Empowering Female Entrepreneurs

Amarilla Nirmala is the co-founder and Chief Marketing Whizz of WeDO5 based in Vienna, Austria. WeDO5 believes in the power of women, especially women that want to make a difference. The focus is on female-led impact start-ups, that not only create businesses that make money but also push the status quo, to be more ethical, transparent, and create equal opportunities. They support female entrepreneurs, who are driven to establish long term business solutions.

WeDO5 contributes to the value chain in the start-up ecosystem through community building. They are the first yes for early-stage Startup-founders and offer support from idea generation to conception until growth and internationalization.

Amarilla has years of experience in executing and developing marketing strategies in the UK and Dubai. I am a big believer in start-ups. It is small businesses that are the growth engine of the economy and that create jobs. I talk to Amy about her life in Vienna and what she wants her legacy to be with female entrepreneurs.

Amy welcome, I want to know a little about you?

Hi, I am Amy; I am an Indonesian living in Austria. I have lived in 4 different countries in the past 12 years. I have 2 kids, and currently am a social entrepreneur. I have several businesses that focus on giving back to the community as a business model. I love cooking, gardening, paddling, and in my spare time, I love to play a tourist in my own city.

Talk to me about your social entrepreneurship and what WeDO5 is all about?

WeDO5 is the new name of KulturenReich (German words for Culturally Rich). We started as a social initiative focusing on immigrant women and Austrian women with migrant backgrounds. Austria is a rich country. Vienna has won the #1 city with the best living quality for several years in a row. However, for many foreigners, they find difficulties in starting their professional life again upon residing in the city. Most of them spend years to fully integrate, mostly because of language capability, and tight competition.

KulturenReich focused on empowering foreign-born women to be professionally successful and financially independent, through various activities such as workshops, focus groups,  and on the job training.

In 2020 we changed our name from KulturenReich to WeDO5, the number 5 stands for the fifth point of SDG by the UN, gender equality. We are now focusing on women impact entrepreneurs, those who aren’t only making money but also giving back to the community.

Help me understand mental health and your group Sahabat Jiwa?

Sahabat Jiwa (means soulmate in Indonesian), is a project that basically started in 2013 by my partner Anya. In 2019 I joined the organization as I believe I need also to give back to Indonesia, my home country. Mental health is a sensitive issue where people with problems receive stigma and often they also don’t realize they have issues. We provide literacy about it, and free consultation for young adult Indonesian people with mostly SES C- and below. The consultants are professionals with license, so even though free of charge but it is reliable. However, we do not accept life-threatening or emergency cases.

I want to know a little about the city you live in, the food and the culture?

I’ve been living (again) in Vienna since 2017. I came here in 2011, but moved to different countries in 2013, came back here in the middle of 2017, and found out the city has been changing quite fast!

Vienna is a classical city with beautiful landmarks and parks everywhere. The size isn’t big but very convenient as many things are easily reachable by public transportation.

What I like about the food here is that we have high standards, from eggs till meat, vegetables till desserts!

We try to buy our food from organic farms, and meat from local Austria as it provides certain standards and quality. We are quite concerned about where we get our food from. Things like how the animals slaughtered, how the chicken that produces eggs, what kind of banana we have, how sustainable the honey is, etc. And I must say that many people here are also thinking the same.

What does women empowerment mean to you and how is the modern Indonesian woman different from a few decades ago?

When people think about Indonesia, they think about the exotic paradise Bali, and it is a Muslim country. The fact is, Indonesia has the biggest Muslim population, but we aren’t a Muslim country. Since I was a child, I grew up reading some powerful and inspiring Indonesian women, such as Christina Martha Tiahahu from Moluccas province, or Cut Nyak Dien from Aceh province who bravely led an army to fight colonialism.

My mother, she was also a career woman, independent but also a loving mother. She worked in a British bank with high responsibility, oftentimes she came home late. But in the morning she was the first who wakes up, prepared stuff for my father and us, the kids. She didn’t have a me-time at all, because she spent her time caring for others.

This isn’t bad but she should have taken good care of her life too! So if we are talking about empowerment in Indonesia, it isn’t about women not getting an education or being forced to marry at a young age (although this is also still some cases in several provinces), but moreover about less judgment to women. Let them choose what they feel right. We still expect women to perfectly manage all aspects of their lives. People still expect women to do everything from cleaning the house and raising the child. Household responsibility needs to be shared. People need to be less judgmental to women who are still single.

Tell me a little about your role as a mentor in micro-entrepreneurs?

Currently, I am also active in Micro Mentor; I am giving free mentorship for micro-entrepreneurs in Indonesia.

My current mentee is an Elementary school teacher who produces brown sugar with low glycemic as an alternative for diabetes people.
I am giving guidance on how he should market his product, from marketing strategy to basic branding knowledge. We have 12 sessions, 1.5 hours per week.

You have a Masters in Design & Brand Management. Are you using it presently?

Yes! It has helped me helping female entrepreneurs market themselves.

How has social media changed your country and life in general?

My private Instagram is basically about things I find amusing. It can be a beautiful pic of Vienna, my plants, everything.

But currently, I am using Quora Indonesia to also share my knowledge about branding and marketing, giving advice and some simple steps about career and education. I believe social media is a powerful tool we can utilize for anything. Selling your products? Creating your professional persona? Building your company’s image? Or getting your 15-minute fame as Andy Warhol said last time.

It all depends on us; we just need to be careful about what kind of image we’d like to be remembered.

For me, my focus in life is about legacy. Surely I won’t win a Nobel prize, but I still can help some women who start their small business, I still can inspire young Indonesian people to decide their career path better, and also making good memories with my kids 🙂