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When it comes to entrepreneurship, the Bahati sisters say it’s in their blood.
The family survived a civil war and had to start from scratch to rebuild their lives in a new country — twice.
Now, 10 years after arriving in Winnipeg, all six sisters have built their own businesses.
Sylvie, 37, has a short-term rentals business and commercial cleaning company; Rachel, 35, and Alliance, 25, both have clothing lines; Francine, 34, has a makeup line; Odette, 31, has a luxury interior design and home staging company; and Glodi, 23, is a photographer.
But the sisters say the story of entrepreneurship in their family does not start with them. They all point to their mother as the root of their business savvy.
Alliance refers to their mom as a “hustler.” She remembers seeing her mom go door to door to promote her clothing business.
“Imagine, like, a refugee in a foreign country — doesn’t know any ministers or any, like, people in the parliament — and she would just go with no appointment at all … and be like, ‘Hey, I have an outfit that I think may look good on you.’ And, literally, a minister of some place in Uganda would literally buy it,” Alliance says.
As refugees, it was inspiring to see their mom, who didn’t even speak English at the time, building her businesses.
“Seeing that, I’m like, ‘I want to do that as well,'” Alliance says.
“I want to be like my mom. I want to be like a boss mom, boss lady.”
Alliance debuted her clothing line, Kindja Collections, in 2018, two years after she started designing while still in high school.
Her mother and grandmother’s vibrant fashion sense is the inspiration behind her designs, Alliance says.
She hopes Kindja Collections will inspire women not to shrink themselves for others, and help them feel comfortable standing out in a crowd.
“My way of expressing myself is through clothing, so I like when people, like, show out and show up,” Alliance says.
The Bahatis were all born in Congo, also known as Congo-Kinshasa, but civil war forced the family to flee to Uganda in 2002. There, they spent 10 long years waiting to immigrate to Canada and reunite with their extended family.
During the civil war and as refugees in Uganda, their mom had to get creative to feed her family, Odette says.
She cooked food and had the girls help her sell it by the roadside. She sent Sylvie and Rachel over the border to Rwanda to buy mangos and avocados so they could sell those, too, Rachel says.
When she didn’t have any capital to buy goods, she would go to other sellers and talk them into giving her product on credit, which the sisters sold door to door.
That’s how they learned about self-marketing, Sylvie says.
“She taught us from the early ages you need to have confidence and self-esteem. It doesn’t matter where you are … you are a seed,” Odette says.
“It doesn’t matter what country you are, you can always flourish. So go for whatever you want that you want to do. Nothing should stop it. No — nothing around should stop you.”
Francine, 34, was the second sister to go into business, with her makeup line Queenfidence Cosmetics. One of the five shades of her first line of lipsticks was named Esperance, after her mother.
“Everybody goes through moments of — whether it is a moment of doubt, moment of why you feel like you can’t do it, of imposter syndrome,” Francine says.
The message of her brand is to inspire confidence and remind her community “that you are enough, that you are capable, that you can do anything you set your mind to do.”
If you dreamed about it, we’re going to do it. We’re going to find a way.– Alliance Bahati
The four older sisters first worked together on a music career. While in Uganda, Sylvie, Rachel, Francine and Odette formed a band called Bahatizz.
They released several singles and EPs, and even returned to Uganda in 2015 on their Pay It Forward tour, the proceeds of which were donated to charity.
But after a few years in Winnipeg, the sisters decided to put singing on the backburner to make room for their other passion — entrepreneurship.
Though they all have individual businesses, they continue to support one another — and say, ultimately, this is the magic ingredient in their success.
“When you have a big support system, like, you just feel like it’s a superpower. You feel like you can do anything,” Odette says.
She was the first sister to get into entrepreneurship, with her luxury interior design and home staging company, Timely Staging.
“When I first started staging, I would literally sit in the car and cry, and the people I would call were my sisters,” Odette says.
Her family supported her when the first home she staged was broken into and every single piece of furniture — all of the capital for her business — was stolen.
“They told me, you know, you just started. It doesn’t mean that this is the end. You can do it,” Odette says.
“So there is no way we would be anywhere we are without each other.”
