Sauder Africa Initiative

The Challenges of Fundraising

2012-02-27T14:45:00.006-08:00

OK - I admit - non-profit fundraising is a thousand times harder than I had given credit for. After years of working for high powered consulting firms with seemingly endless amounts of capital and resources, I now find myself on the complete flip side of the spectrum with no job, few contacts, and very limited resources. Raising money for profitable organizations is challenging in itself. Even though you have developed a fail-proof, fully profitable forecasting model you still risk being turned down by investors because they "don't see enough in it for them" or "the return on investment isn't in line with our growth model". These are corporations with relatively large access to capital and who understand their line of business very well,yet fail to invest internally because the returns are not profitable enough and they don't see the value of investing. In hindsight, raising money for SAI is exponentially more difficult and requires way more creativity to achieve even half the results.

In entrepreneurship, raising capital is the second hardest part to developing any new business venture. The hardest is, of course, developing a product or service that people truly want. This seems to be the deadliest inhibitor to any start up company, as more and more ventures fail to develop a product that directly solves their customers problems. Thankfully the Sauder Africa Initiative has developed a service that is truly unique and inspiring. Our mission helps develop the essential fabric of entrepreneurship amongst those who are passionate about starting / growing a business but lack some of the necessary tools, resources and knowledge to accomplish their goal. Our group is extremely passionate and desperately wants to help our fellow students achieve professional and personal success, but how do we enlighten others with similar passion in order to generate the voluntary donation that supports our cause? One solution is to share success stories of the program with those who may be on the fence in donating to our cause. This helps people understand your passion and the cause to which they are investing. Telling stories is a powerful method to establish a link between the intrinsic value of our program with the inherited social benefit that one receives when donating to the program. I encourage everyone to get excited by reading some of our success stories on the Sauder Africa website. I know these stories will inspire you to give, and support our wonderful cause.

A History Lesson

2012-02-15T09:48:00.000-08:00

I’ve never been to Kenya. I don’t know much about it. My only interactions with Kenya over the years was having a couple of Kenyan roommates (I showed them how to clean and they gave me a lovely traditional Kenyan dress) and hearing about the elections in 2007. As part of the SauderAfrica Initiative, I hope to learn more about the history, culture and lifestyle in Kenya. So I decided to share some Kenya trivia - my preliminary learnings:

Population is around 41.6 million
Kenya was a British colony between 1895 and 1963
Kenya has large income disparities. Most people fall into either very rich or very poor. There isn’t much of a middle class
Kenya has only two seasons: rainy and dry
Capital of Kenya is Nairobi
Primary religion in Kenya is Protestant
It’s been described as the “cradle of humanity”because some of the oldest human remains have been found here
The majority classifies itself as Christian
Languages: Swahili, English
Life expectancy is 57 years (men) and 59 years(women)
1 Kenya shilling = 100 cents
Main exports: tea, coffee, horticultural products, petroleum products
The “Great Rift Valley” bisects Kenya. It is a geographic fault line

The Great Rift Valley (UNESCO World Heritage Site) is a massive 6000 km trench on thesurface of the earth that runs from Syria to Central Mozambique - within it are some deepest lakes, highest mountains and most beautiful parks in Africa. Kenya is bisected by the Eastern Rift.

In Kenya, it appears that the rift is not just a geographical divide but a political rift as well. In the controversial andviolent elections in 2007, the Rift Valley towns such as Nakuru and Naivasha became hotbeds of dissention. The opposition accused the government of havingrigged the polls. The root cause of the violence, however, is said to be the hunger for the fertile rift lands.

The Rift Valley was dominated, before the advent of largescale commercial farming, by Massai herders and Kalenjin people. They weredisplaced from the most fertile land in the late 19^th century byBritish settlers. When independence came, the white farmers were replaced bythe politically well-connected Kikuyus, who played a large role in gaining that independence, according to a Nairobi historian. Some people viewed the violence not just as ethnic clashes but as the results of the deep, long-running income inequalities in Kenya.Where land ownership is seen as a means of survival in a rapidly growing population.

The post-election violence in 2007, during which over 1200people died and some 600000 were displaced, was thought to be catalysed by thepoliticians and their supporters. They are now accused by the InternationalCriminal Court (ICC) of planning attacks on supporters of the opposition andfostering hate and violence amongst the people. Recently, Kenya’s FinanceMinister, Uhuru Kenyatta, resigned following a ruling that he will face crimesagainst humanity.

On a more upbeat note, Kenya is a major flower exporter andthey seem to be commanding more and more of the market recently. Small scale growers that specialize in local flowers are also starting to become sustainable small businesses.

I also thought that the flag was an interesting piece. The black represents the majority of the people; red, the blood shed during the struggle for freedom; green, the fertile lands. Thegraphic in the centre is a Masai shield.

I think is a decent base but I’m looking forward to ferreting out in my next blog popular Kenyan culture, music and video.

Kwaheri! Nimefurahi kukutana na wewe.

2012-02-14T22:38:00.000-08:00

Digital dumping grounds: Do you know where your electronic waste ends up?

With million tons of electronic waste produced every year, have you ever thought of where will all of the waste go? How will all of them get

Most of the” e-waste” that we produce in North America will eventually end up in three developing countries: Ghana, Indian, and China. According to a documentary, which won the 2010 Emmy for Best Investigative Magazine, the disposal of e-waste does not only create health and environmental issues, but also a concern towards security threats. Let us dive deeper into these issues.

Health and Environmental Issues:
After the e-waste arrives to their designations, they will be sent to smoldering wastelands that are filled with old computers and televisions. The workers on these wastelands are often children, whose job is to smash and burn the e-waste. After burning, the children will then collect the left behind coppers and irons for sale. Many of the children are forced to do this to scavenge a living.

In the burning process, tons of toxic substances are released because the boys sometimes have to mix old foams with the e-waste in order to melt away the plastic. Under these working conditions, the health of these boys is highly concerned. The amount of toxic chemicals released into the atmosphere has also drawn the attention of many environmental-friendly organizations.

Security Threats:

In some cases, if the electronics are working, the children will store them for future resale. However, because the owners of those old electronics are unknown, social security numbers and personal data of original owners may be recalled from the computers’ hard drives. Some people may take advantage of this to perform crimes and to use in scams.

Not only Ghana, but a lot of countries in Africa are also facing the same problem. In Kenya, the increased amount of e-waste without a proper disposal mechanism is proposing a serious threat to a country’s environment as well as giving rise to new diseases which will cost many lives. These all link to the one of the missions of the Sauder Africa Initiative that by sharing what we know, we hope that youths in Kenya will be able to earn a living by starting up their own businesses instead of having to work in an undesirable environment.

Sauder Africa at the SLC!

2012-02-07T19:22:00.000-08:00

Hello! My name is Stephanie and I am a member of the 2012 Sauder Africa Initiative travelling team. Saturday, January 14^th 2012 was a very exciting day for Martina and myself as we were selected to present as one of the highlighted projects at the well-known Student Leadership Conference at UBC.

The conference is known to be one of the biggest conferences and so we were definitely very grateful for being selected. I’ll admit that I was definitely nervous however; Martina’s confident vibe influenced me and calmed me down. As expected, the presentation ran smoothly.

Personally, I was always very passionate about social entrepreneurship and thus was involved with Sauder Africa Initiative. I was surprised that the delegates at the conference were very interested in our project and asked very meaningful questions. It was very encouraging and motivating to see how much interest we were able to spark about our project and that we are spreading the word out about who we are and what we do. Many of the participants were deeply inspired by our mission to uplift the lives of African youth and their communities through sustainable entrepreneurship.

Overall it was a great experience and was definitely worth all the time and effort put into it! If you’re interested in seeing the SLC highlighted project teaser video for the Sauder Africa Initiative, please click on the link below:

http://slc.ubc.ca/conference/concurrent-session-1/highlighted-projects/session-5/

A Small Window to a Great Big World

2012-01-24T20:14:00.000-08:00

AfricaBerry

Kenya Telco

Small Display (200 pixel x 200 pixel)Try browsing the Sauder Africa Initiative website on this "mobile phone". Drag the scroll bars with your mouse!

Website designers and SE101 teachers have something in common: to be successful, they both adapt their content delivery to the needs of their audience. Websites that target mobile phones use simplified content and choose ease-of-use over fancy graphics; SE101 teachers employ a similar strategy, paring down business issues to the bare bones thereby revealing the key ideas for their students. One could say that through a small "window", mobile phone users are presented with a world of opportunity; likewise for SE101 students.

Viewing internet content through the small display of a mobile handset can be a frustrating experience. Not everyone, least of all an average Kenyan, can afford a "smartphone" equipped with a large, high-resolution screen. A small display requires excessive scrolling and it's difficult to "see the whole picture" (try scrolling with the browser in the mobile phone to the right). A high resolution screen might display the whole page, but the elements will appear so tiny that the zoom function will be required ... and then you're back to the same problem: scrolling.

Clever designers have made their websites more phone friendly as mobile web-browsing has become more popular. In Kenya, 67.2% (Sept 2011) of the population have a mobile phone and the penetration rate is increasing at a staggering rate according to the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK). In addition, the CCK estimates that 75% of the roughly 14 million internet users access the web via mobile phones rather than computers. Globally, many companies have added secondary mobile-dedicated websites to meet increased demand. For a company like Twitter, mobile phone users are its raison d'être. The key to a good mobile site is a logically laid out, minimalist design that allows easy interactions without the regular "tools" (ie - without a normal mouse, full sized keyboard & monitor). Having less web content saves mobile users money and time because both costs and page-load times are proportional to the amount of data being transferred. Smaller, simplified menus that allow mobile users a great deal of functionality are needed. No frills. Cut to the chase.

At the Mathare SE101 site, we had very limited classroom "tools": no computers, no whiteboards, no electricity, no desks. We operated on a short, 15-day schedule and a tight budget. Our students did not have the benefit of a Canadian-style basic education. Distractions were numerous in this filthy, noisy slum with some students leaving class to check on their businesses and others -single mothers - checking on their children. Chickens wandered into and out of the classroom nearly as often. Clearly, a no frills strategy that cuts to the chase was in order.

Over the years, the Sauder Africa Initiative team has honed its "mobile" education platform to present the fundamentals of business to entrepreneurs in African slums. I won't bore you with the details of the curriculum. However, in my next blog post, I will share with you a couple of success stories from Mathare in which our team played a role.

Changing lives, One cash flow at a time!

2012-01-22T18:32:00.001-08:00

Africa, a vast continent that is home to many different cultures, climates, traditions and it is home to some of the most beautiful species and kingdoms to walk the earth. It is a continent driven by hope, fuelled by persistence and young ambition and is a continent in which its diversity is its source of beauty and strength.

Unfortunately, when someone hears or thinks about Africa the first few things that come to mind are AIDS, poverty, female infanticide and most recently, the Middle East and North Africa unrest, The Libya crisis, the East African food crisis etc. Themajority of the world’s poorest countries today are found in Africa and it was observed that 22 out of 24 nations identified as having a low human developmenton the United Nations Development Index were found in the Sub Saharan African region. Additionally, only 11% of the world’s population lives in Africa, but 67% of those living with HIV/AIDS are in Africa. There are other problems as well, such as equality issues, and building and maintaining sustainable business practices, growth and development. It is a sad reality, but I firmly believe that a continent/country should not be known for all the problems it has but instead, how ituses its resources to solve them.

This is where my team and I come in- changing lives one cash flow at a time. By going to Africa we hope to give the future leaders and business men/women one of the most valuable gifts of all: Education. Although this may sound dramatic and overly optimistic on my part, I truly believe that small things such as this can really go a long way and change someone’s life for the better and will continue on from one person to the next. I believe that one person is capable of starting the ‘domino effect’ and with education, hard work, faith and a little bit of luck the possibilities are endless. With this I leave you on a more positive note:

5 things I bet you didn’t know about Africa:

1) While Africa makes up about 11% of the world’s population, fullyone quarter of the world’s languages are spoken only in Africa.

2) Eighteen people from Africa have been awarded aNobel prize. They come from Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa.

3) Lake Malawi has the largest number of fishspecies in the world – over 500.

4) About half of the world’s diamonds come fromsouthern and central Africa. The largest gem quality diamond ever found (the3106.75 carat Cullinan Diamond) came from the Premier Mine near Pretoria. Itwas found in 1905.

5) Almost 100 species of lemurs are found inMadagascar. (KING JULIAN :) )

Posted by Anoushka Patel

An investment into the future

2011-12-22T12:23:00.000-08:00

I am Kristof, a member of the new team, eager to participate in the
project and to teach young entrepreneurs in Kenya in August 2012. You
might ask why I am so eager to participate, why I think this is
important and also why the project should be important to you.

In a nutshell it is important for me, because I am convinced that I
was lucky in being born in a place and time which offers me so many
more opportunities than the vast majority of people on this planet. We
often speak about that everyone forges their own destiny. But we often
forget that not everybody is born equal in opportunities, hence those
with more opportunities have more options to forge their destinies.
This privilege should be employed to enhance the opportunities of less
fortunate individuals.

At the same time, I am convinced that everyone carries the ability and
wish to contribute positively to their immediate community and to
society as a whole. Facilitating this notion by supporting the young
entrepreneurs, not only they will be able to support their livelihood
in a better way. It will also support their immediate family by
positively affecting their livelihood, and their community by
providing services and using the profits to buy goods and services
from other entrepreneurs.

Supporting individuals who want to take their destinies into their,
create a way to make a living, and support their community is the
ultimate goal of this project. And this is why this should also be
important to you. It is not donating money to someone to survive for
some time, i.e. it is not charity. The money is used so that less fortunate
individuals can be equipped with the skills, knowledge and means to make a sustainable
living.

Thank you!

2011-11-10T17:47:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all of you who came to our first Annual Celebration Event: Building Entrepreneurial Success in Kenyan Slums last night. We greatly appreciate all of your generous donations and we hope you had a great time.

For those, who could not make it last night, do not worry, there is much more to come! Follow our blog, website, Facebook and Twitter to learn more.

Moreover, there is a great video worth watching on youtube made by one of our students, Nelson Mandela, from the Nairobi slum Mathare where our team teaches.

Do not miss - Building Entrepreneurial Success in Kenyan Slums!!!

2011-11-01T22:44:00.000-07:00

The Sauder Africa Initiative keeps getting bigger and better!

To celebrate this evolution, SAI is hosting this inaugural event to bring you together with other individuals and groups that have made our growth possible.

Please join us at 6.00 pm on November 9, 2011 at Legacy Liquor Store to hear more about this year’s teaching expedition and our plans for the future.

We also have a very special guest speaker, Mr. Richard Gold, who will share his vast experiences in the field of the international development!

While we encourage and welcome donations of any kind, we would prefer that you bring a ‘plus 1’ in an effort to spread the word about the Initiative’s work to empower young people with the entrepreneurial skills to develop their own businesses in slums of Nairobi.

Yipe.org: Entrepreneurship - Kenya's Economic Saviour

2011-10-27T22:12:00.000-07:00

Yipe.org: Entrepreneurship - Kenya's Economic Saviour: By Jeconia Omondi Olonde The current economic condition for Kenya is on a down hill while the population growth rate is quite high. This ...

We are going to celebrate!

2011-10-25T17:17:00.000-07:00

The Sauder Africa Initiative keeps getting bigger and better!

To celebrate this evolution, we are hosting our inaugural event - Sauder Africa: Building Entrepreneurial Success to Kenyan' Slums - to bring you together with other individuals and groups that have made our growth possible. Please join us at 6.00 pm on November 9th, 2011 at Legacy Liqior Store to hear more about this year’s teaching expedition and our plans for the future. Connect with interesting guests and hear from our students.

While we encourage and welcome donations of any kind, we would prefer that you bring a ‘plus 1’ in an effort to spread the word about the Initiative’s work to empower young people with the entrepreneurial skills to develop their own businesses in the slums of Nairobi.

More information and registration site are coming soon! Visit our Facebook Event Page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=248452461869960

2012 Team Recruitment Infosession is happening on October 20th!

2011-10-13T17:53:00.000-07:00

YES, it is that exciting time of the year again when Sauder Africa Initiative accepts applications for the 2012 Team!

Sauder Africa Initiative is entering its 7th successful year of operation and has started recruiting its 2012 team. Online applications for Sauder Africa Initiative - Kenya 2012 are now being accepted until October 28th 2011 (before midnight).

We are recruiting for two dedicated groups of students who want to change the lives of youth in the poorest parts of Nairobi, Kenya:

a) a Travelling team who will deliver a three-week prgram based in Nairobi, to help Kenyan youth develop business plans.

b) a Vancouver-based team who will help to support the travelling team through fundraising, curriculum development, mentoring, communications, and other tasks as needed;

We are opening the program to those of you who aren’t able to travel to Kenya because many of you have expressed a desire to contribute in some way to our project. We encourage you to consider this opportunity to join the team. You can read more about the project requirements by going to http://africa.sauder.ubc.ca/SE101_Kenya_2011.html.

The Info session for Sauder Africa Initiative will be held on

Thursday, October 20th 12.30 - 2 pm, in HA 237

The information session will provide an opportunity for you to learn more about this exciting project and meet some of the participants from previous years. If you have any questions about the program or the application procedure, please contact us at info@africa.sauder.ubc.ca

WE ARE LOOKING FORWARD TO SEE YOU AT THE INFOSESSION!!!

Maji Mazuri in Mathare …. Meet MC and Danny

2011-09-21T18:25:00.000-07:00

I met Daniel (Danny) Wainaina and Samuel (MC) Kiriro in July 2011 when I went to see the sites where we would teach with Sauder Africa Initiative that summer. It was my first time in Mathare Valley slum and my impression of two of them was that they know exactly what they are doing every step of the way.

Both of them were brought up in Mathare so they know every nook and cranny of the place. They work in Maji Mazuri Centre International as coordinators and actively go out to community in Mathare to seek youth in trouble and try to get them on the right track. I was very impressed with their presentation during our UBC-Strathmore Bootcamp and the knowledge they shared with us. And they are entrepreneurs themselves – Danny has been running a small general shop for 10 years and MC has “ready food” store for 7. He started by selling chicken and grew his business purely from his profits which is a very impressive achievement. I had to smile when they expressed the interest to take our course next year – I am sure they can teach it with us! What they forgot to mention that both of them are back at school, getting degrees in social work and community development. I learnt that from one of their colleagues by accident just before I left Kenya.

More I interacted with MC and Danny, the more I was convinced that we found a perfect site for our classes. It may be challenging for us sometimes to stay in touch with our students but I know that as long as these two are going to be around, we will have students in the class.

I was eager to meet other staff members of Maji Mazuri and I was not disappointed. It is an enthusiastic and passionate team led by the founder and director Wanjiku Kironyo. I was impressed by all of the programs the organization runs. I was also shocked that some of the people from Mathare have never crossed the borders of the place. They are worried that if they go out to city, the police will arrest them and/or is looking for them. It is almost unimaginable for me and I only hope that we will be able to help in any way we can to “spread the wings” of our Mathare students.

How the “silly cow” exercise helped to solve business uniqueness in Kenya

2011-09-15T21:27:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from Kenya where I was teaching business courses with the Sauder Africa Initiative. Upon reflecting on my two amazing months in Africa, I decided to share one of the most memorable moments in one of my classes.

When you teach business courses in Kenyan’s slums, there are no fancy rooms, Power Point presentations or internet resources. You are lucky if you get a small chalk blackboard and if you get a white board, it is a luxury. This year, Sauder Africa Initiative introduced a new module, SE201 to mid-college students and we did have a whiteboard at our premises!

To my big surprise, students really wanted to learn about new trends in business. I introduced them to design thinking. There might be lots of discussion about design thinking in Europe and North America but hardly anyone has heard about it in our classes. Of course, theory and resources are nice but to really understand the whole design thinking concept, you need to get your hands dirty. And so we did.

The biggest problem the students experienced was uniqueness of their business. In Kenya, most of the students emphasize “fair price” as their main asset and point of difference. I thought to myself: “If I ever hear the term fair price again, I am going to scream and really fail as a teacher”. After the first check of the draft business plans, I said to myself: “That is enough. Let's do something about this”. We used a simple “silly cow exercise” creating lots of ideas of what the uniqueness of each business could be. No idea was a bad idea, quantity over quality. Finally, people started to think beyond fair price and outside of the box. Victory! The buzz and lively discussion of the groups was one of the highlights of my teaching.

This blog was also posted on https://d-studio.sauder.ubc.ca

We are now recruiting 2012 Team!

2011-09-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

Are you a student passionate about social entrepreneurship international development and love business? If, yes, we are looking for you!

