THE ORANGE SHORTBREAD CHALLENGE Alicia D. Polak left a high-paying Wall Street job a few years ago for a slum in South Africa to start a business that hires local, unemployed women. After a year working for a nongovernmental organization in South Africa, Alicia Polak decided that although charity work is helpful, it often fails to empower the locals and permanently change their lives. She had a different approach in mind. She moved to Khayelitsha and started Khaya Cookie Company to make high-quality mini shortbread and granola bars that would create jobs for women in the poorer townships surrounding Cape Town. The women are cross-trained in every aspect of the cookie business: baking, packaging, customer service and English phone skills. To encourage and connect her employees to the buyers, Polak is known to take them to fancy Cape Town hotels and boutiques to see their products out in the world. Khaya Cookies are made using mostly local ingredients, like rooibos extract and grapeseed powder. The cookies are small in size, which helps restrain you from eating too many in one sitting.