A life dedicated to helping others is a life worth living. In this interview, Women Entrepreneur’s exclusive team rendezvouses with one such inspiring entrepreneur who has made a lifelong commitment to helping others create better lives for themselves. Evelind Schecter (Yale ’77, Director & Treasurer, Biochar Life), through her entrepreneurial businesses, has contributed positively to the greater good of thousands of people and offers all of us a role model for the social power of entrepreneurship.

Evelind moved to Northern Thailand in 2009 to run the finances of Warm Heart Worldwide, a sustainable community development non-profit corporation co-founded with her husband, Michael Shafer (Yale ’76). She has played a significant role in nurturing local traditions and cultures while bringing a better future to the Phrao Valley in the mountains of North Thailand, where one-third of the people live on less than a dollar a day. She leads a children's home that has 40 school-age children from remote hill tribe villages and has developed micro-enterprise initiatives that help small businesses to raise income levels.

She believes there is no limit to human creativity, and she leverages her creative capacity and cross-industry work experience daily to make things happen, to solve social, environmental, and economic problems. At Biochar Life, she leads a global environmental program and sustainable agriculture initiatives to train farmers to avoid open-field burning and generate income by making biochar that can be used for fertilizer, soil decontamination, and other purposes. Evelind’s journey is an inspiration to many entrepreneurs who aspire to make a difference in the lives of people around them. Let’s hear it from her.

What motivated you to move base to Thailand? How did the idea of establishing Warm Heart emerge?

My husband and I had always talked about building a second career in our mid-fifties. The idea of starting Warm Heart started when my husband was working in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, helping universities rebuild their curriculums to develop people who could work in a democracy. He was in Moldova when the tsunami hit southern Thailand in December 2004. Rutgers University, where he was teaching, sent him there to see what resources could be brought to bear. He ended up bringing environmental scientists to help work on restoring the seashore and the coral reefs. He also brought students to help rebuild houses and support local microenterprises. That was when we realized that we wanted to do something for children and help them access better careers in Thailand.

"The efforts of warm heart & biochar life not only benefit the farmers economically but also contribute to the global fight against climate change"

We bought about five acres of land and took in children from five different tribal communities. We soon started looking for ways to improve the complete life cycle of the children and their parents, too – how could we create improved jobs for their parents and help the elderly and disabled section of the community. It’s been 15 years since we started Warm Heart – a community-led development organization always looking at different opportunities to find ways to be more self-sustaining.

Biochar Life is a successful initiative operating under the Warm Heart umbrella. Can you elaborate on the idea behind the initiative?

It is common practice in many developing countries, especially in Asia, to burn surplus crop residue. Crop residue burning contributes to poor air quality and its heat kills bacteria and fungi that lend soil its fertility and make crops more resistant to disease. Biochar Life is an initiative to teach smallholder farmers an alternative to crop burning and live in harmony with the planet, clean the environment of smoke pollution, sequester carbon, improve soil health - and raise rural incomes. For two years, we worked with the European Biochar Certificate (EBC) initiative to create a 'Global Artisan Standard’ that allows smallholder farmers to access international markets and sell carbon removal (c-sink) credits. The efforts of Warm Heart and Biochar Life not only benefit the farmers economically but also contribute to the global fight against climate change by advancing sustainable agriculture, sequestering carbon, reducing emissions, and fostering corporate carbon-offset partnerships.

Throw some light on the major business challenges you encounter in your role. How do you overcome them?

At Biochar Life, we work with farmers. Given the nature of their work, farmers have a very high risk and very low margin way of earning their living. We have had to learn to present our ideas to them very clearly and simply about how things will benefit them and lead them to try those approaches and see the advantages. It required us to listen to people, earn their trust and respect, understand what's important to them, and then be able to provide products or services that meet those needs.

What have been the biggest ‘wins’ that you have achieved so far in your professional journey?

For us, one of our biggest achievements has been to create a community-based organization, Warm Heart, that against all odds has survived for 15 years and today is offering a better future and career to so many young students of marginalized communities. We have created a self-sustaining higher education loan fund for children and sent them to universities on zero-cost loans. Nothing makes us happier than being able to see these students make lives for themselves and give back to their communities as many are doing as teachers and nurses. Through Biochar Life, we have been able to help people improve the lives of their families. Our community-based approach now helps more than 10,000 farmers across rural villages in Asia and Africa.

Evelind Schecter, Director & Treasurer, Biochar Life

With an MBA in Finance and International Business, Evelind is applying her strong communication, leadership, and business operations management skills to lead initiatives that support sustainable community development and smallholder farmers in Africa and Asia.