Each year, Sauder Africa Initiative selects enthusiastic, creative, and dedicated group of students to help combat extreme poverty in Kenyan slums and spend an incredible summer teaching the Kenyan youth.

Applications for Sauder Africa Initiative - Kenya 2012 are now being accepted until October 28. You can find the application by going to the Sauder Africa Initiative website and looking at the home page under "Latest News."

The program is open to anyone who wishes to get involved and make new friendships which are going to last a lifetime. If you cannot travel to Kenya, no worries. We are recruiting for two dedicated groups of students:

Vancouver-based team who will help support the travelling team through fundraising, curriculum development, mentoring, communications, and other tasks as needed;

Traveling team who will deliver a three-week program based in Nairobi, to help Kenyan youth develop business plans.

For the traveling team, the 2012 project will be held in Kenya July 26 – August 18, 2012 and will be conducted in partnership with Kenyan youth organizations and Strathmore University. For more information, do not hesitate to contact us: info@africa.sauder.ubc.ca

There will be number of info session held on campus, so please, visit our blog and website regularly, follow our Twitter and join us on Facebook!

We are looking forward to connecting with you!

Foundation of Hope ... meet David Dinda

2011-09-02T01:11:00.001-07:00

When I first met David (as our Kibera site representative) during our bootcamp with the Strathmore students, I did not think that his life story will be more interesting than a novel. I was wondering: "Who is this talkative and confident guy? Hm, life seems to be an easy thing for him."Little did I know. As it turned out, he is the coach, the cordinator, the consultant, the mentor and many other things to the youth in the Foundation of Hope.

David is only 27 years old but once I started talking to him, I wanted to ask more and more questions. I felt guilty at times as I was acting more as an investigative reporter than a friend. However, I learnt a wealth of information not only about him but also about the system in Kenya and what you have to overcome if you want to make your life a success story and as you read further, you will see that David did indeed made it.

David was brought up by the community as many other kids in Kibera. His father died when he was 2 years old and his Mum past away when he was 10. As if the situation was not dark enough, one of his siblings was so shocked at the death of their Mum that he past away the same day. David found himself on the streets and he was later on picked up by a family in Kibera who took him in and helped him clear the primary school.

When he was 16 years old, the family member gave him 5,000 KES to make something of himself. He started his first business of selling mandazis and worked for 4 years until he was able to pay his fees and attend high school. Trying to manage his business and also attend the school, somebody just noticed that "this guy should be studying" instead of managing it all by himself. However, the journey was not all that easy from here. He quietly mentioned of having to change the school as he hit a teacher and walked away - the street life troubles influencing his behaviour at that time.

Later on David became volunteer in the community (as he says, it was time to pay it back) and there one day he met a guy he calls De Santis from Washington DC. As he simply put it, he gave De Santis tour of Kibera and he started to sponsor his college education. David still wears the bracelent with his name and dreams of doing his Master's in Washington DC (I do hope his dream will come true but cannot even imagine how much are the kids going to miss him). David completed his Bachelor studies at the Kenyan Institute of Social Work & Community Development but did not stop there. As I found out, he got certificates in football administration, counselling, business mentorship and level 1 law and I probably forgot a few.

And you know what his biggest challenge is at the moment? Getting a passport. Later this year, he should be representing Foundation of Hope in Netherlands and Norway. However, he found out that he was born under a different name than his ID states as he was born Muslim. Now, there is a headache for Kenyan authorities. He needs both of his documents to be able to have a passport issued. I just hope he gets it in time to travel as I know he would do a world of good out there just as he does with the kids and youth in Kibera.

Some Guy Named Peter, (by Steve)

2011-08-29T03:24:00.000-07:00

I’m borrowing Martina’s account as mine is not set up yet. My colleagues have shared a lot about Kenya already, so in an effort to avoid telling a similar tale, I’ll just recount a relatively inconsequential story that might give you a bit of the flavour of life in Nairobi.

I arrived on a Sunday night and the next morning I walked downtown with Martina as a tour guide. We went to a popular fast-food joint called Kenchic which serves deep-fried chicken. I’m not much of a fan of fast-food, least of all of fried-chicken, but I must admit that this was the best fried chicken I’ve ever eaten. The portions were generous and the bird was healthy and plump. I ordered a half-chicken with chips (yes, more oil). After cooking, they cut the chicken into pieces with a menacing looking pair of scissors; they don’t disarticulate the bones as we do, rather they cut them mid-bone so it often takes a few seconds to recognize which part of the chicken you’re eating. They also shake a large quantity of salt onto the pieces before handing it to the customer. At each place along the counter there is a salt shaker and Kenyans tend to add more salt for each bite. A Kenchic salt shaker is not like ours with fine holes that allow a gentle sprinkle to come out; theirs is a small bottle with a single large diameter hole in the lid that shoots out salt like a small avalanche. With the high sodium content of the Kenyan diet, high blood pressure must be a significant concern. An even larger concern must be diabetes as their consumption of sugar is phenomenal. Kenyans take their tea seriously (they are a large exporter). They brew it with milk which of course already contains lactose, a sugar. To a single cup (not a mug!), they will add three teaspoons of sugar! Some will claim “oh, I don’t take much sugar, only two teaspoons!”. But none of this has anything to do with Peter … let me tell you about him.

After lunch, as we sauntered down the sidewalk, from out of nowhere a man appeared, matching us step for step and addressing us like he was the official Nairobi welcome wagon. “How are you?!” “Oh, Canada …. wonderful!”. His name was Peter and he was one of many would-be sales representatives that eke out a living by dragging unsuspecting tourists to a safari tour office in the hopes of getting a commission. These guys are like ninjas or stealth fighter planes or something (maybe Mr. Harper should cancel the F35 Phantom order and hire few of these guys??); you never see them until it’s too late. He had cards from every tour company imaginable, though most had a name other than “Peter”. He was pleasant enough and his tactics were not aggressive like the Moroccans or Egyptians would use. After a few minutes – using as much vigour as a Kenchic customer with a salt shaker - I managed to shake him off. But I had a feeling I would run into my phantom menace again, and I was kind of looking forward to it. About three weeks later, while walking several metres in front of Ben and Julie, I felt a presence “uncloak” (think Star Trek Klingon vessels … not some guy exposing his, well, “peter”) beside me and prepared myself for the safari sales pitch. “How are you!?” “Where are you from!?”. He had launched into his full spiel when I cried out “Peter! How are you?!” He was flabbergasted; gobsmacked; pick your adjective. I thoroughly enjoyed his discomfort as I reminded him that we’d already met three weeks prior. He recovered quickly and closed his gaping mouth, suggesting I might have friends that were interested in a safari. No, but I had a good laugh stopping him in his tracks like that. For the past two weeks I’ve kept my eyes open for him, wondering if I’d see him again before my departure tomorrow. So Peter, if you’re reading: third time lucky?

Farewell Kenya

2011-08-23T02:15:00.001-07:00

As I have just hopped on a bus from Nakuru to the Ugandan town of Jinja, I thought I would take a minute to compose a blog post on my phone while I still have access to the fantastic wireless data service offered by Safaricom. I believe Nancy has previously mentioned Safaricom, but just for frame of referwnce, it costs me around 3 cents per minute to call Canada and about 20 cents a day for 25mb of data per day, with fantastic coverage around the country.

I have found that having a data enabled smartphone has developed into an almost indispensable travel tool. For example, while waiting for the bus to Jinja, I was able to Google hostels to stay upon arrival, phone them, and book accommodation in about ten minutes. In previous travels, this sort of thing meant a trip to an internet cafe, a tenuous internet connection, possibly a successful Skype call, but more likely an email that would only tenuously solicit a response.

Also, having accurate maps with my position plotted by GPS has been very useful for navigating highways, parks, and towns. When you are traveling in unknown territory, knowledge is power, and for example, exactly how many kilometers away the next town is is very useful for fare-bargaining purposes and general safety and awareness.

I was at first apprehensive about traveling with a fairly fancy phone. However, especially in Nairobi, I found that practically everyone was toting an android phone, and that mine was only slightly better. Then again, I bought my phone from the US just before departure and it was at the time better than what was available in Canada. Also, walking down the street looking at one's phone for directions is much less conspicuous that thumbing through the lonely planet or unfolding a tourist map and attracts less unwanted attention.

While I will certainly miss the wireless service in Kenya, it certainly won't be my most unforgettable experience from the country. Experiencing Kibera was definitely what will stick with me most (that and sharing a room with Steve for a month straight). Having a bunch of kids from the slum utter the term "cash flow positive" when describing a company with a pretty good idea of what that meant was something I will always remember. One or two of the personal mission statements that the students composed and recited for the whole group was moving. One of the students, 'Nice' Nazri, displayed the essence of his nickname and made for Phoebe, martina, and myself customized, name-inscribed, Kenya bracelets. Nazri proudly declared that they were "authentic original, not photocopy!" Mine was a struggle to get on and I think it will remain with me for quite a while. It really was eperiences like this that made the trip so memorable and meaningful. I feel as though the average tourist on safari is getting very poor bang for his buck relative to us.

That being said, I have just come from Naivasha and Nakuru, where I spent a day cycling with giraffes and gorge-exploring with Steve, and a morning spotting game at lake Nakuru. In Jinja, I will go whitewater rafting on the Nile, and then proceed to Kampala where I will depart on a gorilla viewing trek in southern Uganda. All that in the next two weeks before flying straight to Rotterdam for the final fall term of my MBA on exchange.

The road is now too bumpy to type on my phone so I must bid adieu. Many thanks to Nancy, Martina, Steve, Julie, Phoebe, for such an amazing experience. Also a special thanks to everyone who contributed financially to the program. I think in all the hustle and bustle we don't emphasize how much of a learning experience the sauder students receive in the pursuit of passing knowledge to those less fortunate than ourselves.

So long,

Ben

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Experience the Wilderness - Masai Mara

2011-08-17T10:13:00.000-07:00

Interested in experiencing the most "genuine" wilderness of the world, Ben, Julie, Steve and I spent the last weekend on a safari at the Masai Mara (Mara) National Reserve, which is around 185km away from Nairobi. We departed right after teaching, and after a 5-hour drive, we arrived at our camping site, which was very close to Mara. Although sitting in a car for 5 hours was tiring, we were all so excited to see animals such as lions, leopards, cheetah, etc. We woke up very early in the morning and were all ready for the visit to Mara.

This is the van tourists sit in while visiting the park, and the roof of the van can be lifted up so people can actually stand in the car and take photos of animals.

After entering the gate of the park, the first thing we saw were a group of gazelles peacefully having their breakfast. We were hoping to see gazelles running, given the fact that they are such swift animals, who can run at a speed of 80km/hour.

The second thing that caught my attention was several vultures eating a already dead wildebeest. This thing made me think about the food chain system in the wild. Some animals are just meant to be enemies, such as lions vs. zebras.

On the other hand, there are also animals who live together to defend themselves in case of attack by other animals. As our driver told us, zebras and wildebeests are very good friends, because zebras have a very good sense of hearing and vision whereas wildebeests are good at smelling enemies. As a result, it's very often to see these two kinds of animals staying closely together almost everywhere at Mara.

Talking about enemies, here is a photo of a wildebeest and a female lion facing off each other. The story was that when were were driving back to the gate of the park, our driver noticed a lion secret waiting for something along the road. Then we found there was actually a group of wildebeest around, so we assumed the lion was waiting to hunt. Suddenly, the wildebeests all started running, and we discovered that there was actually another lion on the other side of the road chasing a wildebeest, then this "waiting lion" joined and the two lions were together chasing a wildebeest. However, the wildebeest ran really fast, and turned his head facing the two lions. Having a very sharp horns on his head, the wildebeest used its horns as weapon to defend himself. After all, the two lions gave up, because it was very difficult to get a wildebeest when it's facing you, because the wildebeests can use its horn to protect himself.

Here comes the another surprise we received at Mara - we saw many vans parked in front of us, so we thought some van got stuck in the mud. All of a sudden, a male lion slowly walked by our van, and we all rushed to take out our camera to take a shot of the King of Jungle. I think lions must be very confident animals, because they never seemed to be scared of anything. Although there were many vans parked beside him, he was still taking his own pace, and slowly walked by.

We also saw a lonely but very elegant ostrich slowly moving on the grass and a group of elephants. Although elephants are ginormous animals, I think they are really cute when they use their long noses to grab tree branch and then send it to their mouths. When I was enjoying looking at elephants eat, a baby elephant appeared. I quickly took out my camera and started taking picture of him/her. Then an interesting thing happened, the baby elephant walked behind his/her mom, and the mother elephant was protecting him/her. I think mother nature is just something universal, doesn't matter if it's human or animals.

Continue on this "mother nature" topic. On the second day of the safari, we also watched a mother lion teaching her four kids how to hunt. The five of them were slowly approaching a group of wildebeest. We first thought the mother was hunting food for the four kids, but it turned out that the mother let the kids go in front of her and approach the wildebeests first. The driver introduced to us that there is actually strategy involved in almost every single hunt, and sometimes the hunt can take hours. Unsurprisingly, the four kids did not even get the chance to touch a wildebeest, but they must have learned something this time.

This is also a very cute picture of the baby lions playing with each other, while their mother is leading them at the front.

Although there was a disappointment that we didn't see any cheetah nor leopards, we saw another very very rare animals - a black rhino!!! The driver said rhinos often hide behind bushes, and almost no visitor ever had the opportunity to see them. Luckily, we found a rhino very close to our car, and we drove to a closer place and took photos of him. The driver joked with us that we should never mess with a rhino, and we should take the photo quickly and leave, because a rhino can easily flip a van haha..

The trip to Mara is definitely something I would never forget in my life. If any of you ever have a chance to visit Africa, remember to personally check out the wilderness, because it's absolutely worth it to see them in your life time! Lastly, here's a picture of our team except me, because I was the camera lady!

Bringing Everyone Together

2011-08-17T08:21:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday we brought the students from Kibera and Mathare together for a day of activities, discussions, networking, and food! The day, of course, started later than planned, as students arrived at the site on 'Kenyan time', many commenting on the horrific morning traffic.

For those of you who have never experienced rush hour traffic in Nairobi, allow me to paint a bit of a picture for you. Many roads do not have separate lanes (there are cars EVERYWHERE - often on the wrong side of the road), nobody pays any attention to the stoplights, and everyone is always fighting for an extra inch of space. In addition, there is a lot of roadwork happening throughout the city, which means sometimes 8 lanes of traffic need to fit into 1. Put all of this together and more often than not, you get complete gridlock!

Once everyone had arrived safely at the Mathare site, we started our first activity - a networking game which encouraged the students from both sites to interact and learn about each others business proposals. Students were given worksheets with spaces to write the names of the people they met, their proposed business idea, and one reason why their business was unique. It turned out to be quite a successful mixer. Eva, a young woman from the Mathare site who is planning to start a wholesale food business, was crowned the best networker and given a prize for her efforts.

We then moved on to 'the human knot' activity - a game which encouraged students to communicate effectively and to work together to untangle themselves and their group.

Finally we got into our small discussion groups, which were organized primarily by proposed business idea - hair salons, food, clothing, entertainment, etc. This year we also invited a number of mentors to participate, including previous students of SE:101 who now have their own businesses here in Nairobi. The discussions revolved around the many different challenges students faced as entrepreneurs.

In my group students talked about their fear of approaching microfinance centers and being turned away, the possibility that they will be unable to raise enough capital to open their business, the difficulty of legally registering their business, the problem of security and electricity shortages within Mathare and Kibera, and ultimately, the fear of failure. We discussed each challenge/fear separately and together we came up with a series of ways to address and deal with the challenges. The mentors shared their personal experiences and offered practical wisdom and great advice to our students.

One of the most interesting discussion topics arose when Freddie, a previous student of SE:101 who now owns two successful businesses, asked the students to consider who were the 'biggest enemies' of small business ventures in Kenya. Immediately a couple of students answered family and friends. Why is that? Kenyan people are very generous and they tend to share what little they have with their family and friends. In fact, sharing seems to be expected. Freddie emphasized to students that 'business is business' and that they should not offer additional discounts or loans to their family and friends. He told students to remember that the money was not theirs to loan and that it belonged to their business. An important lesson that the students will hopefully take to heart.

I closed the discussion by asking the three mentors in our group to discuss the most important lessons they had learned when starting their own businesses.

1. Make sure you have a well thought-out business plan, but be flexible and treat it as a working document.

2. Do your market research and make sure you understand your customer.

3. Be patient, dedicated, and passionate. Never give up!

Finally we brought everyone back together for lunch and juice! The lunch was prepared by Francis, a 2010 graduate of the SE:101 program who has started a catering business. And the triple-layer mango, avocado and beet-root smoothies were prepared by Dennis, one of the current students from the Kibera site who owns a juice business. Delicious!

So overall, the day was a success!

Playtime in Nairobi

2011-08-16T15:37:00.000-07:00

Play time in North America can often be so structured (and so expensive) that it starts to lose its "fun." Or we forget what fun means. Three quick stories on play in Nairobi might give you a different perspective on what's needed for fun.

1) Last week, the UBC team took our Strathmore University team ice skating, to show them something Canadian. (Or at least that’s what they said. I figured it was so that the UBC team could be better at something sport-wise, since they can’t even attempt to compete with Kenyans at soccer.) We arrived at the rink to find bureaucracy in action. Skating costs $5 an hour, and you can only enter the rink on the hour. So despite the fact that it was 2:15, and no one was on the ice, we had to wait around until 3 (or pay $5 and skate for the remaining time until 3). So we opted to wait, while trying to convince those in charge to let us in early. The best we could do was get them to rent the skates out early so that everyone would be ready to hit the ice right at 3. The ice skates were more like ski boots with dull edges than ice skates as you might know them, but, after some brief trepidation, the Canadian team easily rose to the equipment challenge. After they got confident on the skates, they started working with the Kenyan students to teach them how to skate (a first for all of them). Lots of nervousness, but I will give it to the Kenyans. They all stuck with it, and some within a half hour were doing a decent job of navigating the rink. I watched from the sidelines, by the way. Never could master ice skates, and decided that I didn’t need to do so in Nairobi.

2) On Sunday I was passing through Uhuru Park, which is down the street from where we're staying. The park was full of people out enjoying the day (one of the few warm, sunny days we’ve had since we arrived.) I had never noticed before that the park contained a ferris wheel and swings, but the daughter of a friend of mine (both in town to do their own volunteer work with Agano with Kenya) noticed them right away. She wanted to try them out. These were like no amusement ride you’ve ever seen in North American (pictures attached). Both the ferris wheel and the flying swings are operated through manual labour, not motors. You can see in the ferris wheel shot the guy pushing it to go round. It actually could go quite fast once they got going. Rides lasted a long time too, about 15 minutes.

The flying swings were also operated by someone spinning a crank—this is not so visible in the picture, but you can see someone at the center of the structure working. Again, the swings got pretty far out, and were going pretty fast.

3) Today I visited our Mathare site, and there were a number of children playing in the courtyard. They were making clay figures by digging up clay from the ground, adding water, and then pounding and kneading it to make it pliable before forming their creations. In the picture, you can see some clay people, and some other “toys” if you look carefully at the wall. I have a better picture of the creations, but these kids were so cute that I thought you’d enjoy the picture of them more. There were four slightly older boys, not in the picture, who were also working with the clay—they were making vehicles with it, and adding wheels. All of the children were having a great time, there were no parents hovering around telling them how to do it better, and it was really fun to see them use the raw materials at hand to create things. It reminded me of a scene in Kibera the other day: a little boy pulling a “car” made out of a juicebox, with bottle caps for wheels, all attached to a string.

Watching these different play activities made me think that we sometimes lose sight of simple pleasures: skates don’t need to be perfect, we don’t need the newest technology to run a ferris wheel, and we don’t need to go to Toys "R" Us to buy clay. It’s part of the ground we walk on. And everyone can still have fun.

The Kenyan Medical Experience/The World's Worst Tooth

2011-08-15T12:47:00.000-07:00

For my first post in Africa, I have decided to relay a slightly different experience which, unfortunately, occupied my entire first week in Nairobi.

Some may know of my upper left molar which developed an abscess a year ago and cause me to have to fly by helicopter from Mount Everest Base Camp to Kathmandu. Well wouldn't you know it, the next time that the silly thing gave me trouble was the Sunday prior to the start of class in Kibera. I woke up with it aching a little but by the afternoon I was munching over-the-counter codeine at a pretty good clip. By midway through Monday, after introductions and some preliminary exercises in the classroom, I was also experiencing a pretty severe adverse reaction to an anti-inflammatory I was also taking and realized that I needed to get some help. One of our drivers, Fred, arranged for me to be taken to the nearest medical clinic which was the Aga Khan University Hospital Health Clinic in a nearby shopping center.

