Reclaiming Identity, Ready to Launch – Amna Burki

Since Amna Burki participated in the Strength in Community Workshops, she has launched her business—Stories Matter—which bridges differences between cultures and works with literacy through storytelling.  

I went into the group thinking ‘I’m not an entrepreneur, what the heck am I doing here?’ I had walked out of two jobs and didn’t know what to do. I had already developed workshops for nonprofits using applied oral storytelling and I wanted to do that full time, but I wasn’t thinking of being a social entrepreneur. Then someone recommended I sign up for Strength in Community. 

One thing I really appreciated about the Strength in Community workshops is how welcoming it was and how valued [I was] made to feel. As an obviously visible minority, I thought I might feel rejection, but that’s not how I was treated. I experienced community—getting to know people as equals, but different. 

I made friends through the process, I really felt nourished, and it really opened me up to something that I wasn’t even considering as a possibility—a business. 

The way the whole program is scheduled really makes you think about what a business is and what it does. It makes you really shift in your ways, in your thinking, in your limiting beliefs. And [the program uses] a platform called Mighty Networks as well, so during those weeks you’re also communicating—if you wish to–daily. The whole process really is very powerful.  

It used to be that I would think businesses are all about competition, to just make profits and that’s all. But I met people who had a huge desire to do something to make this world a better place. I met an amazing woman who has a clothing business and her [reason for] getting into that business was to save the planet. I met someone else who is passionate about doing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work.  

Our facilitator, Geraldine De Braune, quoted Simon Sinek who said that “businesses solve problems.” And that’s what I saw in this group. Now I think of business as a viable alternative path to serving the community. That’s a real shift in my thinking. 

Since participating in Strength in Community, I have started claiming my identity as a solopreneur and as a social enterprise. I have a business now called Stories Matter and it’s just waiting to take off! 

SCW 1.0: Building Personal Leadership starts in Manitoba on November 7, 2023.