Non-profit podcaster and educator Anita Bush discusses her mission to travel the world and bring bitcoin to those who need it most.
As an American who grew up in the South, I am ashamed of the lack of financial knowledge I had as a young adult. Bitcoin didn’t make sense to me until I understood the history of money and what it means to have an apolitical monetary system. This knowledge opened my mind to the many things Bitcoin can do in terms of advancing human rights around the world.
Every day, more human rights violations are reported in the media. from Rohingya genocide for the Russian invasion Ukraine And a thousand more in between. The world we live in is corrupted by greed and those who abuse their power. Oftentimes, power-hungry people use fiat currency as a means of control. However, the cause of Bitcoin to improve human rights is the number one reason I am interested in Bitcoin.
Enter Anita Bush: Podcast hosts, author, Nonprofit Founder And a Bitcoin guru. Posch has a background of over 20 years in web design and online entrepreneurship, and has made it her life’s mission to educate the people who desperately need Bitcoin. She has been down to earth working tirelessly, emphasizing the need for everyone, especially women, to master financial literacy through Bitcoin education and entrepreneurship.
I am sure you will be inspired when you read her responses to my questions about how she used Bitcoin education to empower more people around the world.
How did you first learn about Bitcoin and what? especially your destination?
The first time I heard about Bitcoin was in 2011, I tweeted about it, but didn’t really get into it, because I read an article and concluded that it’s just another PayPal.
Well, that must have been a bad article.
In April 2017, I heard a talk at a conference about Bitcoin and open blockchains and their future impact on society and technology. This time, I was open minded and willing to learn something new. I have been an online entrepreneur and web designer for 20 years and have been looking for new interesting topics as the basis of my work. I immediately realized that an uncensored, collaborative, unlicensed, and open protocol for sending value was a tool that could provide a level playing field for anyone globally.
I certainly wasn’t able to articulate this at the time, because I had no clue how Bitcoin worked, but my life experiences and opinions as a builder of online stores and marketplaces served as a kind of inner compass for a sense of the pioneering importance of Bitcoin. This time, I wanted to be a part of the development and decided to put all my efforts into understanding and learning to become a Bitcoin guru myself.
How do you see bitcoin’s positive impact on youth in the countries it serves; Ghana, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe?
I’ve been working with my initiative, Bitcoin For Fairness, and through what I’ve learned, many young people are realizing how Bitcoin gives them a choice, an opportunity to participate in a global economy, to become free from financial oppression and lack of access to financial means in their home countries.
Take the people who live in Bitcoin Ekasi for example. I visited and worked with them in May 2022. Bitcoin Ekasi is a town in Mossel Bay, South Africa, where 11 shops and taxi drivers now accept bitcoin after being co-opted by community members. Many of the 5,000 residents do not have access to bank accounts or have chosen to cancel bank accounts themselves due to high bureaucratic fees. The young people living in the town support their community with knowledge and practical education on how to facilitate bitcoin.
The coaches there earn their salary in bitcoin and spend it at local stores. Recently, another store asked to be added to the bitcoin economy due to the higher degree of security that bitcoin offers compared to holding cash. A few months ago, the Pick n Pay neighborhood supermarket started accepting bitcoin as well. This means store owners can use their earned bitcoins to restock their stores without having to convert to the national currency, saving fees and hassles.
An increasing number of young people are seeing how they can earn bitcoin through content creation, such as the BTC podcast platform. You can host a podcast for free without losing your copyright (like Anchor), and at the same time, anyone can start earning Bitcoin via Value4Value Podcasting without having to run their own Lightning nodes.
Value4Value means listeners can freely decide how many, if any, bitcoins they want to send to the host while listening to the podcast. As a podcaster myself, I’ve seen the need for a platform that doesn’t charge around $10 a month to host podcasts, because it excludes many people from sharing their voices from the ground up.