I was able to see the doctor right away, owing in part, I assumed, to the fact that I was a Muzungu with a Visa card. I described my symptoms, severe stomach and tooth pain. The doctor took a look in my mouth and to my dismay announced that I had gingivitis! Considering I was doubled over in pain, I did not feel as though this was the pinnacle of diagnostic achievements. Nonetheless, the doctor prescribed me an immediate IV dose of antacid for the stomach and a blood test to gauge the severity of a possible tooth infection. My trepidation at receiving injections in Africa was mitigated by the possibility of relief from the pain I was in. After receiving my injections and giving a blood sample, I laid down to rest and waited for the medications to take effect. A short while later, the doctor came in with the blood test results. Turned out the tooth infection was actually fairly serious, and had come up in the blood test. Thus, more needles! This time, some potent antibiotics. After the second round of shots was completed I was sent on my way with an array of medications to counter the infection and others to counter the side effects of the medications. All told, I paid around 50 CAD for all the services and medications, all of which will be covered by my travel medical insurance. After a few days of shivering away a fever and recuperating, I visited a dentist who took an xray and confirmed that the infection was well into submission (without any mention of gingivitis!). A few days more and I was back on my feet in the classroom teaching positive and negative cashflows.

I must admit to a slight bit of nervousness at the prospect of receiving medical treatment in Africa. I do have to say, though, that on the whole I was fairly impressed. I was seen and treated promptly, and I received thorough explanations. The conditions were relatively clean and sanitary at all times.

What struck me, however, was how much superior treatment I received than many Kenyans themselves do. I wondered if many of the people in Kibera didn't have to cope with the same sort of tooth pain I had on a regular basis. It really got me thinking.

Anyways, I suppose the moral of the story is that one can survive medical treatment in Nairobi, so feel free to come down and get sick at your leisure!

Planned Parenthood, Kenya Style

2011-08-15T11:49:00.000-07:00

Numerous US states have been rushing to defund Planned Parenthood at an alarming pace, arguing that no tax dollars should be spent on anything that the organization does.

Compare this to a recent event in Kenya. Members of Parliament approved a motion to establish a new department that would source and distribute sanitary napkins to school-aged girls. The MP (a male!) who proposed the motion noted that many girls miss four or five days of school a month because they lack sanitary pads. The government allocated about $3 million dollars this year to provide sanitary napkins. The Assistant Minister of Education noted that about $13 million more was needed. One could only imagine how this would have been handled during last week's US debt ceiling debacle, should there have even been a fund for this.

Many girls use pieces of "old blankets, mattresses and rags as sanitary napkins," said MP Rachael Shebesh, one of the supporters of the motion. She suggested that panties be distributed with the sanitary napkins. "You can give out all the sanitary towels you want but if you don't give panties you are losing the war because many girls cannot afford them," she said. Another MP noted that providing sanitary napkins was an important component of the Free education system because without them, girls could not participate fully in education.

This brings me, indirectly, to the subject of birth control. At our teaching site in Kibera there are many posters on the walls, with themes on safe sex, much like the one shown here. We were curious about the training that was given to young people regarding sex. Apparently training is quite explicit at the youth centres (for instance showing films of what the various STDs actually look like), so we wondered at what age discussion on “safe sex” started. Age 10. My team was a bit stunned at how young the training started, and we mentioned that this direct, blunt education at age 10 would be highly unusual in Canada and the US. (A 2009 article in the journal Reproductive Health suggested that the prohibitions on sex education in “religious” states was partially responsible for the higher rates of teen pregnancies.) So what do youth centers do in Nairobi? They place free condoms in the washrooms (both genders) so that there is easy access to them. As one of the instructors noted, it was difficult, even for him, to go to the pharmacy and ask for condoms (too embarrassing!), but free condoms in the privacy of the washroom guaranteed access to anyone who needed them.

Has the availability of free condoms made a difference? Kenya has one of the highest rates of AIDS and HIV in the world. But the epidemic peaked in 2000, and the numbers are starting to come down. Which means that sex education, particularly for the youth, is having a positive impact on outcomes.

Kenya is clearly more advanced than the US on the sex education front. It is an interesting contrast.

How the "Kenyan time" made my day

2011-08-13T09:21:00.000-07:00

I cannot believe that we have completed 2 weeks of our teaching already. The time goes by so fast and I think even the weather is crying that we are almost done as it has been pouring down with rain since the late afternoon.

Most of the UBC team has gone to a very well deserved safari trip to Masai Mara. Professor Nancy and I stayed behind to help run the workshop for Agano with Kenya, another very interesting project in Nairobi run by Jene Meece from US and Father Henry Simaro from Kenya.

But one thing that I was looking forward to the most was this afternoon and the dance performance of our students at the part of Nairobi named California or Calif as the locals call it. The show was supossed to start at 12.30 pm but things took the usual course and the start of the event was delayed. And I have to say, lucky me. Getting from one part of Nairobi to another took us over an hour and I would have not seen our students perform if the famous "Kenya time" did not exist. When I arrived students seemed to be a bit surprised but also pleased that I kept my promise to come.

The dance crew consisted of 10 people from the Foundation of Hope and not all of them are in our class (even though some of them were meant to be but never showed up which makes me a bit sad as they seem as lovely and bright individuals).
They were the first ones to perform, excited and ready to show their talent. Mich played the drums, Michael took the responsibility of video recording and Augustine enjoyed himself on the stage.

At the beginning, I took my camera out and intended to take lots of pictures but after few minutes I felt that I would miss a lot if I did not just watch. Their traditional dance was vibrant and lively and I enjoyed every minute of it. After the dance, everyone surrounded Michael to see how they have done. It was interesting to watch the facial expressions as they commented on their performance. I thought they were amazing and cannot wait to see another show - I just might ask them to do a little replay during the tea time at school. Well, they all deserved a little bonus and I think they enjoyed the baked fish for late lunch.

Lesson Tried: Low Price

2011-08-08T06:33:00.000-07:00

In teaching our business plan course, one of the lessons we try to instill over and over is: what is the uniqueness of the product or service you will offer? Inevitably, the answer is "low price." Though we try to explain over and over that low price in the Kenyan environment (particularly in the slums) is not an effective strategy, the lesson falls on deaf ears. Somehow it’s hard to convince our students that a “low price” strategy is most likely to lead to price wars, as everyone will follow suit.

A story in last week's Daily Standard (a local Kenyan newspaper) reminded me of the futility of continuously focusing on being the lowest price provider. Cellphone penetration in Kenya is currently at 63%, and it’s estimated by Business Monitor International that penetration will be at 100% by 2013. There are four major cell providers in Kenya: Safaricom has 70% of the market share; Airtel has 15.2%; Telkom Kenya (also known as Orange) has 8.5% and Yu has 6.4% (all of these numbers were as of end of December 2010).

Text messaging is big in Kenya--it's rare to find someone, even from the slums, who does not have a cellphone. Most cell services are “prepay” where the customer buys an amount of credit (generally between 100 KES (Kenyan Shillings) and 500 KES at a time), and then draws down that credit with usage. In order to compete and grow their customer bases, some cell companies in 2009 and 2010 introduced an even smaller "prepay" credit in the amount of 20 KES. This made cell usage affordable for people who had very little money, allowing credit for a couple of text messages and/or brief phone calls to be purchased at a time. This was a way of increasing the customer base for cell providers by tapping into a whole new category of users (those who are very poor).

The cellphone companies moved to a new strategy in mid-2010: a price-cutting war. Our team has used Safaricom as its provider since 2008, so I’ll illustrate this company’s low-price strategy. Last year a single text message cost 10 KES to send. This year, the rate has been reduced to 1 KES. It’s a little difficult to make comparisons in Canadian dollars—last year $1 bought about 77 KES. This year it buys 95 KES. (1 US$ only buys 93 KES—a reflection of the weaker US economy.) So it’s easier to do all the comparisons in KES.

Despite the fact that a single text message costs 1/10 the price it did last year, that’s only the base discount. This year Safaricom is offering two new subscription plans that allow considerable savings on texting: for 5 KES/day, one can send 20 "free" text messages daily (receiving text messages is free). For 10 KES/day, one can send an unlimited number of text messages daily. You can move on and off the subscriptions at will by entering code into your cellphone at no charge (something I did several times last week, until I concluded that the 5 KES/20 messages daily was the most suitable plan for my needs). So this gives you a sense of the dramatic price drop over the year. I'm estimating that my own phone costs will be about 1/3 of last year's (which was about $30 for a month), and will, unlike last year, also include a few calls to Canada (something I've never done before). Calls to Canada from Kenya cost 3 cents a minute. This is less expensive than calling your friends in Vancouver when you're actually in Vancouver. (There is no "plan fee" in Kenya, so you only pay the cost of your calls and texts after buying your phone and paying about $1 for a SIM card.) I'm not sure how this is possible, but I wish these prices would come to Canada. (Canada has some of the highest cellphone rates in the world for calls and texting.)

Back to the results of the low-price strategy. The price wars have done some damage to Safaricom and Yu, who lost 6 and 0.3 percentage points of market share. Respectively. in the final quarter of last year. The “winners” were Telkom Kenya and Airtel, who gained 4.5 and 1.7 percentage points of market share.

Telkom, the biggest “winner” added almost 1 million new customers between October and December of last year. That should have been cause for celebration--think of the revenue from all of those new customers. Instead, Telkom’s revenue declined, because of a significant decline in Average Revenue Per User (ARPU). And that decline came from the strategy Telkom chose: lowest price, which was continually matched, and sometimes bettered, by Safaricom and the others. Safaricom, despite its loss in market share, was the only one of the four to report a profit last year.

While I can't offer much specific advice to the other cell companies, I think it's safe to say that they will not grow (and may not even survive long-term) by having the lowest price be their major business strategy. Safaricom is able to match on price, in part because it differentiates itself in another way: it's created a mobile bank, called M-PESA. This is an idea that will probably come to Canada in the years ahead, but it's already launched in a big way in Kenya. Kenyans, even in the most rural parts of the country, can use their phones to pay bills, give money to friends and relatives, and make cash withdrawals and deposits, without going to a bank.

Now, if we could only teach our young entrepreneurs the importance of being better at something other than price!

The first week … meet the Kibera students

2011-08-07T04:37:00.000-07:00

When I enter the classroom for the first time, there is always so much expectation and excitement. How many students are going to show up? What will be the dynamics in the class? Are they going to be lively? Will they show up the next day (if they do not, I cannot help myself but wonder whether we have done a good job)?

But then a week passes by and I suddenly find myself attached to all of my students. I know their names and nicknames; I know that they are all extremely smart and courageous to be willing to start their own business at such a young age (student age range is 18 – 25). I know who is the class comedian (Edwin), who is the mathematician (Dennis – he also runs his own business already) and who is the cool DJ kid (Mich). I watch the girls in the class: Sellah, Gertrude, Catherine and Eunice argue their point with the boys and firmly stand their ground. There is also more serious David and Aloys, a very boyish looking Nazri (his real name is Stephen and he wants to be a stand-up comedian), quieter Michael and Felix. And I can not forget Augustine and Josphat who always manage to surprise me with their bright insights and comments.

There are some things that will never change. Their unconditional love for sweets and games. The creative excuses why they did not do their homework. The dancing and lively chatter during the tea break. And their wide smiles. But what I love the most about being in class is, that it is not only about teaching.

It is also about getting to know my students. Last Friday I learnt so much about their active community. Number of them are members and volunteers with the Foundation of Hope (the Foundation operates from the site where we teach). They write their own poetry and plays and then choreograph them. They dance and act and have an all day festival next week and I cannot wait to see them perform. If what they can do in the class is just a taste of it, it should be a world class show.

Education apparently is not enough

2011-08-02T08:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was our first day of teaching. We have two sites, one in Kibera (which has often been referred to as the largest slum in East Africa, though apparently more recently, they’ve estimated that its size is perhaps one-third of earlier claims. It’s hard to do a census in a slum.) We’ve worked in Kibera before and we understand its rhythms, to the extent that a mizunga (white person) can do so.

Our second site is in a different slum at a different edge of Nairobi. This slum is called Mathare. Mathare may have recently overtaken Kibera in terms of size, from what I’ve been told. I accompanied the two UBC team members (both MBA students) who are working at Mathare so that I could get a sense of the conditions first hand, with class in session. It was interesting, and disheartening, at once. But it might also give a sense, for those of you who have made donations to the programs, of how money can be spent in these types of programs.

Our program provides three weeks of free education, with all the mentoring a student could want, all for the asking. We have sometimes been criticized for not charging a nominal fee for the program (say around $10-15), to add a level of seriousness and commitment to the program. We have resisted that suggestion to date.

Our program generally runs from 8:30-2:30, give or take. One of the first issues that arose at the Mathare site was “what language would be we using?” We had greeted each student as they arrived, watched as they kicked a soccer ball around, and played some ice-breaker games outside. Everything was comfortably communicated in English. We’ve always taught in English (Kenya, like Canada, is a “two official language country” with Kenya’s two languages being Kiswahili and English). This has never been an issue in the five previous years that we have been here.

In Mathare, it became an issue. There was a class ringleader who was clearly trying to stir everyone up. To what end, it was not clear, but it made for a rocky start. At first I thought perhaps his English was weaker than he’d like. Later, though, I was given an alternative hypothesis by one of our drivers. He noted that in Mathare, unlike in Kibera, there is far more peer pressure. Part of that peer pressure means that speaking in English is not appropriate (even if you can do so fluently, which, it turned out, most of the class can, so they must be practicing somewhere). If you are speaking in English (as a resident of Mathare) it means that you are showing off, and trying to let everyone know that you are better than everyone else.

Next question: how much were they going to be paid for taking our free three-week class? We told them “nothing,” but this did not set well. (We simply have never been able to raise enough money to consider this as a possibility.) We explained that we are here to teach, we are educators, not bankers or financers, and that education was what we provided. Not a stellar answer from their perspective, to be sure. Many NGOs do pay people here to go to training sessions. I think that is a bad model overall. Because then the focus is on showing up to get paid, not on learning. If people really don’t want the education, but bribery gets them into the classroom, is that really a good thing? I have yet to see a student learn when they didn’t want to learn, and I have a lot of experience in the classroom.

Next question: were we feeding them lunch? No. (Again, our fundraising simply does not support that kind of activity.) Without lunch, some said they didn’t want to stay beyond 12:30, even though for many of them there was nowhere else to go (unemployment among youth is a staggering 60%). In fact, with no lunch, they suggested that we just run a two-hour class, but they wanted the certificates that came with the program, even if they were only doing 20% of the work. We didn’t go for that either.

Next question: If they didn’t drink the tea and eat the mendazis (similar to donuts) we provided (something our fundraising does provide for, and for which we’re grateful to our donors), could they be given the equivalent in money instead? One student in particular had an issue with this because he’s Muslim, and yesterday was the start of Ramadan, the month of fasting (and fasting goes from sun-up to sun-down, which is why he couldn’t partake of our tea break). This would be about the equivalent of me going to your house for dinner, and after dinner you offered me dessert, and I wasn’t hungry, so I asked you if you could pay me, instead, the amount of money my dessert cost you to provide. We said we didn’t give “rebates.

It will be interesting to see how this site develops, who stays, and who goes. Particularly the ringleader.

The photos help illustrate the Mathare scene. The first is an aerial view of a section of Mathare (note the tin roofs, and tin buildings). The second is a view from our classroom door, looking out (soccer/football is big here, and we brought a soccer ball for recreational breaks). Finally, here is Julie, working with her breakout group.

The Blue Sweater

2011-06-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

“The Blue Sweater” by Jacqueline Novogratz is an inspiring book based on a true story of the author. The book begins with Novogratz describing how she had a favourite blue sweater that she wore every day until the day she outgrew it and decided to give it away. Years later, she lands a job as a banker at Chase on Wall Street and the job offers her a great future. Still working at Chase, Novogratz explores other micro-enterprise organizations as her dream was to change the world. She comes across a non-profit micro-finance organization for women that is run by a woman investment banker and is offered a job to go to Africa and help local organizations start up. And so she quits her job at Chase that had offered a promising future, and flies to Africa. She was to go to Rwanda to help a start up a micro-finance bank to make small loans to poor women. Coincidentally, she sees a small boy in Rwanda wearing the blue sweater that she had given away. It was at that point, that she realized how much the world was interconnected.

As I read this book, I notice the usage of the different terms and organizations I have learned from our weekly meetings. For example, the Grameen Bank and various micro-finance terms. As you read this book, you learn more about how micro-finance really works. The African culture is also greatly explored. Novogratz describes how the African women were really hesitant at first to accept help from a foreigner and the difficulties she encounters to gain acceptance.

What really inspires me is that Novogratz is now the founder and CEO of the Acumen Fund now, and through this non-profit venture capital firm, she invests in entrepreneurs bringing health care, water, energy and housing to South Asia and East Africa. I admire that she followed a childhood dream of changing the world and by taking chances, even declining an opportunity to work with a growing company, she has found a powerful way to help people in need.

I found an interesting talk on TED with Novogratz speaking and thought I would share:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jacqueline_novogratz_invests_in_ending_poverty.html

SALSA NIGHT! Tuesday, June 21st @ the Red Room

2011-06-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, June 21^st we’re heading to the RED ROOM in Vancouver for a night of sizzling salsa dancing! There will be a lesson at 9pm and after the lesson, DJ Cachete will be playing the best Salsa, Merengue and Bachata to keep you dancing all night long!

Tickets: $10 - All proceeds go to the SAUDER AFRICA INITIATIVE

Price includes a salsa lesson taught by Diego Sanchez of Grupo America! *Tickets can be purchased in advance from any team member.

For more details, and to sign up for the event, please see our facebook page https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=205772469467117

SEE YOU ON THE DANCE FLOOR!

Pub Night: Friday June 17 @ The Forum on Granville

2011-06-13T09:20:00.000-07:00

This Friday, the SE101 team will be hosting a fundraising pub night at The Forum on Granville.

Tickets: $10. Tickets will include free cover and no line before 11pm, and an entry into a draw for a dinner for two at Mongo's Grill. Tickets can be purchased in advance from any team member.

ALL PROCEEDS GO TO SUPPORT THE SAUDER AFRICA INITIATIVE and SE101 AFRICA project teaching entrepreneurship in Kenya this summer.

See everyone there!

Sauder Africa Initiative is looking for additional travelling team members

2011-03-31T15:40:00.001-07:00

Sauder Africa Initiative is looking for additional traveling team members as we have lots of interested students to attend our classes in Kenya!

Those who are interested, apply by April 15th here and attend our networking session on April 6th at 7.00 pm in Kafka's Cafe (Main & Broadway) or contact Martina Valkovicova: martina.valkovicova@gmail.com for additional information.

Important notice for the MBA candidates: We have two internships for the MBA students who will work on the project!

How Sauder School of Business Initiatives help to solve the world challenges

2011-02-10T12:29:00.000-08:00

This is a repost from the Sauder d.studio

Sauder School of Business is full of passionate individuals and innovative ideas. I have had the privilege to be a part of two groups at the school: Sauder Africa Initiative and Sauder d.studio. It seems that the paths of both have crossed a little at the moment.

Many of the business students know IDEO. We have been presented with their approaches and have watched a number of videos on how the company proceeds with finding innovative solutions. For years, the company has been considered the leader in the field of innovation and design. Some time ago, IDEO came out with a great initiative: OPEN IDEO. It literally opens the door to thousands of people who are interested to cooperate on the most pressing problems. The initiative enables the caring individuals all over the world to share their ideas and most importantly, come up with possible solutions. The challenge is developed in 5 phases: Inspiration, Concepting, Applause, Evaluation and Winners Announced.

Open IDEO recently posted a new challenge: How might we improve the maternal health with mobile technologies for low-income countries. And this is where the Sauder Africa Initiative comes in. The 2010 Kenya team was presented with a great business idea from one of our students, Absalom Kiragu Gathaiya. His company is to provide the pre-natal and ante-natal care information services (PACIS) to subsribers (presumably mostly to mothers-to-be and young mothers) via short text messages.

The subscriber will receive short message services that will deliver information about stages in pregnancy, what to expect and how to deal with the pregnancy. These are to be sent once a week as a 160 character message available both in Kiswahili and English. Each of these messages will be charged a nominal fee of KShs 10 (about 12 cents). The business plan has been completed is now awaiting for financing.

When I asked Absalom how he came up with the idea, he simply told me: „Because of our family´s experience.“ I hope that all of the mentioned initiatives will help him to make his project a reality on a large scale.

Do you have what it takes to be part of the 2011 Sauder Africa Initiative team?

