For American-born Monica Norley, home is an old Dutch barge in Brighton Marina where she lives with three pets – two chocolate brown Labradors and a wise old cat. But Monica’s professional life has taken her all over the world. She has lived in Sussex since 2004 – mostly in Brighton, with a six-year period in Hastings from where she ran the award-winning Visionary Soap Company. Her current project is the Mama Mzungu beauty brand, a soap company providing employment to women with albinism which necessitates regular travel to Africa.
Monica first became interested in female economic and social development while on a business placement with the US Peace Corps in Guatemala, back in 1995. She worked there for two years, volunteering within an indigenous community in San Miguel Chicaj after graduating in Business at Eastern Washington University. Here, she met women making textiles for pennies a day, and became aware that the international male sellers were receiving a much larger cut.
“I learnt very quickly that working with the women in undeveloped regions meant that the income would go directly back to the household,” says Monica. She felt that if she could support women in developing countries to start and run businesses of their own, she could help bring economic strength and positive social change to these areas of poverty.
Denne historien er fra April 2020-utgaven av Sussex Life.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra April 2020-utgaven av Sussex Life.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
TAKE YOUR TIME
Dean Edwards’ new cookbook features delectable recipes that you can slow cook or stick in the oven. Here’s a selection of the best
Decorative art
Not simply functional, treat your walls like an extension of your personality
ON THE FRONT FOOT
The rugby legend took the reins at Sussex County Cricket Club in 2017, rekindling his love for a sport that first won his heart on the village cricket fields of North Yorkshire
NAKED AMBITION
In the 1980s, Christine and Jennifer Binnie partied with Boy George and Marilyn and bared all as performance art collective The Neo-Naturists. Now they are working together to gain the recognition they feel they deserve
ROCKET MAN
Astronaut Tim Peake has come a long way since growing up in Westbourne and attending Chichester High School for Boys: 248 miles above Earth, to be precise. But, he says, life on the International Space Station has a lot in common with family caravanning holidays
Revolution man
Lewes’ most famous resident Thomas Paine may be the greatest propagandist who ever lived. But how did a humble customs and excise officer ignite the touchpaper for revolution in not one but two countries?
THE DIARY
17 exciting things to do this month in East and West Sussex
All in a day's work
Meet Tim Dummer, who has helped keep Midhurst’s Cowdray Estate shipshape for an impressive five decades
My favourite Sussex
Bruce Fogle is an author and a vet with a practice in London who has lived in West Sussex with his wife, the actress Julia Foster, since 1989. He recently became president of RSPCA Mount Noddy near Chichester
10 OF THE BEST Meat-free restaurants in Brighton and Hove
Brighton is often rated one of the most vegan-friendly cities in the UK. What these restaurants prove is that plant-based food doesn’t have to be puritanical – at all of these places you’ll find big flavours and a desire to push the envelope
