This article is one in an AFKInsider series that follows some of the young African leaders chosen to participate in U.S. President Barack Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI). The initiative is a U.S. effort to invest resources in the next generation of African leaders and entrepreneurs.

Life expectancy in Namibia is just 52 for men and 51 for women, with AIDS as the top cause of death at 51 percent. Healthcare and access to healthcare are major concerns, according to the World Bank and Centers for Disease Control.

As a naturopath, Namibian Petrina Auino-Mwandingi believes that diseases can be  treated successfully or prevented though diet, exercise, and massage without the use of pharmaceutical drugs.

Auino-Mwandingi, 31, wanted to have an impact on Namibia’s healthcare sector by introducing an alternative healthcare service.

After studying naturopathy, in 2010 she co-founded Nature’s Way in Windhoek. The    healthcare organization specializes in natural healthcare products, services, naturopathy therapies, and consultations.

Some of the natural healthcare products at Nature’s Way include vitamins and herbal supplements by major brands such as Solgar and Flora Force. The company’s services include colon hydrotherapy; resonator therapy which is done with a small machine using electromagnetic frequencies to treat conditions such as arthritis, viral and bacterial infections and sports injuries; and thermal massage therapy which uses the principles of acupuncture and chiropractic. The patient receives a combination of acupressure, moxibustion (a traditional Chinese medicine therapy that involves burning dried mugwort, a species of aromatic plant), and  infra-red heat along the spine to help chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes.

Auino-Mwandingi studied naturopathy at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town, South Africa, where she graduated in 2009 with a bachelor of science degree in complimentary health sciences and a bachelor of complementary medicine in naturopathic medicine. She is currently studying for an online master’s degree in global health non-communicable diseases through the University of Edinburgh.

“I wanted to get a masters in order to get into the public healthcare sector and work on future policy development,” she told AFKInsider. “With a master’s I can have bigger impact and contribution to my country, and give back beyond what I can do in my private practice.”

Even when she’s not working, Auino-Mwandingi is making strides in the community.  She is a Global Shaper — a network of entrepreneurial and socially engaged young leaders age 20 to 30 from across the world. Through Global Shapers she works on creating projects that uplift communities. Auino-Mwandingi is a regular on the morning show of Namibia’s national broadcaster where she talks about different health topics every other week.

In 2014, Auino-Mwandingi participated in U.S. President Barack Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) program in the Washington Fellowship at the University of Notre Dame.

She spoke to AFKInsider about how her U.S. experience influenced her work.

AFKInsider: How did you get into YALI?

Auino-Mwandingi: A friend told me about YALI and advised me to apply and so I did. I made it through the selection process and was one of the nine out of about 600 applicants that were successful.

AFKInsider: What did you get from the experience?

Auino-Mwandingi: I really learned a lot from the program at Notre Dame about entrepreneurship and business in general. I also met some amazing young people from across Africa that were doing really impressive work in their different countries. I made new friends and built a great network and we all still keep in touch.

AFKInsider: Was what you learned transferable to the realities of Namibia?

Auino-Mwandingi: Most of what we learned was applicable and very useful in my context. We focused on social entrepreneurship and how to build strong businesses. The lessons learned were useful to me as they helped me improve the way that I ran our business back home. Skills like marketing and branding are transferable and applicable to any business and in any country.

The business skills I picked up were applicable to running a business anywhere really. The courses looked at, for example, marketing and branding, which are important components in any business in any industry. I learned more about how to better brand my company and how to use tools such as online presence to benefit my business and boost sales. We learned a lot about social entrepreneurship and building businesses that solve social issues, which I was particularly interested in. I’ve since started to look at social entrepreneurship as a key to finding solutions to challenges that face some of the communities I work with.

AFKInsider: How would you describe the experience?

Auino-Mwandingi: The experience was enriching. It was an incredible learning experience, learning from the program and mostly from other fellows from different backgrounds and countries.