2010-11-14T21:39:00.000-08:00

It is that time of year again, when UBC’s top students compete for a place on a project that changes the lives of African youth. Do you think you have what it takes to make the Sauder Africa Initiative team? It will change your life too.

In the Sauder Africa Initiative we believe that business is a driving force for economic growth, locally and globally. We see logic in sound business plans, ambitious marketing strategies and positive cash-flow projections over aid. We want to be successful and measure that success by how many companies we help establish, how fast our companies grow and how much economic benefit they create. In the Sauder Africa Initiative, we are social entrepreneurs... and I emphasize the word entrepreneurs. We are passionate individuals who want to help others escape poverty. Knowledge is our strategic competitive advantage and we ‘walk the talk’ by passing it on to the youth of East Africa’s largest slum, Kibera, located in Nairobi, Kenya.

Each year we select a passionate, creative, and dedicated group of students to learn about social entrepreneurship, business planning and Kenya; to spearhead our fundraising efforts; and to have the opportunity to spend the summer teaching the Kenya youth. Our work directly helps combat the extreme poverty that strikes at Kibera’s 1.2 million inhabitants, where unemployment exceeds 80%.

We set out to empower, not give out handouts. We teach financial independence and how to use your strengths and skills to your advantage. We challenge our students to be successful entrepreneurs and change agents in their own community and country. We learn about each other, about our culture, and about the challenges our Kenyan friends face. We learn about ourselves.

If you want to be one of us, be a change agent, create friendships that will last a lifetime and above all, make a difference in the life of others, we would love to meet you at our info session on November 16^th at 1 pm in SCARFE 201.

2011 SE101 Team Recruitment - Info Session

2010-11-10T12:45:00.001-08:00

YES YOU!!

Are you a student interested in social entrepreneurship and important issues such as fighting poverty and international development?

The Sauder Africa Initiative is entering its 6th successful year of operation and is starting to recruit its 2011 team. Applications for Sauder Africa Initiative - Kenya 2011 are now being accepted until November 25 (before midnight).

You can find the application by going to the Sauder Africa Initiative website at: http://www.africa.sauder.ubc.ca and looking at the home page under "Latest News."
SE101 is recruiting for two dedicated groups of students who want to change the lives of youth in the poorest parts of Nairobi, Kenya:

a) a Vancouver-based team who will help support the ground team through fundraising, curriculum development, mentoring, communications, and other tasks as needed;

b)a traveling team who will deliver a three-week program based in Nairobi, to help Kenyan youth develop business plans. We are opening SE101 to those of you who aren’t able to travel to Kenya because many of you have expressed a desire to contribute in some way to SE101. We encourage you to consider this opportunity to join the team. For the travelling team, the 2011 project will be held in Kenya July 28-August 19, 2011 and will be conducted in partnership with Kenyan youth organizations and Strathmore University. You can read more about the project requirements by going to http://africa.sauder.ubc.ca/SE101_Kenya_2011.html.

The Info session for SE101 will be held on Tuesday, November 16th, 1-2:30, in SCARF 201. The information session will provide an opportunity for you to learn more about this exciting project and meet some of the participants from previous years. If you have any questions about the program or the application procedure, please contact Professor Nancy Langton (nancy.langton@sauder.ubc.ca).

This is not kwaheri!

2010-08-19T14:03:00.000-07:00

It is hard to believe that our teaching time is over with only one day left to cram as much as possible into the heads of our students at the celebration ceremony.
I thought about it a lot this morning on our way to school in our experienced little “private matatu” and felt nostalgic. Kirby asked us the other day what are we going to miss the most when we go back home. Where do I start my list?

I am going to miss the morning bumpy ride to school watching the people outside on their way to work avoiding the crazy traffic. Traffic, where green and red almost make no difference. I am going to miss passing that crooked sign that looks like Gaudi’s creation which proudly says: “Ministry of Roads.” I am going to miss the laughter on the bus where we are discussing the day’s plan, guessing who is going to be in class on time (if anyone) and telling Nancy and Kirby the highlights of the previous day.

I am going to miss our team. Jacky’s breakfast ritual of Wheetabix and 5 eggs, together with his inseparable “twin” Eon with whom he shares not only a room but also singing passion for the Swahili song Yodi Yodi (or something in that manner), and their third brother – the camera. Lisa, our little monkey, who is always ready to climb a tree or a water tower (with me). The petite Rimple, who can be so loud that we all wonder where the voice came from. Barry, whose waiting periods playing Chinese chess and Civilization on his iPod never stopped amazing me but then you have to realize something we were reminded of quite often: This is Africa (and the waiting periods can be long). Of course, I have to mention his amazing skill to learn Swahili, he is definitely the most advanced learner in our group. I am going to miss Eric, especially, when he is copying the dance moves of our fellow Strathmore students – please, ask him to perform the moves for you, it is an unforgettable experience. I am going to miss Kathy, my dear roommate whom I can completely rely on, with the strangest hobby of taking pictures of bugs and incredible skill of mimicking different voices from the YouTube videos. I am going to miss Nancy and Kirby, our project leaders, always ready to give us advice and guard us so we do not do anything silly as we are quite a lively and loud team. I am not going to miss Les (no worries Les, that time will surely come) as I will spend almost two more weeks in the company of this crazy “pink hat wearing, never stop talking” guy on our awesome Skate4Kenya trip from Nairobi to Mombasa.

I am going to miss our class students. Pato, with his colorful and original outfits who tells me at 2 pm:“I cannot work anymore, I am too saturated.” John, who comes to class always happy, playing music and moving around dancing and jumping, never standing still. I am going to miss Daniel, who is always the first one in class, sometimes posing philosophical questions to the others. I am going to miss Frederick and Allan, the inseparable mischiefs, always hanging out together and looking up to each other for approval when they speak. I am going to miss Hillary, the shy but extremely smart and determined kid. And I cannot forget Winnie and Ivy, the two girls in the class who are not afraid to compete with boys and are most determined to open and expand their businesses. Winnie is already running her small business and Ivy rather missed the fun games and stuck with her cashflows! But, even though I am going to miss them all, there is always that hope of coming back to Kenya and eating in John’s Café, buying groceries from Winnie, have my hair done in Ivy’s beauty salon, use fast speed internet in Pato’s CyberCity and visit our two classique barbers, Allan and Fredrick.

When talking about students, I am going to miss our class’ Strathmore co-teaching team. Jasan, who shares my love of Shakespeare. John, who always has the biggest smile on his face and you never know what he is up to. Richard and Dominic, the serious ones, always looking smart and presentable (well, they are accountants, after all).

And last but not least, I can speak for the whole team that we are all going to miss Fred and Valentine, our dear friends and Kenyan guardian angels with their big smiles, always ready to show us the cool places in Nairobi, like go to see Kenyan football game (yes, it is football, not soccer!), visit local restaurants with lots of delicious goat meat or take us dancing. The two of them are the best example of how beautiful and welcoming Kenya is and why we all want to come back. But then again, I am fortunate enough to spend few more days with them on our Skate4Kenya trip.

I am going to miss much much more but there is nothing to regret, nothing to be sorry for and the only thing I can say is: Asante sana Kenya!

Last week in Nairobi!

2010-08-17T12:44:00.000-07:00

On the weekend the SE101 team travelled to the Masaai Mara for a two night safari. It was a very memorable trip from start to finish. The drive there was very bumpy to say the least. I was able to sleep for the first hour but after that the entire drive consisted of so many potholes that the road was not even visible! I think we were all very bruised by the end of it. That evening we went on a drive in the reserve and saw many animals. I was surprised that there were so many zebras and wildebeest! We were able to see a lioness and buffalo, which are two of the big five. I was looking forward to the next morning in hopes of seeing the remaining three (leopards, rhinos and elephants).

On Saturday we were in the reserve from 8am to 5pm and were able to see many more animals in their natural habitat. Having never been on a safari before, I was very excited to get the chance to see them in the wild as opposed to in the Greater Vancouver Zoo! My favourite part of the safari was seeing Simba (male lion)! I think the entire team knew that by the end of the day since it was all I could talk about. Our driver, Joseph, was amazing, although at times a little crazy with his driving. When we spotted rhinos, the only one of the big five Barry had yet to see, he drove off the path to get us closer! It was absolutely amazing and we were very grateful since none of the other drivers were willing to do the same.

In the evening we went to the Maasai Village. We were given a tour the village by the eldest son of the Chief. It was a very interesting experience, especially seeing the dance that some of the Maasai did for us. My favourite part was when one of the Maasai pushed Eon in to dance with them! The look on his face, while wearing a hat made of lion’s fur, was priceless (look for a youtube video of it coming soon brought to you by Jacky So). After that we were shown how to make a fire using two pieces of wood and Eric and Eon were given the chance to try to make

one on their own. Although it did not result in a fire, Eric did manage to burn one of the Maasai. After that we decided it would probably be better to leave the fire making to the experts.

By the end of the weekend we were able to see four of the big five. I was a little disappointed that I did not get to see a leopard, but seeing Simba numerous times definitely made up for it. Although I loved every moment of the weekend, I was glad to be back in Nairobi and looking forward to class on Monday.

Being the last week of class is bittersweet because I am so happy to see how far the students have come, but will be sad to see it end. Working with them for the last 12 days has been an experience I will never forget. Having had the opportunity to work closely with all of the students in our class, I have been able to see them develop their plans throughout the three weeks. I am excited for the next few days as Eon, Eric and I will be able to listen to them present their complete business plans. I can’t wait to see how far they have come since the first day of class!

This Is Africa

2010-08-16T13:03:00.000-07:00

TIA (“This is Africa”) is the phrase our team says to each other when we experience something unusual here contrary to North American culture. For instance, there are traffic lights in Nairobi but hardly anyone uses them. Instead there are lots of roundabouts at intersections and occasionally there is an official directing traffic but somehow drivers know where everyone is going. Initially when you experience traffic here it seems like the cars approaching from the side are going to crash into you but the driver stops just in time so their bumper is just a few inches away. TIA.

Just a few days ago we had to get out and push our car to get it going. Yesterday after our team dinner Valentine was driving out from the parking spot when we noticed that everyone around us outside was pointing and looking at the front wheel of the matatu as our car slowly petered out along the street. Luckily we were close to a gas station so we could stop and change the flat tire. In the time that we were standing outside while the left front tire was being changed, two KK Security vans pulled up on either side of us. None of us had called security to come, but we were fortunate to have them notice us as foreigners at night, and just their presence made everyone feel safer. TIA.

Yesterday’s class, led by Les, was a unique networking session with all three groups from the St. Aloysius site and ICC. At the start we played some icebreaker games and the human knot which took a lot of teamwork and communication to get our group untangled! The students were then led through a simple game where they could see who amongst our group could be their potential suppliers and buyers for their businesses. The next activity was a thought provoking exercise to encourage the students to discuss their fears of opening a business. Each person wrote down their fears on cue cards which were distributed after we broke up into three groups. As we talked about each problem and came up with solutions to mitigate their fears, I could tell how relieved each of them felt after realizing they all shared common fears. Not only today was it great to see the students help each other out, but even in class the sense of friendship and community is so strong. I particularly enjoy watching Daniel, who previously ran a barber shop, share his business experiences with Alan who also wants to open a barber shop.

Tonight we stayed in a hut before we went out on our Masaai Mara safari. Barry, Eric and I started playing soccer on the grass and soon a Masaai villager, Jackson, came to join us. He showed us his spear, lion tooth necklace and clubs – and the greatest part of this all – he let me throw his spear! Only Kenya... TIA!

Halftime

2010-08-12T07:58:00.000-07:00

This week, the SE101 program reached the halfway point, and looking back over the past few days of teaching, I am really starting to see the students developing their business plans, gaining more confidence, and refining their entrepreneurial thinking. It's exciting as an instructor to be able to work with such a group of ambitious businesspeople, and I find that it is not only the students who are gaining knowledge, but I too am learning so much about their lives here in Nairobi.

This afternoon, I was able to chat with a group of students after class, going through the day's lesson, sharing some jokes, and explaining cultural differences (they are still expecting me to ride a matatu during rush hour traffic in Nairobi--hmmm, we'll see about that...). I wanted to get their feedback about how the course is so far, to make sure that they were getting real value out of their time with us. What I was told was that our lessons presented exactly what they needed for their business ambitions-- it was clear, it was useful, and it was actually... quite fun! Getting feedback from the students, whether positive or not so positive, is an important part of our roles as SE101 instructors, and it seems, so far, so good!

The business plans are starting to materialize, and I can see that the students are really taking more time to seriously think through their finances and marketing strategies. I was so impressed to see one of the St. Aloysius students, Patrick, take the time to put some great details into the location of his proposed cyber-cafe. The map he drew described precisely where he wanted to open his business-- and he had researched and found every single residential flat around his desired location. He even took the time to draw in the bus stop just a block away that would bring people to the area and increase his cyber-cafe's foot traffic. Patrick's work was a nice reminder that these business plans are real, and that the students were really putting in the effort to make sure they materialize.

Aside from teaching though, my visit to Nairobi has been full of fun and interesting experiences. Besides being able to see the big sightseeing places like the totally amazing Rift Valley and Nairobi National Museum, I have really enjoyed all the simple things the city has to offer too. During our lunch break from class, I like to take a quick walk down a dusty dirt road to a fellow selling grilled corn/maize in a small stand made of corrugated sheet metal . When I first met him, he let out a huge smile and shook my hand tightly, while sitting on a massive mountain of corn husks. From then on, I creatively decided to call him the "Corn Guy." What I found especially cool was when I wanted to pay him for one of these grilled treats. I handed him 20Ksh, thinking this was the price, thanked him in my horribly broken Swahili, and started walking back. A moment later, I felt a tap on my shoulder and the Corn Guy chased me down to return to me 5Ksh change. I was so pleased to see this act of honesty, as he could have very easily taken the extra money from an naive customer like me! I know where I'm going for my lunch snack tomorrow...

The next half of our time in Nairobi is going to be great, and I am sure that the SE101 team is really looking forward to it.

Working for the Weekend!

2010-08-11T04:35:00.000-07:00

[Posted for Barry Le-Duc]

After the first week of teaching, we had a chance to leave the bustling city of Nairobi for a day trip to the Rift Valley, where the first breath of clear fresh air in a week was welcome. The whole team was joined by a few of our local friends: Jacintah, James, and Mickey. Our first stop, along with an overpriced souvenir shop, was to view and take pictures of the beautiful vistas of the Rift Valley which seemed to stretch on and on. Our group then hopped back onto our bus to a site where we were given a tour of an actual archeological dig. Our guide explained how the tools were created by prehistoric man and used to hunt, skin, and clean animals. It was fun to get a chance to create our own tools by flaking pieces of obsidian.

Later after some difficulty driving up a small, uneven and steep road, we went to a Kikuyu village where we waded and swam in a pool filled with natural hot spring waters said to have healing powers. I cut my foot on a rock, but at least it was in healing water. After all our exercise and a short prayer, we headed to an open cooking area where the aroma of grilling goat awaited us. The goat was slaughtered and skinned prior to our arrival but we could still take a look at the hide and some of us picked up the cooked goat head. We then shared in a feast of goat meat, organs, and sausage made with the goat’s intestines and stomach. Accompanying the goat we had mokimo, a maise and bean equivalent of mashed potatoes, and Miti Ni Dawa, a drink made from herbs, which translates to “tree medicine”. After our meal the Chief of our host tribe said some words of thanks, translated by Jacintah, to our team. This kind gesture was reciprocated by a speech from Nancy and a gift of a Sauder pen which was well received.

On our way home we drove past Lake Elementaita where we saw some flamingos and other large birds. I was also told that electricity in the area was generated by geothermal turbines powered by the same source of underground heat supplying the hot springs that we swam in earlier. Just before we parted with the Chief and other members of the Kikuyu tribe, we drove past some very cute children all asking “How are you?” Jackie was able to give one child my last pack of cookies and our team pleaded for him to “Share, Share!” It was a bit awkward to find out that we were on the wrong path and slowly turned around and started to head back into the crowd of children, but it was great to get an encore of them. We were all beat from a long day but happy for these unforgettable experiences.

Knowledge Is Power

2010-08-08T08:35:00.000-07:00

After our first week of classes, I’ve begun to realize the addictive qualities of teaching. Day by day, I catch more and more glimpses of understanding and excitement in the eyes of our students, and I’m craving more!

As we reviewed the week’s worth of material on Friday at the ICC location, I realized that despite the rocky start with late registrants and the missing day due to the vote for Kenya’s new constitution, the students were getting it! They were head-nodding instead of sleepy head-bobbing, and calling out answers instead of staring at us wordlessly.

Mid-afternoon when their eyes do start to glaze over and I can sense restlessness under the tent that serves as our classroom, I know it’s time to play a game. I can count on Sam, a young kid with aspirations to be a personal image consultant, to teach us a new game, make us laugh, and energize us for the last stretch of lesson. Sam is a natural leader, exceptionally positive and keen, as evidenced by the amount of effort and consideration he put into perfecting his marketing research survey.

It’s enthusiasm like Sam’s that initially sparked my addiction to teaching SE101, but it’s their appreciation that has fueled it through the first week. It’s a brilliant feeling when a student thanks us at the end of the day and tells us that they’ve learned so much already. One student in particular, Absalom, already owns a real estate software company but now has an innovative idea for a new social business. He told me he thought he had almost everything ready to approach lenders, but after just one class, he realized he needed much more. Many would be discouraged by this, but Absalom is eager to succeed and ready to put everything he has into this business that could make a significant difference in the lives of residents in Nairobi’s slums. As he simply and inspiringly says, “knowledge is power.”

I can’t wait for Monday’s class!

Class party!

2010-08-04T13:20:00.001-07:00

The first week of teaching just ended, and we are already at a third of the way through our training program for 2010. Therefore, what better way to crystallize the week's learnings than a party?!

We are running two classes at St. Aloysius this year, based on the students' experience at running businesses. At Martina's suggestion, Lisa, Rimple, Eon, Barry and I brought both groups together for a few hours Friday afternoon. Under the guise of discussing naming and logo of their companies in prevision of the next week's marketing session, we have had the students pitch their business idea in front of 25 of their fellows.

After a week of class, the students are getting more comfortable at discussing their ideas in small groups as well as in front of the class. The joint session was therefore also an opportunity to get them out of the comfort zone again. Also, a study of entrepreneurship wouldn't be the same without elevator pitches! (though I'm not sure the metaphor is quite as effective at St. Aloysius...)

In contrast, it was good to take some time aside from the curriculum and encourage students to let their creativity flow, by having them brainstorm company names and mottos and collaborate on their business plans.

Finally, the joint session was a good opportunity for networking. As we are looking at increasing the post-program support we provide to our entrepreneurs, creating a sense of community within trainees is essential.

The seminar was a great success! Overall, students have made tremendous progress in only a week. Of course, there is plenty of work to be done, but today's seminar shows that they are not alone on the sometimes bumpy road to success.

First Day of Class

2010-08-04T12:31:00.000-07:00

[Posted for Jacky So]

Today (August 2) was our first day teaching at ICC with Les, Kathy, and myself. Overall, it was a wonderful experience because of an opportunity to meet bright and talented young entrepreneurs. One of the participants had an amazing idea that he shared with me over lunch. The story was about his passion for baking, be it lava cake, black forest cake, or any cake, he was all about cakes. As we discussed his experience, he told me that his close friends would always invite him over to make cakes. He also does jobs on the side through word of mouth for occasions that would require baking. His location for his baking/catering shop was an ideal location as he explained. The only cake shop around his area has moved away since their building has been demolished.

Closer to the end of the workshop, It was amazing to have him speak in front of the group and have the group provide constructive feedback. As he sat down, I saw the grin on his face from behind. This had a great effect on me to know that he appreciated the whole classes support. He knows that his plan requires additional thought but through the collective feedback process, he might have a chance to make his idea a success. As I saw him get up at the beginning, nervous, and when he got back down after the positive feedback with his arms spread out and relaxed, I felt this was a great start to a memorable first day of teaching. I wonder what tomorrow shall entail.

Kenya 2010 and the Road Ahead

2010-07-31T14:10:00.001-07:00

Over the next month and a half I'll be traveling (have been traveling) to Kenya to help coordinate and teach the Sauder School of Business Africa Initiative:Social Entrepreneurship 101. As I have mentioned before, this program is about teaching business planning and entrepreneurship to Kenyan youth. We work primarily out of Nairobi and have a focus on Kibera, one of the largest slums in Africa.

While last year I was simply (though not so simple, ha) teaching at one of our partner sites, this is my sophomore year and I have been promoted to act as a team coordinator. What does that mean? Well, hopefully growth. In the past, only Kirby Leong has returned as an alum to help coordinate (and he has again for a 3rd year!). Adding another coordinator means we can get more done from a networking and administrative perspective over the next few weeks to help move our program goals along and develop a more stable post program for our students and their success.

