"My Mom Told Me to Tell You This": : The Story of Bernice Clarke and Uasau Soap / Dara Kelly-Roy [and four others].

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kelly-Roy, Dara, author.

Day, Candice, author.

Hrenyk, Jordyn, author.

Perron, Magnolia, author.

Zhuwaki, Carnation, author.

Series:

SAGE business cases.

SAGE business cases

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Entrepreneurship--Case studies.

Entrepreneurship.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

London : SAGE Publications: SAGE Business Cases Originals, 2025.

Summary:

This case is part of the Indigenous Business Stories Project, a series of freely available cases focusing on Indigenous business. For free access to these cases, please visit https://sk.sagepub.com/cases/series/indigenous-business-stories. In this Indigenous Business Story, Bernice shares lessons that she learned while developing her business, Uasau Soap. The name of Uasau Soap comes from the way that Baffin Island Inuit pronounced and adopted the English word, "wash." Language, culture, and community are infused throughout Bernice's products as well as her business practices. The overarching theme of the Uasau Soap story is sharing as it relates to Bernice's experience with knowledge, resources, and business opportunities. Bernice talks of different events and processes that contributed to getting the business started and key people in her family and community who supported the original vision for Uasau Soap. She gives insight into the unique moments of living in a community in the far north of Canada and how that distance from urban centers creates opportunities and hindrances to her business model, such as overcoming distribution challenges that are tied to limited infrastructure in the north. Bernice also demonstrates the importance of finding appropriate mentors and of building connections within and beyond one's own community. Some tensions that Bernice grapples with as an entrepreneur are putting her previous business experience and good financial management to use, while balancing new questions about how to scale her business and honor the history and traditions of how Inuit people used whale blubber. In the story, Bernice acknowledges the ups and downs of working on a business with family and the challenges of working another job while building a business. At the heart of Uasau Soap is Bernice's commitment to creating skin-care products that aligns with her Inuk values, the legacy of wisdom that comes from her family and community's relationship to the places of their ancestors, and how that wisdom contributes to high-quality healing materials that she wants to share with the world.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9781071985243

1071985248

OCLC:

1483993681