Sonoma’s WomenServe helps women, helping their communities – North Bay Business Journal

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Traditional Medicinals Nioma Sadler helps women lift up their communities

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CYNTHIA SWEENEY

NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL | June 23, 2017, 6:25PM

06/23/2017

From a young age, Nioma Narissa Sadler knew what she wanted to do with her life. What she didnt know was that her unusual upbringing, and challenging life experiences, would prepare her to do the work she does.

Sadler is the founder of WomenServe, a nonprofit based in Sonoma, that improves the lives of impoverished women and girls throughout the world, and subsequently their communities, by providing basic needs like water and health care.

In Rajasthan, India, women and girls walk up to 10 hours a day carrying water on their heads from a pond back to their communities. WomenServe, in collaboration with Traditional Medicinals, the wellness tea giant with products sold in more than 60,000 stores, has contributed to the construction of six large community ponds and more than 400 taankas (tanks to collect rainwater) providing water to 12,000 people.

With Sadlers guidance, five primary schools in rural India have been built, and female health workers have been trained to provide basic health services there.

WomenServe is about telling women and girls stories to create change and awareness, to draw in more interest and bring change towards equality, she said.

In addition to founding WomenServe, Sadler is the Goodwill Ambassador for Traditional Medicinals and is co-founder of the Traditional Medicinals Foundation. As ambassador, she travels the world working directly with farmers and producers to improve the quality of the herbs used in the companys tea. All three organizations work together in improving the communities that grow them.

The company works on the quality piece and the foundation works on the social piece, Sadler said. It is very unusual and is connected to the social business piece which is a big part of what TM is leading in which is to show the world how you can use capitalism to do good if youre intentional about it.

Sadler was born in Michigan, but grew up traveling the country. Her father was a college professor and a psychologist, however, My parents were gypsies. We spent a lot of time in California, Oregon, and Colorado. Theyre very esoteric people, studying the Earth as a living being. They were also isolationists. They didnt like to have the impact of outer world, TV, artificial things affect their children, she said. They wanted their children to just be affected by nature mostly.

As a result, Sadler was life-schooled. Every time the family drove by a school, her heart ached with longing for a traditional education.

I just remember driving by and feeling how much I wanted to be in that school. I had a deep longing for knowledge and learning as much as I could, she said.

Libraries were her saving grace. She checked out as many books at one time as she could, and read her brother and sisters books as well. Her obsession grew around stories and biographies of women and girls, and the common issues they face, like inequality, abuse, and not being allowed to receive an education.

One in particular was the biography of Meena Keshwar Kamal, a feminist crusader in Afghanistan, who was assassinated in 1987, and subsequently became a martyr.

I was very fascinated with her mission, and how, when she got murdered, her mission grew as all these other women and girls took it on, she said.

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Sadler did finally go, for a while, to community college. At age 19, however, she became pregnant by an abusive partner. She dropped out of school and worked as a single mom raising her son for six years.

I loved it (college), it was great. I got almost a 4.0, she said. But my life led me away from that to being a mom.

During that time, Sadlers attention was drawn to the Bosnian genocide. From 1992-1995, Bosnian Serb forces killed more than 8,000 Muslims and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina in an ethnic cleansing campaign.

I became more aware of the rape of women during war, that whole thing hit me, because my partner was abusive to me, she said. There are things that happen in your life that create the passion that you want to do and for me there were several.

Sadler was also influenced by her mother, who grew up a traditional Arabic Muslim.

Traditional Arabic women are just supposed to cook and clean. Her brothers got everything and she got nothing. So there are things Ive seen that have drawn me to this work with women and girls, including my personal story of not having a formal education. So, Ive been planning to do this work for a long time, Sadler said.

The tide changed when she met her husband, Drake Sadler, co-founder of Traditional Medicinals.

We have the same kind of passion and commitment, she said.

The two partnered in the formation of the TM Foundation, providing a blend of head, heart and soul, and now seven years later we are co-managing various parts and reporting responsibilities, Drake Sadler said.

Sadler began traveling with her husband to meet with TMs source communities, and her influence on the way the company interacts with them has been profound.

Traditionally, men from the company talk through a male translator while women are serving and not part of the conversation, even though they do the vast majority80 percent of all herb farming and collection is done by rural, poor women who are very dependent on the income they receive.

Next time, I said, Im absolutely not going without a female translator. I said Drake, you go hang out with the men, talk about tractors and weather patterns, Im going to hang out with the women and find out whats hard on these communities, what are they suffering, she said. You need to involve women in the process, valuing their importance.

By working with women and girls, not just men, Sadler gets a better understanding of issues that plague those communities.

All the girls I work with in Rajasthan are just like me. All the older women, like my age are illiterate and never went to school, she said. Just making women feel important is the first step most people would not take, breaking down that barrier.

Nioma has been focused on removing barriers to womens empowerment for the past couple of decades, in Sonoma County and around the world, her husband said.

She has studied and surrounded herself with (mostly) women who share her interests and have a combination of academic and global field experience working on womens issues. She brings this intention and her passion to her various roles at Traditional Medicinals, the Foundation and WomenServe, he said.

Sadler said she has learned to develop trust and build relationships.

Its not just here were going to give you this. We have to hear them. Hear their voices, their stories, and understand how we can actually work together in a collaborative way, because its not about charity. Its a long-term relationship. This is the foundation of the company, Sadler said.

Sadler is learning the different landscapes that are out there, she said, and learning from the process, which is what shes done her whole life without a formal educational background.

She also taught herself to paint, something she has been doing since a child.

I am a self taught artist. As you know my favorite subject to study is women and girls and issues they face in the world and Im equally obsessed with painting and drawing women and girls issues. I paint in an energetic vibrant way that expresses emotions and feelings using watercolor and acrylics mostly, she said.

Despite her accomplishments and fortitude in helping others, Sadlers biggest challenge for herself is self esteem for not having an education.

She recently received an award in Rajasthan and someone asked her what degrees she had.

I said I have life degrees but not any kind of educational degrees. Ive had to work hard on my self esteem because I was feeling less than. That and freeing my voice to speak on behalf of the company.

Cynthia Sweeney covers health care, hospitality, residential real estate, education, employment and business insurance. Reach her at Cynthia.Sweeney@busjrnl.com or call 707-521-4259.

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Sonoma's WomenServe helps women, helping their communities - North Bay Business Journal