While we are very luck to have fantastic partners in the Strathmore University students here in Nairobi helping us co-teach and mentor, once we have left, it's clear that many of our SE101 students have limited capacity to continue without stronger mentorship and research resources. Our Strathmore students are just that, students, much like I was when I first participated in SE101 (though I was an MBA and they are undergraduates as well). Their lives are busy with school and work and the demands of being a Kenyan, which for all intents and purposes, I feel, is considerably more demanding than being a student in Canada. Moreover, without a dedicated location for SE101 students to visit and a dedicated individual(s) coordinating volunteers, their meetings are sporadic, making it difficult to address the needs of a start-up (and most typically, first-time) entrepreneur. Additionally, the research costs of starting a business for our students can be considerable. Given the economic welfare of the average Kenyan (and even more challenging, one from Kibera), doing the market research; securing access to the internet for research, email and word processing; and producing a printed finalized plan can be a considerable challenge, stretching their planning over a time horizon that crushes their motivation and hope.

The road ahead for the Sauder Africa Initiative, in my opinion, really needs to be two specific steps:

Look to establish specific revenue streams to support our goals
Establish a more permanent and dedicated resource center for both out volunteers and students

Ultimately, those will be the two focal points of my time here in Kenya for 2010. While I will also be in the classroom and supporting our incoming student learning. We have a full crop of freshman Sauder SE101 teachers who are more than capable of delivering our curriculum and helping stoke the entrepreneurial fires of this years Kenyan participants with the amazing curriculum our past teams have helped to create.

Please follow along by checking out our facebook, twitter, youtube and blog over the weeks to come. And please remember, we might be in Kenya now, but it is never to late to contribute and be a part of our success. Donations (cash and in-kind) are always welcome and tax deductible.

Thomas and us

2010-07-02T20:32:00.000-07:00

I met one amazing kid the other week. His name is Thomas and he is 6. He came to our SE101 meeting to teach us Swahili and I officially declare that I met at least the future BC Premiere. I am not going to exaggerate if I say that the whole team was impressed with the confidence and yes, cuteness of this little fellow.
He even prepared handouts for us, painted in beautiful bright colours. The handouts were not only a teaching tool but also a fundraising one. He and his Mum print the picture on T-shirts to help us fundraise money for our Se101 Africa Initiative. Last year Thomas fundraised $250 for the project.

His passion, courage and confidence make me wonder. At which age do we lose this freedom of being sure that we can achieve anything and the ability to exactly express what we think? How many children as Thomas are in Africa but have no possibility to develop their skills as Thomas does because they have no access to education? Seeing this confident child, singing the official anthem of the 2010 FIFA World Cup was certainly a highlight of my day. And it gently reminded all of us that our Se101 Africa Initiative, no matter how demanding and difficult it is at times, is certainly worth it.

6 Year Old Joins Sauder School of Business Faculty (Sort Of)

2010-06-10T21:36:00.000-07:00

Thomas was thrilled to be invited back to teach Swahili to this year's SE101 team at the Sauder School of Business. He became involved with fundraising last year, and has continued to be interested in Africa and in helping to create more jobs for Kenyan youth. This year, in addition to teaching, he has decided to fundraise for the SE101 team by selling artwork and t-shirts with his own designs, inspired by the work of Ted Harrison. Thomas is very excited to be going to Victoria on July 3rd to meet Ted Harrison in person to talk about art and SE101.

His art skills developed from a class project at Capilano Elementary School, an International Baccalaureate Primary Years Programme candidate school in North Vancouver.

You can see him wearing one of his custom t-shirts in this video. We're working on production plans for the shirts, and will post information about how to buy one on the blog soon.

How Web 2.0 Keeps Us in the Know

2010-05-06T18:44:00.000-07:00

In a previous post we discussed how SE101 uses Web 2.0 (and most specifically Social Media) to drive awareness, engage our network and grow our community. In this post, we briefly want to let you know about one of the ways we use Web 2.0 and Social Media to keep us at the leading edge of information on Social Entrepreneurship and grow our network among the leading SE people and organizations.

Most people will be familiar with facebook (check out our page!) and how that works as a social device, i.e. you add your network, they add you and then you share your posts, pictures, movies, updates and etc. with you network getting general updates on their 'news feed' (whenever you do something) and specific updates in their notifications (whenever you do something that mentions/involves them). What this requires is the voluntary connection (your network) in the facebook ecosystem.

Twitter (please check us out here as well!) on the other hand allows you to 'follow' and be 'followed' in an effort to create and engage your network - think of twitter networking just like a cocktail party, everyone is there, and you can eavesdrop on public conversations, or you can engage and have conversation with people you want to network with. In twitter, like facebook, you can still post links and pictures etc. but twitter is much less of a 'restricted' social platform or self-selecting social network than facebook. The contrast can be boiled down to the difference between a social club and a community centre - facebook is built more exclusive, you need to be a member and people need to let you in their club.

What's beautiful about twitter (similar to the facebook news feed) is that in this ecosystem, not only are publicly posted tweets there for you to browse (following or not), but many tweeps add a "hashtag" to their posts so that other tweeps can follow a topic or trend.

All of the latest information (including links to images, video, articles and etc.) that tweeps post can be aggregated and searched by these hashtags and trends nicely for review - without having to dig into twitter, searching and following. For us here at SE101, this means we can follow the hashtag #SocEnt (Social Entrepreneurship) for example and see everyone posting with the hashtag (we also really like #NonProfit and #WEP - World Economic Forum).

Through the magic of Web 2.0 (if you really want to know how it works watch this video), innovative coding allows us to take these hashtags and trends to an all new level and a daily 'newspaper' can be created to give us the previous days most notable tweets. Paper.li has launched a service that allows you to create your own special interest newspaper, or, like us, allows you to follow topics and trends that are important to you in a nice, easy to read package instead of a mess of linear, historically listed 140 character posts.

Here are a couple papers we like:

#SocEnt http://paper.li/tag/socent
#WEF http://paper.li/davos
#NonProfit http://paper.li/tag/nonprofit

While these newspapers are informative (and they are!) they still do not replace live participation in the ecosystems that are the Social Media Cocktail Party. Please, check us out on Facebook and Twitter - like us, follow us, share our posts, retweet our tweets - with your help, we can continue to grow our community and provide our course to Kenyan Youth!

Why I've committed my summer to SE101

2010-04-08T19:12:00.000-07:00

When I was in my third year, I encountered an email outlining the details of a great opportunity. Interested in an opportunity to travel half way around the world to Africa and use your skills to teach others in need of business plan development? I was hesitant to answer this question because I had many excuses. I did not have enough time for this. I do not think this is right for me. I do not want to spend my summer away from home. These hesitant thoughts deleted the message neglecting a great opportunity.

Upon revisiting the website, I learned that wonderful things were done upon such a brief period of time. Smiles were everywhere as I saw the SE101 2009 team dedicating their time to help others. Judging from the smiles from all the photos, the participants were indeed forever indebted and grateful for their presence. Also, the participants in this program gave rave reviews about how they learned so much from their teachers from afar. I saw the African students along with our students hand in hand having the time of their lives. These smiles had an impression on me that I too can make a difference. The smiles from the participants who just barely know you, so real, in a capsulated moment in time really drew me back to this program. I wanted to make a difference. I did not want to leave the Sauder School of Business with only an education, but I wanted to leave a mark, to help others who did not have an opportunity as I did. That is why I chose to dedicate my time to this program.

Now in my fourth year, once again the SE101 email came. This time, I did not let this opportunity get away.

The Importance of Fundraising

2010-04-08T18:56:00.000-07:00

SE 101 is a non profit organization that is committed to seeing entrepreneurs have the right skills and tools to develop their own businesses. Fundraising is a key part of SE 101 because it provides funds to buy supplies and materials, team costs, facility rentals in Kenya and micro-financing. The 2010 team is responsible for raising over $25,000. Fundraising not only allows the team to obtain the funds necessary to carry out this project, it also provides important leadership and character development as well as allowing students to take ownership of the project.

This is an excellent way for students to engage both their networks and the community around them to get involved in an exciting and life changing project. To donate please visit SE 101 and all donations over $25 receive a tax receipt from UBC. To learn more about the project and other ways you can support it please visit our facebook page.

Below is a list of ways that donations are used:

$25- Sponsors resource and homework booklets for one participant. These materials, developed by the SE101 team under the supervision of a Sauder School of Business faculty member, are highly valued by participants for their ease of use, local relevance and practical guidance.

$50-Sponsors one week of nutrition breaks at one SE101 location

$150-Sponsors one participant for the three-week program. This support allows us to continue to provide the course at no cost to the participants.

$500-Provides start-up funds for one young entrepreneur to launch their small business. These funds are made available after the participants have received individual feedback and their business plans have been reviewed and approved by the SE101 team.

$750-Sponsors the purchase of a tent for one location. Classes in some locations are taught outdoors, and shelter facilities are needed to protect against variable weather conditions.

$1,000-Provides for the stipends for students from Strathmore University (Nairobi) to teach with us and help mentor the participants

$2,000-Provides post-program support for the participants in SE101. This support ensures that the momentum built during the program is maintained, and that business plans are turned into realized actions.

$5,000-Sponsors an entire classroom (30-35 participants). This includes facilities, nutrition breaks, guest speakers and materials.

International seeds versus Kenyan 'ownership': How best to manage the chicken and the egg?

2010-01-10T03:16:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!

In our recent meeting with the Aga Khan Foundation, a question was raised about the effectiveness of external organizations planting seeds for change in Africa without domestic 'ownership' (read: financial endowment and input into operations) of the initiative.

SE101 has taken the approach to initiate our project on a grassroots level, providing the structure, allowing for our students to take ownership of their business learning and planning and to create a network amongst our past participants as our program grows along their business needs. We are primarily funded by independent North American philanthropy and have not made the choice to secure domestic Kenyan sponsorship yet.

While the argument for domestic vested interest is valid and important to long term success, the issue is more over the foundation and gestation of the initiative. Which comes first and which will result in the most durable and successful initiative? Is it more important that the participants feel ownership or sponsors? Should it be built with integrative channels for domestic sponsors to 'make it their own' along the way or should you be working to involve these domestic players from the outset?

Your insight, reference to relevant sources on the topic and opinions would be appreciated! Please feel free to reply with a comment here, on our facebook page, or on twitter @SE101Africa.

Web2.0 and SE101: Is there anybody out there?

2009-11-12T11:25:00.000-08:00

After completing the SE101 project on the ground in Kenya, I packed my bags to go on exchange at the Copenhagen Business School (CBS) and finish my Sauder MBA requirements abroad. I felt like this was a great opportunity to further expand on my International Business acumen and broaden my experience as a whole. I planned on taking a few courses in Social Entrepreneurship (SE) and Sustainability at CBS and the timing coming from Kenya to the classroom could not have been better. The CBS SE course offered a dynamic look at how Web2.0 (Social Media and User-driven content platforms like facebook, twitter etc.) is being used by Social Entrepreneurs to generate not only interest and support, but also Social Innovation.

Reflecting on what organizations like MYC4, and Kiva are doing with Web2.0, I started to see a need to integrate more social media into the SE101 strategy. While MYC4 and Kiva allow users to actively engage in (near) direct lending to those in need, this has a limited impact on capacity building. Their model is effective for generating funds because of the nature of their social media use - providing those-in-need place to connect with those-with-funds and vice-versa. Nevertheless, their overall use of Web2.0 is rather static, providing a means for information dissemination not idea generation or knowledge transfer. Since SE101 is not a financier (at this point), this model connecting 'investors' directly with our students is not useful. However, in our effort to build capacity on the ground, we do need to raise funds to deliver our program - in effect we need to be connected to donors and sponsors in the same way these other platforms connect those-in-need to those-with-funds. The difference between our models creates a question of impact: Will an exchange of funds alone successfully grow the recipient's business and drive durability or would on capacity building be a more effective stabilizer in the long term?

I'm not sure anyone has the answer to this question. What I can say is, after spending time in Kenya on SE101 and looking into the primarily negative return on investment (ROI) for the social media based funding platforms, I feel capacity building is the better way to equip those in need. By teaching our students the business skills needed to actively research, estimate, project, and plan their ventures, we are creating real value and equipping them with the skills that not only benefit the actual entrepreneurs of our class, but challenging those that are not the entrepreneurial type. Moreover, while in the classroom, we are creating a diverse and dynamic network of individuals with ideas and drive and connecting them to their future employees, service providers and customers - real social networking.

I believe there can be a better use of Web2.0 resources from existing organizations. What might this look like? Well, Kirby, an SE101 Project Coordinator and Content Strategist for the Business Objects Community on the SAP Community Network, has been developing an online community for our students and student teachers to collaborate and communicate in a similar way to Facebook. This means SE101 can offer our students online post-program support and real time access to Sauder business school students and their knowledge. This is capacity building and what I see as the future benefit of Web2.0 in social development.

Social Media in many ways rests on the laurels of Crowdsourcing, essentially outsourcing tasks to a community and leveraging mass collaboration to reach an ideal result - think monkeys typing on typewriters. While SE101 is developing the typewriter to integrate its Kenyan and UBC students, we also need to inform the public about what we are doing (static) and engage our potential donor networks (dynamic) to help fund our efforts. This is where SE101's integrated use of blogging, Facebook, and Twitter come in. We hope that by using social media we can enhance our venture, engage our stakeholders and generate more significant donations. Only time will tell if using these channels will be more or less effective than traditional fund raising efforts. Ideally, if we could exceed our annual 'project' need and start generating greater income from donors, this would ultimately provide us with a greater ability to create long term ROI in the form of successful, sustainable development in Kenya. Until then, we hope we can at least use these channels to further document and legitimize our existing successful efforts and future goals.

Please feel free to engage SE101 through any of our available Web2.0 channels (blogging, Facebook, and Twitter) or by email, telephone, telegraph, snail mail or carrier pigeon. The point being, we want you to engage us, we have a lot of incredible stories to share with you and we want to show you how your support will make a lasting difference.

Part 3 - The Way Forward

2009-11-10T08:53:00.000-08:00

In part 1 and part 2 of a 3-part blog about Social Entrepreneurship 101: 2009, I discussed the program details and micro-finance options. In this final part of the blog, I share with you the 5-year plan for the SE 101 program.

After four years, while we have a comprehensive and well-tested curriculum for teaching how to write a business plan, we realize that SE 101 could not JUST be about UBC students travelling to Kenya or other African country to co-teach business planning. It is important to have a sustainable and scalable program.

In lengthy discussions with our local business partners and associates, we mapped out a 5-year vision to establish an (youth) entrepreneurship center, jointly supported by the Sauder School of Business and a Kenyan educational institution. The center would have the mandate of teaching youth how to write business plans, providing access to loans at reasonable interest rates, incubating and supporting businesses, conducting research, and providing for-fee consulting and executive education services (to sustain the center’s operations). The Sauder School of Business will take part in student and faculty exchanges, but the majority of the operations will lead by local partners.

In the more immediate future, we will be dividing the program into pre-core, core, and post-core segments. The pre-core program will help interested program participants develop their ideas, gain experience running a business, and learn basic business skills. The core program will continue to teach business planning but will focus on those participants who have had some demonstrated entrepreneurial experience. Clearly, not everyone can or should be an entrepreneur and therefore we must focus our efforts on those individuals who have the highest chance of success. By training and supporting these individuals who have shown a passion and talent for entrepreneurship, we aim to launch businesses that can provide jobs to other community members. Finally, the post-core program will teach intermediate and advanced business skills training. Throughout all the programs, SE 101 will bring in mentors and advisors from the local business community to provide guidance to current and past program participants. In fact, the first post-core program is currently running at our sites, run by our local coordinator, Barlet Jaji.

We have big plans for the SE 101 program, with many details to be worked out, tasks to be completed, and people to speak to, but we are truly excited about the opportunity to have a positive, sustainable impact on (youth) unemployment in Kenya. I will continue to provide updates on our progress and welcome any feedback or suggestions for what we can do to make this vision come to fruition.

Part 2 - Micro-Finance
Part 1 - What a Difference a Year Makes

Part 2 - Micro-Finance

2009-11-02T23:16:00.000-08:00

Continuing from Social Entrepreneurship 101 - 2009, Part 1, Professor Nancy Langton and I met with a number of micro-finance institutions and banks in Nairobi, Kenya over the summer.

Group Lending Model

I learned more about the group-lending circle model in which up to 20 members guarantees the loans to individuals in the group. Each member takes turns borrowing money and once he/she pays back the money, another member is able to borrow money. If one member defaults on the loan, no other loans are disbursed until the outstanding loan is repaid. In the end, this model helps to build a credit history for each participant and reduces the need for collateral in that some MFIs perform spot checks of small business assets. For the first loan, the group must pool their savings to cover 100% of the loan, which can be a maximum of 20,000 KSH or about $260 US. Furthermore, all loan recipients must take a 3-day training program on leadership, loan management, recordkeeping, group dynamics, marketing, and business fundamentals. Even more important than basic business training to demonstrate credit-worthiness is actual experience running a business. For those without demonstrated entrepreneurial experience, they must start up and run a micro-business for up to six months before they can qualify for loans. If they eventually qualify for a business loan and their business fails, at least they will have the micro-business to fall back on. Once all the pre-requisites have been met, loan proceeds are typically distributed in 4 weeks. Thereafter, MFI representatives try to meet with loan groups on a weekly or bi-weekly basis but the sheer number of groups makes regular monitoring difficult.

Another Funding Model

Even with these methods to reduce credit risks, loan interest rates can climb close to a crippling 30% and likely contributes to the near 30% default rate (the economic downturn has also played a large role). We spent hours ruminating the possibilities between ourselves and with our Kenyan business associates about other ways to reduce risk, and therefore, provide loans @ lower interest rates to SE 101 participants with viable business plans. One model is a shared ¼, ¼, ¼ model where a local partner (such as a church or school), MFI, and the Sauder School of Business could each deposit a fixed sum of money (for example, $1,000) as security deposits for the loans. The remaining ¼ of the loan would need to be covered by the qualified borrower. We pitched this option to a few MFIs and while in principle they support the idea, we are still awaiting word from the respective decision-makers.

A potential drawback of this model is that those entrepreneurs who are not affiliated with one of our partners could be tasked with raising 1/2 or more of the loan as collateral. A key part of the risk reduction is a community group vouching for the character of the applicant. In rural areas there are a strong community bonds, but in the urban areas we need to find a surrogate community support system for a changing population.

Another way to help reduce loan risk is to help MFIs and banks train their staff in business planning, in order to help them properly evaluate the plans submitted by their clients. Furthermore, we could help them learn how to properly monitor and evaluate a business, to deal with issues early on before they threaten the viability of the business. Currently, many financial institutions simply lack the in-house knowledge and training. Many small business clients are evaluated based on "presence of simple assets", with monitoring sporadic at best. We could collaborate with the financial institutions to identify effective ways to monitor businesses effectively, given the limited resources. In return, not only could SE 101 clients be given lower interest rate loans, but also non-SE 101 clients.

A question to our readers: What other ways are there to reduce loan risk in urban areas of developing countries?

5-year Plan

We spent considerable time in Kenya developing the major parts of the 5-year plan. I’ll describe the plan in my next blog.

Part 1 - What a Difference a Year Makes

2009-10-25T12:20:00.000-07:00

Youth unemployment is a significant problem in Kenya, where almost 60% of the population is under the age of 35. The country’s GDP per capita is US $375. Kenya’s economy is currently dependent on agriculture, but youth are moving to urban areas in large numbers. Therefore most new entrants to the labor force must choose between working in small-scale enterprises and being self-employed. These factors have led to high levels of youth unemployment. It is estimated that 64% of unemployed people in Kenya are youth.

An effective way of addressing the challenge of unemployed youth is to help them develop their skills in entrepreneurship and small business development. Business literacy helps young people to envision ways of getting out of poverty and doing something to help themselves and their communities, and eventually ensuring sustainable economic self-reliance. Furthermore, the language of business is universal and a tool for communicating and exchanging both products and ideas. It opens people to the world of markets, and promotes exchange and interaction.

Social Entrepreneurship 101: Africa

The Sauder School of Business, through a student initiative, designed the Social Entrepreneurship 101: Africa (SE 101: Africa) program to help Kenyan youth develop small businesses. Based on a program designed by Sauder faculty, and piloted with residents in the downtown eastside of Vancouver (the poorest neighborhood in Canada), SE 101: Africa was first delivered in August 2006 to Kenyan youth. The project helped Sauder faculty and students understand how to effectively exchange knowledge and ideas across cultural borders. Through extensive research and support from the Sauder community, the students involved in SE: 101 Africa designed the course to be practical, applicable, and sustainable in the local context.

