Zenana Women (the business) is the product of a wonderful journey being taken by Harry and Penny Cantle. In 2005 Penny followed Harry to live in India, where he had a 2-year assignment as Team Leader of a large Aid project.
Harry’s background is in civil engineering, and he made a transition into management consulting in the 90s. His dream for some time had been to work in developing countries, so when a contract on an Aid project in India came his way in 2001, he grabbed it, Penny came along for the ride and a love affair with India began.
Penny, a teacher, was inspired by the professional Indian women she met on that first project. They were working to empower slum women, and Penny decided to pursue a career in development, to work alongside Harry as a Gender Specialist. By the time they left for their 2-year sojourn in 2005 she had completed a Master’s degree in Development, and learned an awful lot about women in developing countries, especially India. The Gender Specialist thing never happened: Zenana Women did.
With the advent of Zenana Women, Harry and Penny divided the workload between them. In addition to funding the development of the business through further Aid work in India and Kyrgyzstan, Harry has become accountant, website developer, technical support and general asker of the hard questions. Penny manages the workshop in India on a day-to-day basis by email and Skype, as well as being designer, marketing manager, PR officer and dreamer of things to come. It’s a busy life!