in Malawi, especially now. A lot of Malawians have started businesses. We are an agricultural country, so whatever you put in the soil is nice, beautiful, tasty. It's real food, and I’m sure everyone who visits here can attest to that. But at the moment, the economic situation in Malawi is bad. Even with all those opportunities, you still need help to be an entrepreneur. As Kwithu Kitchen, we've reached a point where we’re no longer a start-up, so we either move forward or it ends here. But you need capitalization of your business and the challenge you have as a Malawian entrepreneur is finding people who trust you enough to invest in your business. People who are thinking of investing in Kwithu Kitchen, they'll start thinking 'Ah, will she be able to make it? Will I get my money back?' Even just finding a real partner to work with is a big challenge.

I'm a person who always dreams big, even if I don't know where the money is going to come from or where I'm going. But my mom told me that dreaming is free, it doesn't cost money. I'm aware Malawi is poor, but I shouldn't be defined by that. I have my hands, I have my eyes, you know, let me start slowly, and we’ll see wherever it ends. If I thought about it too much, there would not be an international school in Mzuzu, the first international school in the north of Malawi. So the challenges for us as a country, I think there are many entrepreneurs that are focused but who just need that push. But the people who get a push are the people who know how to talk and get people excited, while the people who are really doing the work in the background are often not found and helped.

It breaks my heart sometimes, because Malawi is not a sexy country. Everyone wants to be able to help, but people have poured money in here and Malawi is still the same. I think things need to change. As a country, I think that we need political will, but I think more so we need people like me on the grassroots. I think Malawi needs to be built from bottom up. That's also why I said Exchange is very special to me, because you found me here in Mzuzu, not in Lilongwe. I'm lucky because of where I've come from. I'm able to speak, I'm able to reach out to many people. What about the other unsung heroes that are here trying to do all these things? And so that's another challenge, to be able to reach out to my own community. How many people are doing what? I can be able to sell in these supermarkets, but there might be an even better product somewhere in a village that can't get to the supermarket because they can't find the right packaging. Nobody can talk for them. When talking about challenges, money and resources are of course the first things people talk about, but for me, it's more than that. And this is where Exchange comes in: it's huge to be able to teach someone how to do something and how to do it perfectly.

How do you see this situation evolving in the next few years?

Anna: I think it will get worse before it gets better. Because the issue is Malawi is landlocked, and whether we like it or not, the forex issue is a big one. If I want to buy equipment for the factory, it needs to come from somewhere, and I need to have forex to buy those things. I can have all the Kwacha I need in the country, but I can't turn that into something to buy equipment somewhere else. So until our economy can evolve, we are stuck. Maybe a few of us entrepreneurs will survive because of the connections we have, but my fear is that the things that we really need in this country, they will fail because they don't have those connections. So I want to be optimistic, but I also want to be realistic, and the reality is right now things are very, very tough and expensive. I employ about 140 people, so if you multiply that with their families, it means I'm contributing quite a bit to the economy of this country. But I also want to be able to see my government look at me and ask what they can do to help me do more. But there isn't something like that. There are all these obstacles. People come as international investors and they get tax breaks; I can't get a tax break. I pay through my nose. As a country, we need to build something ourselves, because at the end of the day, when people ask me if I can export our products, my answer is I'm only able to sell in the country. Exporting comes with its own issues. If I transport products to Europe and they spoil, I’m not getting paid. So we need to create markets in Africa before we can go to Europe. We need to make sure that we can trade locally, in Malawi, with Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania … I'm optimistic that things will get better, but I also have to be realistic: right now, things are very tough.

What do you like most about Malawi?

Anna: There's no place I would rather be than this country. Yes, we might not have the money, but God somehow gave us a very beautiful country. Malawians are very warm and sweet, which is what I think has really sustained us in this country through all these hard times. Through HIV and AIDS, through COVID-19, that extended family has kept us going. Extended family does not mean that you are related by blood. We just know that we can help each other. If everyone has died in a village except for one child, that child will be taken in by someone, and will not suffer anymore. So for me, I've traveled, but there's no other place I would rather be than here.