How I Became Involved

It was in 2008, while I was in my MBA program at the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia (UBC), that I became involved in the Social Entrepreneurship 101 (SE 101): Africa program in Kenya. I wrote a series of blogs about my experiences teaching a three-week business planning class to a group of 35 aspiring youth entrepreneurs in Nairobi, Kenya. In re-reading the blogs, I more fully appreciate how far the program has come along. Indeed, what a difference a year makes.

What a Difference a Year Makes

Upon returning to Vancouver, Canada last year, Professor Nancy Langton and I met with the Dean to discuss the program achievements. While he was pleased with the progress, he wanted to see an expanded three to five year business plan for the program (now that the program had been running for three years) before giving the go-ahead for the 2009 program. We then spent the next few months developing the SE 101 business plan, and presented it to the Dean in December. He liked what he saw in the business plan and consequently allowed us to proceed with the 2009 program.

Professor Langton and I started recruiting the 2009 Sauder team in January and eventually selected a team of 5 undergraduate and 5 MBA students. Starting in February and continuing to July, the team developed and executed fundraising business plans, reviewed, refined, and taught the curriculum, and presented topics about Kenya. Fundraising is always a challenge, and more so this year given the economic downturn but with some creativity and perseverance, the team managed to meet its goal. In late July, we arrived in Nairobi en masse with a mixture of giddish anticipation, trepidation, and clarity of purpose. The first weekend was spent finalizing arrangements and meeting the Strathmore University students who were co-teaching the program at three locations: Kibera (the largest slum in East Africa), Friend’s Church (just outside Kibera), and International Christian Center (also in Nairobi).

Social Entrepreneurship 101: Africa, 2009 Program

I spent the first few days at different sites to help ensure the program got off to a good start, and while there were some issues with the resource materials and logistics, the UBC and Strathmore University student instructors ramped up remarkably well and quickly. I was impressed by their enthusiasm, breadth and depth of knowledge, and creativity in delivering the curriculum to over 80 student participants. Judging from the participant feedback we received at the end of the program, I was not alone in my assessment.

While the team was teaching the business-planning program, Professor Langton and I met with a number of micro-finance institutions and banks, during which we received a crash course about micro-finance. More about what we learned in my next blog.

SE101-2009: Kenya--Memories

2009-10-11T00:33:00.000-07:00

A look back at some of the highlights of the trip to Kenya, with song and photos. Nyambura Gichuki is singing with some of her fellow students from the ICC site. Mike Rimoin, one of the UBC team members, accompanies on ukulele.

You want the good news or the bad news first?

2009-09-27T17:43:00.000-07:00

As the only SE 101 participant to not receive their luggage in Kenya, I think I have a unique point of view from which to tell my story. I have yet to receive my bag from KLM or any sort of compensation.

Being in Nairobi for 3 weeks with little more than the clothes on my back, put a definite twist on the trip. I was able to find the things I needed and my fellow SE 101 girls (and oddly the guys too!) were all more than willing to share their stuff with me. Also, I can confirm that the once locally “famous” Woolworths and Bata are still going strong in Kenya!

This added challenge certainly put things into perspective for me. I felt as though being in Nairobi and being a part of SE 101 forced me to let go of the reliance I had on those items in my luggage. After all, they were just “things” and many of our SE 101 students had never seen such “things” in their lifetime. I had so much to be thankful for… I was in Kenya, with an awesome team of friends, with a mission to educate and mentor. And I had my health… or did I?

The second twist was a weeklong run in with Salmonella. NOTE to self and reader: Never eat garlic cheese bread in Africa! This was the most debilitated and humiliated I had ever known myself to be. But I was NOT going to let it ruin my chance to go on safari! Again, NOTE to self and reader: Do NOT go on safari with salmonella! Enough said.

Being back in Vancouver has allowed for many chances to reflect with friends and with myself. Many ask about my trip and it’s so hard to keep their attention beyond the lost luggage and salmonella. But after you get past those events, you’ll see that I truly had a profound experience – not all of it was good, but when is it ever ALL good?

I had my doubts about what role we were playing. I had become so close to many of our students and I was afraid of letting them down. It is quite overwhelming when these “kids” share their hopes and aspirations with you. Few had misconceptions of aid work and thought we would be funding their business plans. Even though we told them from the very first day that we were “educators and not lenders”, it was tough to see the disappointment in their faces. However, the greatest experience was witnessing the growth in each student over the three weeks. Hopefully the student realized the value in this growth - even if it was not monetary.

I feel so privileged and grateful to have been a part of their growth, as both an educator and as a friend.

Hello from Copenhagen

2009-09-27T06:14:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone!

It’s been a little over a month since we left Kenya, and I have been reflecting a lot on our experiences there. I miss the friends I made there and hope to get to see them again someday. Shifting from Nairobi to Copenhagen was a pretty heavy culture shock. I found myself getting strange looks when I would run across the wide boulevards here, as though I’d never seen a crosswalk! Also it took a while before I stopped addressing everyone on the street with “Jambo”!

One experience that I have been reflecting on is trying to help our drivers and students, the Mouti brothers, find a technological solution to the devastating energy shortages that were threatening to destroy their cyber-café and cell phone businesses in Kibera. The severe droughts that Kenya was experiencing during our stay there not only resulted in regional water shortages and crop failures, they also strained Kenya’s hydroelectricity production. While the downtown region had electricity 24/7, the outlying regions including Kibera were faced with scheduled blackouts three days a week from 6am to 6pm, which doomed any business that relied on electricity to function (cell phone charging, cyber cafes, barber shops, some restaurants, even the local movie theater). We worked with our amazing, charismatic and very fun drivers and students, Fred and Peter Mouti, to figure out how they might be able to purchase a battery charger/power inverter to allow them to charge batteries at night and allow their businesses to operate during the day. Our discussions brought to light a wide range of opportunities and challenges relating to energy in Kibera. If the Mouti brothers could get a loan to install the system, they might eventually have the opportunity to sell electricity to their neighboring businesses, to charge batteries for local homes (apparently many homes in Kibera use car batteries for lighting and even TV), to provide battery charging or jump-starting services for the local mechanics, and to apply for a government grant to install solar panels. On the other hand, investing in this equipment and operating when others couldn’t brought the risk of theft, retribution from competing businesses, and the possibility of having to pay bribe money or get shut down by local authorities.

Since we’ve left, I’ve learned that the power is back up and running around Kibera, but if the situation changes, I’m glad that the Mouti brothers have a backup plan in their pocket- especially since cyber cafés and cell phone shops provide a very necessary service in the community: connecting people to information and to each other.

Working with the Mouti brothers has inspired me to learn more about energy systems in the developing world, and I am excited to have the opportunity to travel to Cairo next month to volunteer for the non-profit group Solar C3.I.T.I.E.S: "Connecting Community Catalysts Integrating Technologies for Industrial Ecology Systems." I will be helping this amazing group build solar water heaters, biogas digesters, and water filtration systems in Cairo's Zabbalen "Garbage City".

Here at Copenhagen Business School I am currently taking classing relating to social entrepreneurship and business strategies in the developing world. Being able to draw on my experiences with SE101 has made my learning experience here much more rich and relevant. I have had a lot of classmates from universities and business schools around the world ask me how they can get involved in programs similar to SE101. If anyone reading this has suggestions for them, please let me know!

Are we so different?

2009-09-11T11:47:00.000-07:00

After a one year hiatus from teaching, I was at it again, this time in Kenya. Prior to beginning the MBA I was a secondary school teacher. I chose to leave teaching, not because I didn’t enjoy it, but because I wanted to do more. I wanted to have a broader reach beyond the classroom and implement positive change in our world. I feel that the SE101 experience has signaled the start of that challenge for me.

On the first day of class, I was amazed how much it felt like the beginning of a new school year at home. I think this is because people have the same basic wants, desires and dreams and that spans across cultures. The students were eager to meet us and to learn new concepts. They were motivated to improve and better themselves and their community. They have a desire to succeed and recognize the need for education and effective tools to meets their goals. These motivations are not unique to slums in Africa.

Halfway through the trip, Nancy asked if I was experiencing culture shock. I thought about it, and responded, “no, I don’t think so, but I think I will when I return home”. This was partially true. I actually began to feel the culture shock in the days before I left. I began to really conceptualize many of the differences between the students and their lives in Kibera, and my life, as I know it in Canada. It is true we have the same desires to learn, provide for our families, and to achieve success in life. The difference is how do we define it and how do we achieve it?

In Kibera there is tremendous opportunity for improvement and what we consider to be very little in Canada has the opportunity to go a long way in Kenya. But it is not as easy as just providing the capital or the resources to implement change. This type of aid has proven largely unsuccessful in Africa over many decades. The people who are going to change the slums are the people who live in the slums. It was Barlet, the director of the St. Aloysius School and a profoundly dedicated and inspiring community leader, who said to me one day, “It is not you or I that will change Kibera and make it a better place. It is these students. They live in the community, it is their life and they are the ones that will change it.”

The value of the SE101 program is that it provides the education and the tools to facilitate the participants to achieving their own goals. I saw first hand the power of education to provide not only the tools, but also the confidence to utilize their knowledge to pursue their goals. Their success is ultimately their own responsibility and within their hands. But we have the opportunity through programs like SE101 to support, educate and facilitate participants to achieve their own their successes. And in helping others find success’s I too have begun to find the success I’m looking for.

Thank you to the wonderful team of instructors at St.Al’s. Brian, Marvin, Jason, Nadia, Mike and Christy for your commitment and passion to deliver the best program possible and to share your own education with others. It was a joy to work with you.

Thanks to the participants at St. Aloysius School for inviting us into your community, sharing your dreams and aspirations and allowing us to learn together with you.

Thank you to Nancy for the support on the ground and of course providing such an amazing and inspiring opportunity for us at Sauder. I look forward to seeing many great successes from SE101 as the program moves forward.

And…. Special thanks to Barlet Jaji, for sharing your passion and tireless commitment to youth and community development. You are an inspiration.

Broilers or Layers?

2009-09-09T18:39:00.000-07:00

One of the greatest parts of living and working in Kenya is that no two days are ever alike, and no two conversations are ever alike. Every time you think that you have established a daily routine, Kenyans are quick to throw you a curveball. This makes even the simplest activity, such as going grocery shopping, a challenging and fun experience. There are times when going to pick up a jug of milk becomes a full day activity!

The classroom where I worked was no different. I was working at the Friend’s Church site along with Sarah and Amanda. We had the privilege of working with 3 outstanding Strathmore students, Boniface, Sam and Steve. They had worked with SE101 before, and really helped us along in the moments of pure panic when you realize that you have to teach a class of 30 bright students about the creation of cash flow statements!

One of my favorite conversations I remember having with the class happened when I was facilitating a presentation by one of the students. The student was planning on setting up a small shop to sell chickens, and I figured that this would be a very simple example to present to the class. Everything was going well, until one of the students at the back said “broilers or layers?” This led to a spirited discussion that lasted more than an hour as I learned a little bit more about the distinguishing factors between broiling chickens and laying chickens. For example, you would never broil a laying chicken, because the meat wouldn’t taste good. Also, they mature at different ages, and in order to run a successful business you would need to stagger when you buy your chicks in order to ensure an adequate supply of both.

I never would have thought that a chicken business would be that complicated!

That was just one of the many examples of why my time in Kenya was so great. The people that we got to interact with, and the experiences that we had, will stay with me for a long time.

2009-09-09T00:04:00.000-07:00

I still remember Patrick's words as he spoke loud and clearly on the podium during the graduation day. "I have a dream that in 10 years' time Kibera will see no trace of poverty. It will stand for prosperity, happiness, and orderliness. God has a place for me here and I will do as he guides me....." The moment he said these words I knew it was not just some random words he scribbled on paper last minute for the sake of presentation. I knew it was from the bottom of his heart and believed with no doubt that he will be a catalyst for that change.

I cannot begin to describe how privileged I feel to have been a part of these students' lives in the past three weeks. Most students in my site at St. Alosius, Kibera, were in 19-23 age group and they are orphans from hiv/aid inflicted parents. I worked with 30 students at a site in Kibera

Oprah for a month

2009-09-08T23:11:00.001-07:00

Whenever someone asks me, “How was your trip to Nairobi?” I find it extremely difficult to think of a response that will capture the depth of my experience. I always knew that I wanted to volunteer in a third world country at some point in my life, but I could have never imagined that it would have such a heavy impact on me.

I was teaching at the St. Aloysius site in Kibera along with Mike, Christi and Joanna. Our students were all around the same age as me, so I found it pretty easy to socialize and a joke around with them just like I would with my friends back home. Although there were obvious differences between us, I was surprised by how similar certain behaviors were accross cultures. For example, the students teased each other in the same way, were competitive when playing games, and the girls were often doing each other’s hair or gossiping about their love lives. On the first day of class, we asked our students to brainstorm some of the social issues in their communities and identify where a business opportunity was possible. This activity made me realize that they were not at all oblivious to the issues within their community. In fact, they were well aware of the problems and could provide us with detailed information about the root causes. The challenge became coming up with a solution that would engage the residents of Kibera and allow them to make a profit at the same time. Some students believed that this was impossible to do, and referred to other businesses that had failed while attempting a similar idea in the past. However as the weeks went on, they began to realize that this wasn’t impossible and became very passionate about their ideas – some to the point where they refused to modify anything that was clearly unrealistic (eg: not paying themselves for 6 months in order to have a large positive cash flow statement!), but that soon changed as well.

I really enjoyed watching each group’s progress and each student’s confidence grow after grasping a new concept. Moreover, I was inspired by the strength and positive attitude that the students had demonstrated every day, despite having come from such difficult backgrounds. Through reading their profiles provided by the school I learned that some of the students in my group had been badly abused, had recently lost a loved one, or were raising their younger siblings on their own. However when they came to class they seemed to put all of this aside. Their smiles and willingness to learn would make it impossible to guess the hardships they had once endured. When it was time for the final business plan presentations, I felt like a proud parent watching my group stand up before the class and share their idea! I was so pleased to see how far they had come and it assured me that they had been paying attention during our lessons. After spending three weeks together, it was really hard for me to say goodbye to the students, who had become my new friends.

Since coming back home I have been in touch with most people from my group through email. They have been updating me on their personal lives as well as their progress with the business plan. I have also been fundraising to purchase a waterproof tent that St. Aloysius can use to hold future workshops in, as our classes were held in the backyard under an old tarp (which blew off on the last day!). The trip was unlike anything I have ever experienced before. It really opened up my eyes to some harsh realities of the world that I had only ever read about or seen on TV. Having a physical presence in Kenya offered a whole new perspective, and has inspired me to continue volunteering overseas. Joining the SE 101 team was one of the best and most rewarding decisions I have made in my life thus far.

Students and Friends

2009-09-06T15:00:00.000-07:00

As I was preparing to travel to Kenya and teach, I was unsure of the relationship we would have with our students and how they would perceive us. Would they be receptive to what we were teaching, would they respect us, understand what we were teaching? However upon arriving in Nairobi and beginning the program, I realized my concerns were unnecessary.

On the first day of class, it was apparent that all our students were excited to be there and eager to learn from us. They were extremely respectful of us in the classroom and enthusiastically listened to our workshop lectures and participated in discussions. During the first week of classes, the students were hesitant to open up and share their ideas voluntarily, however as we got to know each other better, we found ourselves having to cut off the discussions to avoid running out of time!

The fact that we were foreigners did not create a barrier in developing friendships with the students, but in fact strengthened them. As we shared our different experiences and learned about one another’s cultures through small group discussions and hanging out after class, our friendships deepened. Although we had completely different life experiences we found that we had quite a bit in common.

One specific experience that meant a lot to me involved a particular student from our teaching site that a few of us became quite close to throughout the three weeks. She shared her story with us, and we were able to see where she lived and the building she was planning on starting her business in. This tangible evidence of her goals was inspiring, and as we watched her draw ever closer to them through the business planning processes during our program, we were able to help her expand her ideas as we had a real feel of her dream.

By the end of the three weeks of class, we had become close with almost every student, which made graduation an exciting but also very sad day. It was heartening to see our students be well on their way to starting their businesses. Their eagerness to apply the concepts and knowledge we had taught them and their confidence in their own success made us very thankful to have been a part of the process. It was the last time we would see many of them, so we were not only saying goodbye to our students, but also our friends.

--Sarah Gale

Teaching is Hard Work!

2009-08-31T13:49:00.000-07:00

Hi, I'm Les, A Sauder MBA candidate. I was stationed at the ICC site along with two UBC BCom students, Rob and Candy, and two Strathmore students, Celestine and Emma. My experience in teaching in Nairobi has been fantastic. Coming here, I was expecting to have to work much harder to help our students grasp the concepts in a business plan, but what I have found is bright, receptive, eager and hard working students. While their business acumen needs work, they don't have to stretch far to attach their business ideas to concepts like Market Research, Supply Chain Analysis and Cash Flow forecasting. Their abilities make our days more interactive and productive than I ever imagined.

Having the capability is only half the challenge. Cramming the business knowledge they need into 3 weeks means some long days. It takes a lot of practice on their part and flexibility on our part to keep pace with our jammed curriculum. It also took a number of early morning and late afternoon one-on-one sessions to keep everyone up to speed. This individual attention wouldn't be possible without the teacher-student ratio we are so lucky to have. The one-on-one sessions really helped adapt each individual plan to the model we set out in the curriculum. As we said in class, internationally we may speak different languages, but the language of business is international. Building these business plans to a world-wide standard means that our students will be able to plan effectively and look for the right financing should they want to take their ideas from plan to practice. As student-teachers, we were fortunate enough to have worked on the curriculum ourselves, editing and adding to what had been developed in previous years. This allowed us to really support each other while also being able to effectively deliver specialized tutoring.

I feel like my fellow teachers were incredible resources to our students. Candy's BCom focus was on Marketing and she was instrumental in helping our students refine their marketing plans with top notch surveys and analysis and really amazing branding for each plan. Rob's focus is in Finance and he really knew how to deliver his knowledge effectively to the students in a fun and functional way. The added bonus of having our Strathmore partners was not only a Kenyan context, but incredible Accounting skills.

One of the most exciting pieces of this experience is really how much I feel I have learned from my students. They have opened my eyes to life in Nairobi, taught me new ice breakers and helped me see how much of an opportunity there is in Kenya to bring knowledge and skills to the people who can use it most, but who have not been privileged to have the UBC education I have. Helping to support their efforts to create a stronger Kenya for themselves and their future generations is an experience I will never forget.

--Les Robertson

Les mopping the floor of the ICC classroom, one of the daily "teaching duties."

Teaching in Kenya - the good, the bad and the ugly

2009-08-26T23:50:00.000-07:00

Now that the trip is winding down, this is a good chance to reflect on what we came to this continent to do - teach.

A typical day:

At our particular site, located in the International Christian Centre (we called it the ICC), a typical day started when we walked into the classroom at 8:15am. Class has a soft start at 8:30, and officially begins at 9:00. Most days, we'll arrive to find that a few students are already in the classroom, quietly working on their business plans. We help these early birds with their questions as we wait for everyone else to arrive.

Class starts with attendance and some opening remarks - we talk about everything, from an upcoming soccer (sorry - football) game with the other two classes, to an overview of what material we'll cover that day, to some comments about current business topics. Everyone is usually looking sleepy (particularly us instructors, since our guesthouse doesn't offer any coffee!), so we will often do a few stretches. Then the class begins in earnest.

From 9:00 until about 10:45, one or two instructors will cover the day's topic, which may be anything from completing a cash flow statement, to branding your company, to writing your company's mission statement.

At 10:44, everyone's ear is cocked to listen for the moment when one of the instructors will announce that it's TEA TIME! At our site, we have bread, butter, and tea set up for our students. To say the students 'enjoy' their tea would be a gross understatement... they waste no time in leaving their financial statements in the dust as they all clamber around the table for a snack, while shouting and chatting in Swahili.

After tea, we play a game (or more like we try to play one game but it usually turns into four...) to get everyone energized again. Then it's back to the books. We usually spend the afternoon on a new topic, like revenues and expenses, or proper market survey techniques. Everyone is encouraged to get as involved as possible, so we often have students coming up to present their ideas or offer feedback. If it's a particularly complex topic, we'll split into three breakout groups (our group is called the Safari Skewers!), at a ratio of two instructors to six students, to discuss the concept further.

