By Megan Sayles,
AFRO Enterprise Author,
Report for America Corps Member,
msayles@afro.com
Cindy Tawiah was 16-years-old when she found what she needed to do together with her life. Whereas dwelling in Ghana and attending highschool, she was failing her chemistry class.
Relatively than reprimand or penalize her for dangerous grades, Tawiah’s trainer taught her the way to make her personal nail polish and lipstick. Then, when she entered the highschool science truthful, he launched Tawiah as a chemist and cosmetologist to attendees and judges.
It dawned on her that that’s what she needed to be when she grew up. Nevertheless, her father had a distinct plan in thoughts. He needed her to develop into a health care provider, and the worry of his disownment prevented her from following her ardour for a while.
Tawiah attended nursing faculty in England, and upon her commencement, she was recruited to work at a hospital in Baltimore. For 13 years, she labored instantly with ladies in postpartum and gynecology models, however her need to work within the enterprise of magnificence remained.
In 2007, Tawiah launched into an entrepreneurial journey together with her model Diva by Cindy. She began with a line of hair care merchandise that promote the expansion of longer, more healthy hair. Through the years, her enterprise grew and finally, Diva by Cindy turned the primary pure hair care model to launch her merchandise in merchandising machines at BWI Airport.
Whereas Tawiah was happy with how her merchandise made ladies really feel on the surface, she additionally needed to cater to the within.
“I regarded actually deep in my coronary heart and realized that my coronary heart’s need was to have a spot of therapeutic and restoration and transformation for ladies,” stated Tawiah. “I wanted a spot the place all ladies may come to be healed.”
With the assist of her enterprise companion and husband, Samuel, Tawiah opened Diva Day Spa and Healing Center in October 2020, the primary Black-owned day spa in Upperco, Md.
Since its opening, the spa, situated close to Reisterstown Highway, has had prospects journey from the Jap Shore of Maryland, Virginia and Washington D.C. to take pleasure in its companies.
Diva Day Spa and Therapeutic Middle gives therapeutic and intuitive counseling; marriage and relationship counseling; massages; physique scrubs; foot detox and foot scrubs; and an infrared sauna to spice up patrons’ immune methods.
It additionally hosts numerous workshops that function sip and paints and candle and cleaning soap making.
“ go away feeling like a load has been lifted. I’ve had plenty of ladies cry or weep as a result of this was the primary time they felt this fashion,” stated Tawiah. “Lastly, you’re realizing that you simply matter, that you simply’re necessary that you simply want therapeutic.”
Together with her enterprise, Tawiah hopes to encourage different ladies to find and pursue their function. Based on her, a ardour is what you like to do, whereas a function will not be utilizing what you’re keen on however what you’ve been given to make a distinction within the lives of others.
In time, Tawiah want to open a second location for Diva Day Spa and Therapeutic Middle in D.C. to serve extra ladies within the Washington Metropolitan space.
“It’s my need that each lady finds a spot the place they will expertise soul-healing or soul care, and we discuss self-care, however that is greater than self-care,” stated Tawiah. “Self-care is I bought my nails performed and I bought my hair performed, however soul care is once I nurtured myself from inside and healed from the within out.”
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