Oldest sister Sylvie helped the younger sisters get established before starting her short-term rentals business, Lion Eagle Stays, and cleaning company, Lion Eagle Cleaning.
This was by design.
“As a leader, you don’t start and leave other people behind you,” Sylvie says. “You lead other people to start and to grow so that you can also do something.”
Youngest sister Glodi is a photographer, and recently had an exhibit focused on her family and their history. The exhibit, titled Notes on Self-Invention, contrasted old family photos from Congo and Uganda with new shots she took.
Sylvie bought Glodi her first camera.
“She helped me a lot, like, get my start in photography and kind of build that passion,” Glodi says.
It’s particularly difficult to make it through your first year of business without a support system, Sylvie says.
She launched Lion Eagle Stays in 2021, and relied on her family to support her through uncertain times — including helping her cover costs when COVID restrictions prevented potential tenants from coming into the province.
“It is tough, but when it’s tough but you have people that support you — a supporting system — things become easy and light,” Sylvie says.
When Alliance told her sisters how much capital she needed to start her business, she thought it was too much, but they told her, “If you dreamed about it, we’re going to do it. We’re going to find a way.”
Rachel, 35, launched her clothing line, Irech Collections, in November.
“For us, it’s about supporting each other. If Sylvie win, it’s me winning. If Odette win — like, it’s about supporting each other and be there and be present,” Rachel says.
There’s nothing they wouldn’t do for each other, she says.
Fruit of the prayers
Prayer also plays a major role in the Bahati family. Their father is a pastor, and when Francine moved to B.C. last year, their weekly Monday prayer sessions helped them keep their bond strong, Odette says.
They all look forward to the meetings, which they call Miracle Mondays, Rachel says.
The name comes from one particular Monday night when, as refugees in Uganda, they had been fasting all day but did not have any food to eat to break their fast.
“We were just on the floor. We are praying and worshipping and believing that there’s going to be a miracle that is going to happen on that day. And, for sure, there was a miracle,” Sylvie says.
Late that night, when they finished their prayer session, there came a knock at the door. Sylvie remembers a woman saying that God had told her to cook food and bring it to the family.
“This person was not told about … what we are going through, you know, and then [she] brought food,” Sylvie says. “As young kids, we believe that this prayer … works and it pushes us to pray more.”
Before they came to Canada, the Bahatis prayed that people would embrace them and that they would be fruitful — and all of that came true, Sylvie says.
“The first day we arrive in this country, someone gave us a car. He just saw it on – he saw us on the news,” Sylvie recalls. Every day, people dropped off food and clothing to help them settle in.
“And for us, we don’t, we don’t call that luck or whatever,” she says. “That is the fruit of the prayers that we keep on praying.”
Paying it forward
Though Odette could never have imagined 10 years ago the success they are experiencing today, the sisters have even bigger dreams for the future, she says.
A decade from now, Odette sees herself and her sisters as commercial real estate moguls.
She wants their success to inspire other immigrants, and for people to say, “Those girls, they came here with nothing and then they were able to make it.”
The sisters have big financial goals for their businesses, but they also want to provide jobs for new immigrants.
Humanitarianism has always been at the core of everything they do, and the sisters plan to start a non-governmental organization to help refugees here and abroad, Sylvie says.
“Our first motive is to help and to pay it forward to … make sure that other people are receiving back on what we have.”
Odette says she can’t wait for what lies ahead.
“The first 10 years of our lives in Canada, it was preparation. It was just our training ground, testing the waters,” Odette says.
“The next thing is going to be us really hustling so hard to make sure that we create generational wealth and be able to make our parents proud. And so they see that whatever – everything that they went through to get us here is worth it.”
WATCH | The Bahati sisters on the key to their success:
The Bahati sisters have come a long way together. They fled the civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002, and since they arrived in Winnipeg a decade ago, all six sisters have launched businesses. CBC’s Nampande Londe sat down with them to find out the secret to their success.
To see an extended version of the Bahati sisters’ interview with CBC’s Nampande Londe on YouTube, click here.
For more stories about the experiences of Black Canadians — from anti-Black racism to success stories within the Black community — check out Being Black in Canada, a CBC project Black Canadians can be proud of. You can read more stories here.
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