At 2:30pm, we wrap up the class and clean up the room. Many of the students often stay behind until 3:00 or 3:30pm to ask us questions about their business plans. All six of us instructors - from UBC and Strathmore University - meet after class to discuss what went well / not so well, and to discuss the next day's lesson plan. Then it's time to head back to our guesthouse so we can start it all up again the next morning!

Three weeks in a nutshell

It's been a memorable three weeks of teaching. Every day was fun, nerve-wracking, random, exciting, disastrous, and always, always an experience to remember. Here are some of the good, bad and ugly moments:

- The bad: One of the toughest challenges we had - aside from dealing with a lack of electricity and running water on some days - was convincing some of the students that their business idea was simply not feasible. It's a terrible thing to see the light go out from someone's eyes when you tell them they have to rethink the plan that they are so passionate about... but as the days went on, it was encouraging for us to see the students thinking more critically and coming up with creative solutions to make their businesses more feasible.

- The good: Seeing our students become leaders. We hosted an event where all three sites came together to network and play a hearty game of football, and it was heartwarming to see some of our shyest students take the initiative and lead the other students from all the sites in a round of icebreaker games. This was in spite of the fact that on Day 1 and 2, one of our students was so shy, his peers had to physically drag them into the classroom and judo-chop him into a chair before he would stay. Seeing him stand strong in front of his peers on the last day of class, proudly presenting his business idea, was a profound moment - one that brought tears to every instructor's eyes (the guys will complain the room was too 'dusty').

- The ugly: Seeing some of the silly bloopers from students (bloopers that, truth be told, we must've made as well when we were junior students), like accidentally thinking variable cost was actually 'valuable' cost (as in jewellery)... or wondering why they couldn't get customers by "being physically aggressive"... or questioning why they had to make a profit...

To say the last three weeks were a walk in the park would be a complete lie. There were times when we wanted to kill our students... and we're sure there were times when they definitely wanted to kill us!

But as we kept emphasizing in our classroom, we're a family. And so, we were all there for each other on graduation day, when each student walked across the stage to get his or her certificate, in celebration of what they had achieved.

The family doesn't end here - we look forward to keeping in touch with our students, and helping them along with their business ideas.

Goat’s blood sausages and sheep brains – not for the faint of heart

2009-08-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

“Maybe if I have a taste of the goat liver, and then go back to the sheep brain, the brain will taste better...”

“Just eat the potatoes, it’ll help cover up the taste of the sheep tongue...”

By now you must be wondering how we managed to get ourselves into this situation.

(We’re in the second week of classes teaching social entrepreneurship to Kenyan youth, and classes are in full swing. Since one of my esteemed colleagues is preparing a blog entry about our teaching experiences so far (and about how great our students are!), I happily leave that topic to him.)

This past weekend, after an exhausting yet gratifying five days of teaching, our group went off to explore more of this magnificent country.

The SE101 team spent all of Saturday on a day trip to the Rift Valley, organized by Mickey, a longtime friend of the program. After making a stop at an excavation site of Richard Leakey’s, where we learned all about homo habilises and erectuses (to the snickers of our immeasurably mature male students), we made a stop at a village in Kikopey region, and indulged in their natural hot springs.

This is the village where Mickey has evidently spent countless hours to help rebuild, after Kenya’s post-election violence. The chief of the village welcomed our visit by graciously ordering the slaughter of a goat and a sheep, so we could all partake in a traditional Kenyan lunch.

It was a cultural experience, to say the least! Some of the foods were delicious, and some were hair-raising in their looks and taste. All the same, it was a privilege to be able to meet with these friendly locals, and we were floored by their level of hospitality.

To wrap up the tour, we stopped by Lake Elementaita, one of two lakes in the Rift Valley that flamingos can call home. What a sight – the flamingos seemed to stretch on for miles and miles, as we were treated to a sunset view of the lake. It was also a sobering part of the trip, though. Thanks to the drought, which has affected so many people in Kenya, the lake had shrunk to half its size, and the surrounding ground was cracked and brittle.

After the tour, it was off to the next activity: Nancy had arranged for our entire team to go to a rather unique event – a goodbye party for a Kenyan high school student who will soon be entering Sauder as a first year student! The parents had stumbled across the SE101 website, and contacted Nancy to invite us to their son’s goodbye gathering. It was a real treat to be able to visit their home, meet their friends and family, and share our tips about life at Sauder. And of course, no Kenyan party is complete without a sampling of the traditional brew, drunk out of hollowed horns! (Note: they are very hard to grip)

We all had a blast during the weekend, and with that now behind us, we’re off to a great start to the SE101 program!

The Value of SE101

2009-08-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

In this video, Barlet Jaji compares the value of SE101 to other entrepreneurship programs available in Kenya. His experience has been that SE101 gives participants a deeper knowledge and the practical skills needed to effectively run a business.

Over the past few months, the SE101 team has been working on updating the Resource Guide that Barlet shows in the video. For me, working on it was an opportunity to reflect on my entire Sauder MBA experience. Textbooks came off the shelf, and even my study notes from the Integrated Core came out of hiding. To strengthen the impact of the Resource Guide and to improve the effectiveness of the UBC and Strathmore students in delivering the content, Nancy Langton has also created an Instructor's Manual. Much like the SE101 program, the Instructor's Manual provides practical, step-by-step instructions for success and demonstrates the high level of support available to the participants.

Interview with Barlet Jaji

2009-08-09T21:31:00.000-07:00

In the previous post, Nancy wrote about the SE101 pilot project at St. Aloysius Gonzaga School and the work of Barlet Jaji, the school's director of post-graduate training. I found his words in this video to be both inspirational and inspired. The students in the program have faced such deep personal tragedies, and yet, with the help of Barlet and SE101, they are learning to make a better future for themselves and for their community.

As I tucked my own children into bed tonight, Barlet's words echoed through my mind. I am thankful that there are people like Barlet who are willing to develop and empower those that are so vulnerable, fulfilling the dreams of the parents that these students have lost.

St. Aloysius--Rising to the Challenge

2009-08-07T14:16:00.000-07:00

This year we are running a pilot project for SE101 at St. Aloysius Gonzaga School which is in Kibera (the largest slum in east Africa, and the second largest slum in Africa.) The photos show our "classroom," an outdoor area, covered loosely by an awning, which does not protect us from rain (we can move indoors in that event). It can be slightly chilly, and you'll notice the students bundled up. Our teaching "technology" involves a blackboard, chalk and flipchart paper.

St. Aloysius was created to give hope and support to AIDS orphans. All of the children who go through the school have lost one or both parents to AIDS (if one of the parents is still alive, that parent must have AIDS in order for the child to be enrolled in the school).

It is a tragic situation for these young people--to have lost one or both parents, and to have watched both of their parents be so sick. They have had to grow up quickly, and learn to care for themselves, rather than to be parented. I'm sure it makes the students on the UBC team realize how fortunate their lives have been by comparison.

Our contact at St. Aloysius is Barlet Jaji, who first started working with SE101 in 2007, when he co-taught with some of the team at the Bahati site. We met again last summer, where I learned that Barlet was working at St. Aloysius as the director of post-graduate training for students who had finished their O level (the equivalent of high school) at St. Aloysius. Barlet is passionate in his commitment to helping young people not only survive, but also to thrive.

With that in mind, he asked me at the beginning of this year if I would consider working with him through SE101 to help inspire some of the school's graduates to tackle social challenges in the slum through business opportunities. We agreed that it would be a pilot project because we'd previously been emphasizing individual businesses, and that we would take what we learned from this year's pilot project to make an even better project next year. I was excited to be presented with such an opportunity, because it closely fit the mandate of SE101, which is to empower youth so that they can try to break their cycle of poverty. The pilot project meant we would be working with the poorest individuals in Nairobi, trying to help them with the chance to succeed. It also meant taking the first steps towards helping individuals figure out how to help their community.

The challenge for the UBC and Strathmore students working at the site is to show these young students that they really want to help them, and that the help is unconditional. In society's emphasis on short-term goals (is everyone happy right now?) it is too easy to overlook that true impact does not happen in a day, a week, or even a month. It is the cumulative lessons left behind that can be reflected on over time. Our team has the opportunity to inspire these young people for a life time. I am eager to see how they rise to this challenge.

Nairobi – first sights, first thoughts

2009-08-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

It’s been a few days since our team’s arrival in Nairobi, and since then, it’s been a whirlwind of activity!

Because I enjoy shooting myself in the foot (that is the only explanation I have), my trip from Vancouver to Nairobi consisted of a gruelling 40-hour journey that spanned four flights, and included a bizarre overnight stop in the Middle East where a local girl invited me on a walk with her dog along with her husband (or maybe she was walking her husband along with the dog).

Christi took the same arduous route through the Middle East, Rob, John and Jo stopped through London and did a 5-hour power tour through the city, Amanda, Sarah and Nadia went through Seattle and Amsterdam, Les flew through New York and Zurich, touring along the way, and Mike went to LA for a couple days to visit family and then to London and Nairobi. Mike arrived Thursday night and stalked the halls looking for any team member who might have been lingering in the guesthouse. He eventually gave up and made friends with the animals...

On the first official day (Friday), our team met for a dinner. Since we had all taken wildly different routes to get ourselves to Nairobi, it was a relief to see everyone again in Nairobi and all in one piece. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for our respective luggage pieces – two of our team members suffered from lost luggage. One of the two is still tracking her piece down, which is drifting somewhere between Seattle and Nairobi at this very moment.

On Saturday, we spent the morning at the Maasai market. It’s a fantastic, bustling destination of tourists, locals, and friendly/hard selling/energetic/aggressive stand owners who give new meaning to the word ‘persistent’. Nancy (our professor) gave us a quick Bargaining 101 session, and an hour later, we emerged from the market hoisting a few select art pieces. In the afternoon, we met with our student partners at Strathmore University for the first time. For those unfamiliar with the program, each UBC student pairs up with a Strathmore University student to teach the business curriculum over three weeks. That night, the Strathmore students invited us out to enjoy the best of Nairobi nightlife. They were incredibly welcome, made us feel very comfortable, and showed us a great time in an evening that included copious amounts of fried chicken.

We spent all of Sunday touring the three sites that our group would be teaching at. First we visited St Aloysius School in Kibera (east Africa’s largest slum). St Aloysius is a school for youth orphaned by AIDS. This is the location where the team will be running the social entrepreneurship pilot project. This site will be focusing on developing enterprises, which will in turn help the community and the individual starting the business. We had the pleasure of meeting Barlet (the school’s principal) who described a bit about his background and the school.

- Candy, Rob, Mike, Christi

And they're off!

2009-07-30T18:43:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of seeing Jon, Jo and Rob leave for Kenya.

The departure had a few of those very human moments that we all experience from time to time, from dashing back to deal with a milk carton, to a really bad parallel parking job (in my defense, I usually drive a much smaller car).

There were also some reminders of what this is all about, and those glimpses into the promise of the next few weeks were inspiring. From refining the plans for measuring the impact of SE101, to discussing how to best document recommendations for next year’s team, it was clear that the group is committed to a positive and sustainable future for the participants and the program.

Safari njema!

2009-07-22T15:35:00.000-07:00

Bon voyage , Safari njema (in Swahili) to everyone heading off to Kenya next week!! While the team’s real adventure is just about to begin, those of us that have been helping out with the program but are not going to teach in Kibera now have a chance to reflect on this experience. When I heard about SE101 back in January, I asked Nancy to be involved with the project even though I could not go to Kenya as the timing of the trip conflicted with the start of the fall semester of my MBA program, which I will be completing on an exchange term in Hong Kong. I wanted to contribute to the program development with my background knowledge of social entrepreneurship, and at the same time was hoping that this would be a learning experience for me. As usual, we get what we wish for, and being involved in SE101 has been as valuable as any of the MBA courses I have taken throughout my program.

When we were working on the program development, we were asked to “teach” one of our workshops to the rest of the group to practice what and how we would teach to the classes in Kibera. Joanna and I had what seemed like the easy task of teaching the first class, until we realized we would have to start with an introduction, which meant explaining to the students in Kenya who we were, and why we were there. This really made me think about what we were trying to accomplish and what made us qualified to teach anything to people in Kibera, a place most of us had never been. In the end, the introduction I gave in this mock class was, “My name is Jana, and I’m a student from Canada. I am studying business, and before returning to school, I worked at a bank where I often helped people who were starting a small business. I’ve learned a lot about starting and managing a business both in school and at work, and I’m here to share some of that with you.” Social entrepreneurs everywhere in the world are people who are real innovators; they understand the problems of their communities and have come up with some really creative and effective solutions. They are also people who aspire to be self sufficient, and create employment and income opportunities for themselves and others. This entrepreneurial spirit and ability to take a risk is something I have always admired in people but never had myself. But what I am good at is detail, planning, analyzing, evaluating options…I guess that’s why I was a banker and am now an MBA student! People in places like Kibera have great ideas and are willing to work hard and take risks. What a business student like myself can do, is help them to make those ideas a reality by sharing what I have had the opportunity to learn.

In this spirit of knowledge sharing, my work with SE101 has led me to another opportunity to use my existing skills and new knowledge of the issues in Kibera. Through an organization called SAWA Global I have connected with a woman in Kibera who started a local NGO, the Kibera Integrated Project, and will be working with her as a mentor to support her efforts as she grows her organization. SAWA Global is a Vancouver based organization that gives a voice to local “heroes” in the 50 poorest countries of the world, who are transforming their communities with innovative solutions to social and environmental problems. SAWA, through their website, showcases videos profiling the work and gives an opportunity to someone with the necessary skills to help these heroes in their efforts. You can learn more about SAWA from their website, www.sawaglobal.com. I’m especially excited about some potential opportunities for co-operation between the Kibera Integrated Project and our SE101 participants and the possibility of a long term partnership between the organizations.

I’m looking forward to the updates on stories of this year’s students that will be posted on this blog, and wish everyone a safe trip!

Meet Our Team!

2009-07-21T08:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, the team met for the last time before leaving for Kenya. In addition to reviewing the curriculum, going over final fundraising details and learning more about Kenya, we took some time to reflect on what we've accomplished, and what we're most looking forward to over the next month. This video talks about the program vision and introduces the team.

Update on Thomas' Fundraising

2009-07-19T19:11:00.000-07:00

Thomas has reached his $250 goal ahead of schedule and plans to continue fundraising until the end of the month. He also decided that he wanted to help prepare the students traveling to Kenya by teaching them some Swahili. He found four books in the library, and collected phrases that he could teach everyone. The team was really welcoming when Thomas showed up and did his presentation - complete with making everyone repeat his words. He was so excited when he was invited back for an encore performance of his three favourite words. This video is of Thomas talking about his experience, SE101 and tips for other fundraisers.

Getting Excited!

2009-07-17T12:05:00.001-07:00

With little over a week until we head out, I'm starting to get very excited about our adventure. I'm visiting Vancouver for the weekend, tying up loose ends here before finishing up my internship in Seattle, packing up, and flying to Africa. Tonight we will celebrate with our final fundraising event at Lola's:
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=101949074730

My internship has been focused on helping a small start-up cleantech company called Blue Marble Energy with their marketing communication efforts. They convert a wide variety of waste biomass sources into clean burning natural gas for energy, as well has high margin biochemicals for food and manufacturing industry.

They basically convert pollution and waste problems into clean energy and manufacturing solutions. It has been an interesting learning experience in how to communicate a complex value proposition to a wide range of target stakeholders, and I've been thinking about what kind of new and surprising value propositions and tarket markets we will encounter with our students business plans.

Learning about alternative energy has led me to follow this amazing blog by T.H. Culhane, an Urban Planning prof at UCLA who has started bringing simple cleantech solutions like solar water heating and biogas digestors to slums across the developing world. It would be incredible to see some of charitable work that his group Solar Cities is doing transform into small, locally owned energy businesses by entrepreneurs.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7xr5oW7b9I
http://solarcities.blogspot.com/

I've also been reading a fantastic book that I would highly recomend, called The Blue Sweater, by Jaqueline Novogratz. It's about her impressive development work in Africa, and how small business development can address many of the failures of that traditional aid programs face. She has a number of great TED talks on the subject as well that you can find here:

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jacqueline_novogratz_invests_in_ending_poverty.html

That's all for now. Kenya here we come!

Four Weeks To Go

2009-06-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

Looking at my calendar, I realized that I will be leaving for Kenya again in four short weeks. It's been a

Unexpected Inspirations

2009-06-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

When I signed up as a volunteer with the SE101 team, I thought it would be a good way to contribute to a great initiative, while at the same time building some skills and meeting new people. All that has happened, and I’ve been really inspired by everyone involved in the project. What I didn’t expect is that it would also inspire my little boy to start his first fundraising campaign. Thomas is five and is hooked on geography. I was telling him about SE101 and how I was going to raise money to help people start small businesses in Africa. Much to my surprise, he exclaimed, “Mama, I have tonnes of money!” I’m not sure how it happened, but he has managed to amass a small fortune in coins, in a yellow plastic piggy bank, and he is determined to turn his $54.38 into $250 by the end of July. He also wants to learn more about Africa. I’ll be posting updates over the next few weeks, and will let you know how the cookie sales and library trips progress.

Welcome to the SE101: Africa (2009) Blog

2009-04-02T06:33:00.000-07:00

We have just started our project. Check back for blog entries later this year.

Back in Africa, Part 16 – "Unexpected and Expected Blessings"

2008-08-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

Just the Two of Us

As I mentioned in Part 1, we originally had 15 students and two faculty as part of the team when we started out in late January/early February. While it would have been nice to have a larger and committed team with us, Nancy and I both feel that we have benefited a great deal from being on the ground from start to finish. Being involved in all aspect of the program has enabled us to come up with creative and exciting ideas to make the program even better. In fact, we have already looked into making the development of SE 101 "2.0" a guided independent study course in my MBA program. Over the next few months, I will be working with Nancy to improve and expand the curriculum, based on our experiences teaching it, as well as based on our knowledge of the Kenyan business community and culture. Nancy's vision is to "perfect" the program in Nairobi and then to adapt it for the rural areas. Who knows, perhaps this program can serve as a model for other countries in East Africa and beyond?

Graduation Day

Today was graduation day. After two long days of completing the business plans, we finally were able to celebrate all hard work over the past three weeks. I suggested last week that we should make it a cultural day as well so I asked everyone to wear traditional Kenyan clothing, if possible (I wore my traditional shirt). The ceremony was held in the church hall at my site in Kimathi. In addition to the graduates, attendees included representatives from the Ministry of Youth Affairs, ICT, past graduates, and church elders. After opening remarks from Nancy, each graduate read out their personal mission statement. It was inspiring to hear them speak passionately about faith, family, friends, community, and self-actualization. Next, Nancy and I handed out the graduation certificates and pens as each graduate came to the stage. Over the remaining part of the ceremony, some of the guest speakers gave words of encouragement and commendation for their achievement in the program. I gave the "closing" remarks - I spoke about how much Nancy and I have been inspired by their commitment to their communities, touched by the friendships we have made, and impressed by how much the students have learned and grown over the past three short weeks. I said that our role is but to be a small catalyst to unleash their potential: this is just the start - success is within them and it is up to them to pursue it. I also mentioned that joining the SE 101 program in its third year has been great timing for me because I witnessed the coming together ofthe pieces - the involvement by the Ministry of Youth Affairs, church groups, universities, and businesses to carry out the mission and vision of the program. It was personally gratifying to see all the hard work by Nancy and her previous team members pay off. I closed the ceremony by saying how I hope to return next year not only to continue building the program, but also to witness their growth as entrepreneurs.

Posted by Kirby Leong

Back in Africa, Part 15 – “The Beginning of the End”

2008-08-24T08:13:00.000-07:00

After two intense weeks, this is going to be an even more intense final week. All the hard work done so far will be pulled together into one coherent plan. I'll be wrapping up the final two workshops on Monday and Tuesday, with Wednesday and Thursday allocated for completing and typing business plans at Jose's Kimathi Information Center. I can already see the weariness setting in to the faces of the students, the facilitators, and of course, Nancy and me, but I would not have it any other way. Starting up a business and becoming an entrepreneur is hard work and I want everyone to look back on these three weeks and be proud of what they have achieved.

Still, this is going to be a bitter sweet final week. While on the one hand, we are looking forward to the end of the grind, on the other hand, Nancy and I feel we have collectively made 60+ friends. I have enjoyed seeing my students' evolution from being shy and unsure of themselves, to being more confident and sure-footed. I see my role as being a small catalyst to help them unleash their potential. While this program has been an intense learning period, the real hard work has just begun. As my student John pointed out, success is within all of them - my hope is that we have given them the tools, knowledge, and guidance to achieve it.