AFKInsider: What happened that was unique for you?

Auino-Mwandingi: One of the best things that happened was meeting the FLOTUS (the first lady of the U.S., Michelle Obama) and hearing her speak. The fellowship ended with a three-day summit in Washington, D.C., where Michelle was one of the guest speakers that addressed the fellows. Meeting President Obama was also pretty cool!

AFKInsider: How and when did you start Nature’s Way?

Auino-Mwandingi: My business partner, Penehafo Haitamba-Shindume, and I studied naturopathy at University of Western Cape. After graduating as naturopaths and not being able to find jobs in the regular healthcare system, we started Nature’s Way in 2010. We opened up our shop retailing herbal medicines, nutritional supplements and other natural medicine products. We then later expanded into services and started to practice naturopathic medicine offering consultations and other therapies.

Naturopathic doctors offer in-depth consultations to their patients. A typical initial naturopathic consultation will take anything between 45-to-60 minutes.  The naturopath will look at medical history, lifestyle, and dietary habits, ask about food intake, smoking, alcohol consumption, water intake, physical exercise, sleep patterns, bowel movement, and investigate family health history. They may also do a physical exam and look at blood pressure, BMI (body mass index), and do a tongue and nail analysis as well as investigate the patient’s main complaints, signs and symptoms, types of treatments and medication that the patient is currently taking. After the consultation, a naturopath will create a treatment plan for the patient that may include diet and lifestyle recommendations, herbal medicines, and nutritional supplements.

AFKInsider: How did you fund the startup?

Auino-Mwandingi: We managed to raise enough funds to start the business from our families. We later approached a local development bank for a loan to fund our expansion.

AFKInsider: Did you face any obstacles being a young entrepreneur?

Auino-Mwandingi: There were many obstacles in starting out as young entrepreneurs. We had to learn the basics of running a business, marketing, finances and a lot was through trial and error. It was also a challenge to get registrations, to secure funding and then to convince clients to use our services since they were more alternative and different to what most clients were used to. A lot of people first undermined us because we were two young women in a not-so-popular health field trying to run a business. We had to turn these obstacles into challenges that we worked to overcome.

I had to overcome issues with registration and obtaining operation licenses, financing, contracts, and the day-to-day challenges of running a business. We were met with many rejections when we were seeking funding for expansion mainly due to lack of collateral, but we persisted until we were able to negotiate with the bank and they eventually gave us the money we needed.  We persisted and kept focused on our goal, we believed in our business model and the vision we had for our company and kept on going even when it would have been easier to just quit.

AFKInsider: How does your company work?

Auino-Mwandingi: Nature’s Way is focused on complementary and alternative health care. We have a service and retail component to our business. As the naturopaths we offer consultations, therapies and create different treatment plans for our clients that include detoxification. We also incorporate technology through our full body scans. The business retail part provides clients with natural health products including herbal medicines, nutritional supplements, , homeopathic remedies and Bach flower remedies (extreme dilutions of flowers developed by British homeopath Edward Bach in the 1930s. Moisture found on flower petals are thought to contain healing properties). 

AFKInsider: What is it like to be a female businesswoman in your country?

Auino-Mwandingi: Being a female entrepreneur in Namibia has been a challenging, but good experience for me. I don’t think I would have had it easier if I were a male entrepreneur. I think being a young woman straight out of university with no prior business experience was the tough part of my journey. My experience was also unique because of the type of business and less popular form of healthcare services and products we were bringing to the market.

I think female entrepreneurs do get quite a lot of support and encouragement in Namibia. Gender parity is an agenda that the government drives and we are doing quite well in terms of female representation in, for example, parliament. Women are encouraged to start businesses and many form part of the informal sector of the economy with their small businesses.

AFKInsider: In your downtime, what activities do you enjoy?

Auino-Mwandingi: Outside of work I like to read and travel whenever I can. I sometimes sew and dabble in a little bit of photo taking. I just recently started my own vegetable garden.