During my travels, especially to Ghana speaking at the first Pan-African Bitcoin Conference, it was amazing to meet and see how many young people are starting educational groups, for example, Bitcoin Cowries in Accra, Bitcoin Mountain in Cameroon, or women-focused Bitcoin Dada in Kenya. I am currently working on an online mentorship program called “Crack The Orange” for beginners and community leaders to gain a broader understanding of Bitcoin to share with their community members. Through my non-profit initiative, Bitcoin For Fairness, we are supporting young women to create their own education group in Zambia.
The four African founders of Qala, a program designed to train the next generation of African Bitcoin and Lightning developers, are themselves inspiring young people with a vision. All of these initiatives contribute to job and wealth creation and will have a positive impact on the network on the ground.
How do you usually respond to those who disapprove of bitcoins, especially those close to you (eg close friends, etc.)?
For the past few years, I’ve been trying to educate the naysayers on Twitter or other media platforms with arguments and facts and by sharing the experiences of African and South American Bitcoin users on my podcast “The Anita Posch Show”.
I realized that it is not easy to win an argument if the defendant has already made up his mind. Every answer you give will contradict their own opinions and perceptions. I have never tried to impress anyone. If people appear and are interested in the topic, I will explain and support. If not, I won’t touch on the topic. Same goes for my friends. Most of them have their own ideas about Bitcoin, and they don’t take the time or care to learn. A few of my closest friends sought to guide me and did the work. I think they are very satisfied today.
Why do you think it is important to close the gender gap in Bitcoin interest and adoption?
For starters, let the numbers do the talking. Of the 1.7 billion unbanked people around the world, 57% of women.
According to the American Economic Association:
“In the United States alone, there are approximately 8.4 million US households unbanked with an additional 24.2 million American households classified as underbanked. Black women are significantly more likely than black men or any other group to be unbanked. With or lack of banks. Moreover, we find limited wealth frequently cited by black women as the main reason why they do not have access to the banking system.”
According to WTW:
“There is a significant wealth gap between men and women at retirement. At retirement, women globally are expected to accumulate only 74% of the wealth held by men.”
Seventy-five economies globally” still Restricting women’s rights to manage assets.” There are countries where women are not allowed to own or inherit property – they will never own land that can be used as collateral to apply for a loan or support their informal business. This mostly happens in countries in the Middle East and North Africa, South Asia and South Africa Sahara, East Asia and the Pacific.
While women have gained the same rights in many societies in recent decades, in general, women still face massive discrimination based on gender. This inequality leads to exclusion from the financial system, due to a lack of wealth or because women cannot issue an identity card, which is necessary to be banked.
Bitcoin is as fair as it is non-discriminatory. Anyone can use it without having to show identification or needing to be already wealthy. There is no minimum amount to use bitcoin. Anyone can earn bitcoins through their work. Earning bitcoins will become the norm.
By educating women and girls about Bitcoin, we can support them in closing the gender wealth gap, when we take into account the value of Bitcoin that has only been appreciated in the long term. However, Bitcoin can only be one tool, and it will not magically close the wealth gap, because men have more resources now, which is why they can earn or buy more Bitcoin as well. This is why it is imperative to educate women and girls as early as possible as long as Bitcoin is in its infancy, hence providing education in the global south especially to women, the queer community and human rights activists, is a strong focus of Bitcoin For Fairness.
With the recent closure of the peer-to-peer (P2P) platform Paxful, what other options for buying and selling bitcoins have you found successful in countries without centralized exchanges?
There are many other P2P options for buying and selling bitcoin without having to show your ID, which is important for protecting privacy. It may not be accessible globally, which is why real on the ground peer-to-peer exchange is the number one choice in African countries. Another option is bitcoin vouchers or gift cards. Even better is to earn bitcoin, either by asking your employer or clients to pay you in bitcoin or by creating valuable online content such as podcasts or other media.
But the list of P2P exchange projects I’ve found to be successful include:
- I meant it
- pesq
- Agoradesk
- Robosats
- Peach Bitcoin
- Noones
This is a guest post by Becca Bratcher. The opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.