About Us

 Braiding twines a way to success

BARDA Enterprises teaches not only hair
braiding, but also how to create and maintain a healthy life and
career.

By PAUL
SWIDER
Published August 23, 2006

---

ST. PETERSBURG - Ernisa Barnwell wants to
help others learn the things she's learned, but she wants them to learn an easier
way.

 

Barnwell opened BARDA Enterprises International
as a school to teach hair braiding, but the curriculum also includes
substance abuse counseling, accounting,
home ownership, as well as job placement and business building.

 

As the business of hair braiding booms, Barnwell
said, she wants to help others join but also make sure they can manage their
lives and create a future. "I grew up in a salon," she said of the time she
spent with her cousin, Louis Reedy, in his business, Hair Experts. "I learned
things you have to go through to learn."

 

Reedy was brutally slain in his salon in January
2005, something Barnwell attributes to "bad associations" she witnessed. She
said she went to Reedy for hairstyles but later learned hair braiding and worked
with him at his Fourth Street salon. She said she watched and learned about hair
and business, but also about how human frailties can lead to trouble. She wants
others to profit from her experience.

 

"You have to come in here knowing what you
want," said Barnwell, 29, who grew up with her parents in New York City, where
she learned braiding.

 

Later, she attended Gibbs High School in St.
Petersburg after her parents divorced and sent her to live with her
grandparents. "We can't give you faith. We can't give you a good work ethic. But
once you have all that, we can assist you."

 

Barnwell starts with the basics, offering a
simple two-day course to help students pass a state licensing exam for hair
braiding. She also teaches the more developed five-day course in specific
hair-braiding techniques, including, she said, cutting-edge methods fast
becoming the rage. Students can also study how to start their own salon but
Barnwell throws in the other disparate life skills so her graduates can create a
career and sustain it along with a healthy lifestyle.

 

BARDA is actually an acronym for her philosophy:
beauty, art, resource, distinction and achievement.

 

"You're a sole contractor as a hair braider,"
said Barnwell, who also worked in other salons, from home and has taught
privately for three years. "Advertising, marketing, taxes, you have to figure
out how to do all that."

 

It's worth the effort, Barnwell said. She said
braiding is rapidly becoming very popular, particularly the "interweaving"
techniques to sew in hair extensions.

 

She said celebrities often use extensions to
create a new look without having to grow their hair, but the allure of ideal
hair is making some braiding techniques very lucrative for those few who know
them.

 

"The money's here, the market's here,"
said Barnwell, who said some procedures can net a hair braider thousands of
dollars for a few hours work. "Everybody wants to be more perfect. There's a
huge demand, especially in Caucasian salons."

 

One of Barnwell's students, Tiffanye Simmons,
uses braiding as a means to make ends meet while going to school at the
University of South Florida.

 

The women's studies major has also joined Barnwell to
manage an affiliated salon because she likes the way Barnwell approaches the
business.

 

"I get where she's coming from," said Simmons,
24, who said she too has seen bright, talented people go astray for lack of
skills and training. "I think it's great to see a young woman, a young black
woman, offering all the tools someone could need to get through
life."

 

Barnwell operates out of a small
storefront at 3631 Central Ave., which is also home to International Hair
Braiders, the salon Simmons manages. Barnwell is the daughter of a teacher as
well, though she said her mother died earlier this year.

 

BARDA's business is still building slowly,
Barnwell said, but she has graduated four students in two months of operations
and is entertaining interest from many others. Though the braiding class itself
costs more than $2,000, she said it can repay that investment quickly and she
helps students with financial aid as well. The simple techniques she teaches can
help her students find opportunity the same way Barnwell did, she said, by
working and saving and believing.

 

"It can be a home-based business," she said. "It
can be whatever you want it to be."

 

Paul Swider can be reached at 892-2271 or
pswider@sptimes.com or by participating in itsyourtimes.com.

[Last modified August 22, 2006,
22:46:58]