Nancy asked me if this has been a transformational experience and I said no, that it is more of an evolutionary experience. I went through my transformational experience when I was in Sierra Leone 14 years ago. I have been a little surprised, though, at how comfortable it has felt being here. After finding my bearings in the first three days, it has felt like a second home. I wrote in Part 1 that I cannot explain "why Africa?" but I have come to see that it is because I admire their community-mindedness, friendliness, and culture. Of course, that is not to say that I do not see the complicated issues plaguing this country and continent but it is because of all these issues that I admire their spirit even more. I will go back to Canada with a better understanding of what community, gratitude, and simplicity really mean.

Posted by Kirby Leong

Back in Africa, Part 14 – "About Feedback and Fears"

2008-08-24T08:12:00.000-07:00

Reviewing the Feedback

In part 13, I posted all the feedback that the students submitted anonymously. For the most part, there were no surprises. The areas for improvement centered on a few themes, namely better control of some of the discussions and starting on time. While I have tried to let the discussions flow organically because the students were so passionate, there have been a few instances where some individuals hijacked the topic. When discussions were led by the facilitators, I was careful not to interfere too much to avoid appearing to undermine their credibility and authority. However, now that I have developed a stronger sense of the class dynamic, I will be more diligent about moderating the discussions more firmly.

In a previous blog, I wrote about having a soft start at 8 am and a hard start at 8:30, with lateness being recorded and penalized. I was trying to be sensitive to the difficulties in getting reliable transportation but now I realize that with a great deal of content left to cover, I need to start promptly on time. Time has been wasted waiting for people to arrive and by accommodating them, I was actually condoning their tardiness. I spoke to a others in the local community to get some input and they unanimously supported a hard start at 8 am; if this is not done then the students will start to take the program for granted.

Facing Our Fears

I have been told that there is a tendency here to put forth the best face even if things are not going well. This can be isolating so I want to provide the opportunity to keep in contact with each other.. Therefore, as a continuation of our group discussion, I asked the class how they were feeling about becoming entrepreneurs - were they scared, discouraged, enthusiastic, and/or optimistic? Most were anxious and unsure of themselves (as would be expected in any new entrepreneur). The fears articulated were about competition, not getting a loan, defaulting on a loan, and not being able to sustain and grow their business. As the teacher, I tried to address their fears with specific tactics, but it was gratifying to see other students chiming in with moral support. We heard some encouraging words about finding a way, and not giving up if faced with an obstacle. One person brought up a movie he saw in which a new born pony was struggling to walk, fell down, got up until one day he was able to outrun all the other horses. He pointed out that even if others do not see your potential, you have what it takes to succeed within. We only had a half an hour left in the class so we did not have much time to have a thorough discussion. Still, I think that this brief exercise was helpful in partially addressing their concerns. When the program is over, we will be providing monthly meetings during which each can share their progress, challenges, and concerns with each other. We also have arranged mentors from some of our program partners to mentor the graduates with practical and on-going advice.

Posted by Kirby Leong

Back in Africa, Part 13 - "Feedback"

2008-08-17T12:39:00.000-07:00

My philosophy is that I will ask a question even if I may not like the answer, provided that I receive good information. Now that we are slightly more than half-way through the program, I asked the class (including the facilitators) to write down and submit their feedback about the program to me anonymously. The two questions I posed were 1) What did you like about the program, and 2) What should we do better? For now, here are all the responses that have been unedited except for a few changes for clarification. I'll comment on the feedback in a separate blog:

The thought that I have is that the program is good for us cause we know all the processes and aspects of running a business I personally appreciate that but I would suggest if you can organize a guest speaker from a bank to come and tell us how the banks give loans and what criteria they use cause I think it is more to our advantage because these are the institutions we will approach to fund us after finishing the program. Otherwise I do once again appreciate what you guys are doing.
The program is good and I like Kirby's sacrifice and determination to see that everyone finishes their business plans. I personally appreciate and feel humbled by what Nancy and you are doing. God bless.
The workshop was eye opening. Interesting and makes one person think. More practical issues should be addressed.
Kirby - assist the facilitators on arguments by the class on particular issues of dispute because we waste a lot of time and sometimes go off topic. From Monday (sic the last week of the program) let us start writing the business plan so that we don't pile up everything to the two days we will be at the Cyber (sic cyber cafe). The facilitators to insist on looking at our work so that we are guided as we move on. The class is very interesting and all the facilitators including you Kirby are doing a great job.
The workshops have been wonderful and it has really opened my eyes to many things I never knew. I liked the interaction between the facilitators and the students and especially our chief facilitator Kirby show have shown a big deal of understanding. What I didn't like is when some of the participants were trying to (confuse) each other with things that never related to the topic of the day and hence drifting away the whole group resulting to a waste of time. I with time could be extended to have longer discussions.
I like the way ur teaching us - Kudos to that. The way ur providing sweets for us - ur motivating our moral to answer more questions. That's good. Let's improve our time. If it's 8:00 am let it be 8:00 am.
I think you guys are doing a good job. Just to encourage you to keep it up. Maybe encourage more support for one another after the workshop.
When we answer we get a candy it makes people want to answer and be attentive. It's better when we answer the questions to our fellow colleagues. It shows we are learning and can teach. We don't remember to put God first. We should be praying at the beginning, tea break, and when we dispatch. Am enjoying ma self. Hope you too.
The programme has been very educative in that I have learnt many things that I never knew. It was inspiring since I learnt to always look at the bright side no matter what the situation. Thank you Kirby for the sacrifice you made to come all the way. May God bless you. By the way, Kudos to all the facilitators, too.
We should have some time to discuss our business fears and how we can solve them to be successful. Time of discussions to relax under the tree or on grass to change the class environment esp after break. Have some time for interaction to encourage team building. Get info on how we can study at the University of British Columbia and if we can get scholarships. Have follow-up programme to stay in touch and know how the training as been helping us.
It has been a great experience. Keep it up! I suggest we should have prizes to the best students whose who were very active. Thanks all facilitators. Keep it up. I have known financial plan. How to do market survey. Thanks for every time. I hope the last day will be great wonderful lunch.
Things I like. I like the learning. The group is one of a kind. The interaction makes you learn social cohesion. Things you think we should do: I think we should spent extra hours to learn better than to rush thro' topics.
The experience is great. I am personally learning new things everyday from everyone as they learn from me too. One thing that we should really control is the many discussions within a discussion. It's the only thing that grieves me. Lastly, may this program continue all over. It's so great!! God bless.
The speaker/facilitator taking us through a topic should always ensure the class remains within topic at hand. Class is interactive and many ideas are generated. More Q&A sessions should be set up.
I appreciate that am learning a lot from this workshop from Kirby and the crew, the interest they have, to listen to a question or comment posed to them. The workshop is a good idea, am also getting inspired from real life stories and am also educated in the sense that now I know what kind of CSR I would do for my company. To me it's a God given opportunity meeting so many people with different ideas that have really contributed to my business plan. I have also learnt basic business management, loans & cash investments. To me I have no comment on the things not done because today I am many steps ahead in terms of business, money & the leverage part of it. Thank you Kirby and your team. God bless you indeed.
I like the different stages of learning the Marketing part, the financial part and also presenting your business plan. People are given opportunities to air their views. Things I didn't like - people discussing more of an issue that is out of topic.
The programme needs to be not once a year but at least twice a year so that many people could benefit from it especially those who didn't join the class of 2008. The business plan booklet that we are given needs to have more pages for more explaining. It limits the business planner to express the business further. Honestly I have appreciated the Resource Guide and also the Homework Booklet. Kirby has been great. A good speaker, easy to understand and he should come again.
The people here are friendly and supportive. The facilitators are very helpful in all the workshops that we have covered. People should learn to whisper especially (sic another student). People should learn to listen to others when they are talking and not to intrude without permission and by shouting. Are we really going to finish typing the business plan in 2 days? What if one doesn't finish? Then what?
Being that I have carefully surveyed the market, I know what business will be like but because of it being on the higher side financially, may be you could link some of us with potential business like for me VESTAS or another other organization thinking at expanding into Kenya.

Posted by Kirby Leong

Back in Africa, Part 12 - “Everyone Has a Story”

2008-08-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

A Lightbulb Moment

Having recovered from the soccer game, we started the day by completing the previous day's workshop on applying for loans. Ann, one of my star facilitator/Strathmore students, led the group through the best practices for loan interviews. Inadvertently, she touched on a key missing piece of our program when she said that if you are refused for a loan, you have to persevere, learn, and keep trying. She brought up the example of Edison who failed countless times before inventing the light bulb but view each setback as a stepping stone to his success. During the break, I happened to have a discussion with my student, John, whose palpable passion and yes, perseverance for community development is inspiring. He commented on Ann's presentation, mentioning that as a community builder, he, too, feels deeply committed to empowering the youth with a sense of self-confidence and esteem (I hope to tell Ann and John's stories soon but for now I'll tell you what happened on this magical day). But he's not just talk - he does the walk. His work in the community has involved counselling and mentorship to youth who are often lost to HIV/AIDS, drugs, and crime. As he was speaking about his work, I realized that our program, while it does an excellent job of teaching the technical aspects of starting up your business, does not include a key piece to address the barriers to success: belief in oneself. I asked John if he thought it would be a good idea if we spent part of the day sharing our stories of perseverance, to which he emphatically replied "yes"

Changing Course

I was still a bit apprehensive about opening up a dialog about this because it would have been simpler for me just to focus on the preplanned curriculum but I felt that it would be worth exploring. That said, I was not delusional to think that we could instill belief in oneself in 60 minutes, hours, or days. I also wanted to avoid it being a session of banal self-help expressions like "think positively" and "be confident in yourself". More powerfully, I wanted it to be about sharing our stories where we had to struggle to overcome obstacles. As the Amanda Marshall song goes, "everyone has a story" and I wanted to provide a safe forum in which my students could voluntarily share theirs. I was careful not to put any pressure on anyone to speak, although I did encourage them to do so if they wanted.

Walking the Talk

To set the example, I started with my own story about how I fumbled about in my 20's without any plan, dabbling in banking for 19 hellish weeks, each day of which I absolutely dreaded going to work. I was not getting along with my manager, disliked the negative culture, and was simply not well-suited to the role. Even though I left the role, I was proud that I tried as hard as I could to make it work. I need to be able to look back and say that I didn't give up. Ironically, I think I could be a pretty good banker now, if I chose to be one. I then found myself in the role of a fundraiser for a capital campaign. I was jettisoned into a small city to raise several hundred thousand dollars in a hospital campaign but I had little clue how to go about it; but, with a lot of hard work and determination, I succeeded in the end. I spoke about how I stared down my fear of failure, and in doing so, felt unusually liberated.

Next after a two year diploma course in computing, I worked in the telecommunications industry which was subsequently decimated by the dot com meltdown. I was unemployed for 6 long months and to make matters worse, I had just purchased my home and was thus faced with mortgage payments and other on-going expenses. I shared that when you perceive little opportunity, you can become pessimistic about life, which is how I think many in my class feel about their lives. That said, I told them that I rediscovered my resolve to improve my situation. I had to patiently find my way back up to where I was before the dot com meltdown over a number of years: two steps forward, one step back and sometimes one step forward, two steps back. In the process, I told them that I learned about the importance of patience, perseverance, and self belief even when things look bleak because that's when you need them the most. I also told them that unlike me, you should have a plan A, B, and C, rather than allow your life to be dictated by chance. It's OK to change your plan as circumstances change, but it's always good to have several plans. All these points are certainly well-suited to a budding entrepreneur. When I finished, the class applauded me for sharing part of my story.

Meaningful Sharing

What ensued over the next hour was a meaningful sharing of experiences, each one followed by applause. One student who I did not realize was highly regarded for his appearance of success, spoke about how he coped with his employees stealing his entire inventory, leaving him in debt. Another one spoke about how he had to pay his own school fees when he was still in elementary school. He briefly shared how, as soon as school let out, he would swing a business deal within a month to pay the fees. His life has been one of early self-reliance - most everything he has achieved, he has achieved on his own. What is remarkable is that even though his family life was "bad", he is one of the most positive, optimistic, happy people I have ever met. Yet another student spoke about how her current successful business is being sabotaged by those who do not want her to succeed and how this has been stressing her. Still, she is adamant that she will succeed. You would not have known that she was struggling with these issues from speaking with her. I encouraged the other women to speak up if they wanted to, and another one other almost did, but she was afraid of becoming too emotional because her "story is very sad". I was careful not to pursue it any further but reassured her that this is a safe environment to share if she felt comfortable in doing so. The hour went by quickly, and at the end, the group said that they wanted another opportunity to share their stories and fears as they prepare to launch their businesses. The mood was noisily jubilant at the end of class and I would like to take all this as indication that this foray was a success. I appreciate that it's a sensitive area to venture into and I am very aware of protecting people's privacy; by sharing our stories, my goal was simply to remind everyone that we are the same, regardless of appearances of success or lack thereof.

Posted by Kirby Leong

Back in Africa, Part 11 - “Having a Field Day”

2008-08-16T22:54:00.000-07:00

Today was the day our two classes would meet for the first time to play a game of soccer. Nancy and her Kibera team arrived at my site around 11:30, ready to play. Unbeknownst to me (and Nancy), members of the Kibera class were part of a soccer team and when we first saw them, we all thought, OMG - they look like really good soccer players. My team, in compaison, seemed more pedestrian. It was like in the Karate Kid where he goes up against the juggernaut of the opposing team, which I guess, made me the Pat Morita of Kimathi team. The only problem is that I know very little about soccer and have not played it in over 15 years for good reason.

As the teams walked onto the field, Nancy and I watched from the sidelines. The women of the two groups formed cheering sections on opposite ends of the field. Once the game began, our cheering section started to trash talk the other team (OK, I may have encouraged them - a little). As you can imagine, this incited the other cheering section so now we had two sections trash talking each other in Swahili (it was all in good fun, though). For example, one of my students starting yelling "Domo, Domo" which means loud mouth in Swahili. Kenyans love their soccer, though, as any hint of momentum for one team elicited shrieking screams from the sidelines. Since we played on the field next to our site, our game drew the surrounding neighborhood out to watch. From the looks on their faces, I think they thought we were crazy with all the shouting, screaming, and trash talking. At one point in the game, someone from the other team said to me that my team was so bad that we should take up tennis. I shot back by saying that "I could beat them all in tennis" but then he countered with "but this is not tennis". In the end, my team lost 3-2 but I thought we did a great job against a much more experienced team.

However, the highlight of the day was at the end of the day when my team captain brought everyone together in a circle to stress that while we came to play soccer, they had an opportunity to support each other's entrepreneurial dreams by working together. For example, he said that his camping equipment rental business could work with the tour company that another student is wanting to start. With that said, he asked each person to state their name and business idea to help everyone identify the potential synergistic opportunities. I was really proud of both teams for transforming a highly competitive soccer game into one of shared opportunities.

Posted by Kirby Leong

Back in Africa, Part 10 – “Finance and More Finance”

2008-08-16T22:51:00.000-07:00

Visit from the Ministry of Youth Affairs

Last week we had the pleasure of being visited by a representative (Demaris) from the Ministry of Youth Affairs. This ministry's mission is to support initiatives that promote youth development, particularly skills training and employment. Demaris visited our two sites and came away highly impressed by the interactive and participative nature and content of our program. Nancy, Jose' , and I are meeting with the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Youth Affairs next week to discuss how we can partner with them to advance this program, and most importantly, to support our students once they graduate. That has been the crucial and the most difficult gap that we have been trying to fill - that is, to provide financial support and mentorship for our graduates.

Introducing and Reintroducing Financial Planning and Management

With Marketing, Part 1 completed, it was now onto Financial Planning and Management, Part 1. My other two facilitators, Boniface and Gary stepped up to the plate to deliver the workshop. They did a good job of covering topics such as supply and demand, income statements, gross profit(loss), net profit(loss), start-up expenses, cash flow statements, and break-even analysis. However, based on the class reaction and feedback, I realized that it was a bit ambitious of us to cover so much material in one session, especially for an audience which has had little/no exposure to business, let alone financial statements. With this in mind, on the weekend I created supplemental materials with clear examples to help reinforce the learning. The following week it was great to see that the class understood the concepts and could work through the examples, and more importantly, apply them to their own business plans. The clear highlight was when I walked into one of the break-out rooms and saw a few students working through a cash flow example for other students. They were teaching each other! I joked with them that they were trying to put me out of my (unpaid) job. I think this moment is an example of what ignites the passion of teachers to continue teaching.

Posted by Kirby Leong

Back in Africa, Part 9 – “Traffic Hell”

2008-08-16T22:47:00.000-07:00

Usually I am up by 6 am (I know my co-workers at SAP Business Objects won't believe this), downstairs for breakfast by 6:30 am, in transit by 7:15 am, and arrive at the class by 7:45 am. My daily commute is chaotic and stressful because I have to travel through the downtown core to get to the site. Competing with all the other cars, bicycles, motorcycles, large and small buses, and pedestrians for the congested roadways is a daily adventure. I marvel not only at the ability of drivers to create four lanes of weaving traffic out of two lanes, but also the ability of pedestrians not to get run over. Signal lights are routinely ignored as cars barge their way, inch by inch, into lanes. If one were to obey the traffic signs and signals, you would not be able to move as other vehicles and pedestrians would get ahead of you. As we stall in the backlogged streets, the black exhaust from large diesel buses spew into the air and into our lungs. I still have not quite been able to complete one commute without closing my eyes, as we come within mere inches of hitting another car or pedestrian. Pedestrians in particular cross at any point on any street and dodge lanes of traffic by running across one lane, pausing, and then running across another lane. While I dread this daily kaleidoscope of near death experiences, the evidence is there to indicate that "it works". I just need to have more faith in it. Still, I am very cautious when I cross a street, even to the point of looking right, left, diagonal, up, down, forward, and backwards on a one-way street. It seems I cannot tell where a vehicle may be coming from.

My best friend emailed me this link to a news story about the traffic in Nairobi: http://www.mytelus.com/travel/article.do?pageID=home&articleID=2967875

Posted by Kirby Leong

Back in Africa, Part 8 - “Solving Tough Problems”

2008-08-14T11:52:00.000-07:00

A Rediscovery

As I was packing for my trip, I came across a book that I had read a few years ago called "Solving Tough Problems" (Kahane) that I highly recommend buying. In it, the author Adam Kahane describes his experiences helping groups solve our most pressing issue - how to work together to solve the problems we have created. Kahane's 25 years of experiences facilitating and leading teams from such diverse groups such as Royal Dutch/Shell, Intel, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Federal Express, Government of Canada, European Commission, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions is an inspiring read. He has also facilitated cross-organizational leadership teams. For example, in South Africa in the post-apartheid era and in post-genocide Guatemala.

Three Types of Complexity

The book discusses three types of complexity: dynamic, generative, and social. High dynamic complexity is when cause and effect are far apart in space and time. For example, how apartheid-era educational policies affect present day employment prospects for black South Africans. High generative complexity occurs when the future is unfamiliar and unpredictable. Under these circumstances, solutions cannot be created in advanced based on what worked in the past, but rather must be developed as the situation unfolds. Finally, high social complexity occurs when people who are part of the problem look at things very differently, with different assumptions, values, and knowledge.

Summary of Key Learnings

Kuhane summarizes his key learnings in ten suggestions:

1. Pay attention to your state of being and how you are talking and listening. Notice your own assumptions, reactions, contradictions, anxieties, prejudices, and projections.
2. Speak up. Notice and say what you are thinking, feeling, and wanting.
3. Remember that you don't know the truth about anything. When you think you are absolutely certain about the way things are, "add in my opinion" or "from my perspective" to your sentence. Don't take yourself too seriously.
4. Engage with and listen to others who have a stake in the system. Seek out people who have different, even opposing perspectives from yours. Stretch beyond your comfort zone.
5. Reflect on your own role in the system. Examine how what you are doing or not doing is contributing to things being done they way they are. Also, you can't be part of the solution if you are not part of the problem.
6. Listen with empathy.
7. Listen to what is being said not just by yourself and others but through all of you. Listen to what is emerging in the system as a whole. Listen with your heart. Speak from your heart.
8. Stop talking. Camp out beside the questions and let answers come to you.
9. Relax and be fully present. Open up your mind and heart and will. Open yourself up to being touched and transformed.
10. Try out these suggestions and notice what happens. Keep on practicing.

Co-creating in Kenya

In my opinion, this exemplifies the greatest that community has to offer. It is the bringing together of people to co-create a new reality that is rooted in truth but and is fed by our collective dreams. After re-reading the book, it occurred to me that we do, in fact, have an opportunity here to help co-create a new reality for these group of young adults. I will need to be fully present to listen openly and honestly to their stories, challenges, hopes, and dreams; similarly, I need to be willing to share mine.

Posted by Kirby Leong