First day success

Loads of hard work, long hours and important contributions have gone into structuring this project, and despite the nervousness and anxiety I think we all felt this morning, I think that that focus and dedication was clearly demonstrated today.

Each and every member of the team did a really fantastic job working together and finding the perfect time and place to make their own contributions, additions and suggestions to make the day clear, educational and most importantly fun!

I, for one, was amazed at how well things went. I was very nervous and certainly a bit skeptical about how things would go on our first day here and I was so pleased with the effort that came from the team, the participation from the youth and the comments and contributions that were made by everyone.

I remember my first time here in Nairobi I had such a great time, and I knew I wanted to come back because there was so much passion, interest and enthusiasm in everyone I met. I had largely forgotten about how that great attitude and outlook on life made me feel - how inspiring, fulfilling and refreshing it was. It all came rushing back to me today working with those youth in Kiberia. They were great and I can't wait to go back tomorrow.

PS. Good job Josie and Eiston you did a wonderful job leading the first workshop today!


Posted by Sarah Malleson

Kickoff!

The day has come finally-- 1st day-- the day which kicked off this entire program that we've all put countless hours in.

I have to admit that I was quite nervous in taking the responsibility of facilitating the 1st workshop for the program. First days on any type of classroom delivery are so critical in getting the audience involved and entirely setting the tone going forward. A successful first day can make the entire program a success. A failed first day can torpedo the entire program.

Also, having checked out the "classroom"yesterday-- a meeting room that we Canadians would feel that fit maximum ten people but claimed by the youths to being capable of fitting 30 people, had got me quite nervous. Not only the size of the room was a concern (we were expecting about 20 students plus our team which adds up to about 27 people), I fear the Kenyan youths' English level, the amount of participation, and perhaps even a cultural shock to have foreigners who may be much younger than themselves to be the 'teachers'.

Despite all my fear and apprehension, the day went really well. I was absolutely amazed at the youths' participation, their English level, and how welcoming they are to us. We had a lot of great discussion as to what social entrepreneurship may mean (the first workshop was the discussion of social entrepreneurship and introduction to the business plan), and I was in awe at how much they shared their personal lives with us.

I remember one student would use the word 'ferocious' in his conversation, and another would let us know that the concept of 'social valued business' -- a watered-down term that Josie and I had thought of for the youths-- were called 'social responsibility.' Precisely the 'higher' level term and concept that we had hoped to convey to them.

And then we had students who volunteered to read out some paragraphs from our resource booklet. It really warmed my heart to know that this resouce booklet that our whole team had put 600+ hours in had really paid off. We went through editions and editions of this approximately 300 pages booklet to ensure that the language was appropriate. And when they volunteered to read and participate, my heart just died for them.

They were also really thankful for our presence, and they re-enforced my belief that education and sharing of knowledge is very important. And I guess, the youths today had made me feel much better for all the things that I sacrificed for this project (financially and other opportunities otherwise.) Our sharing knowledge at our discussion today was just amazing-- that i dont really know how to put it in words.

I have to admit that today went really really smoothly. And for myself, i had a great time, and from their smiles and ethusiastic participation, I'm convinced that they did also.

I'm so looking forward to the next 16 days!


Posted by Eiston Lo

Calculating Fairness

Probably the most difficult thing here is the transaction costs--particularly cab fare. For many things there is no established price (although the grocery stores seem to have established prices), and so we have to figure out how to negotiate a price that is "reasonable."

I've often had discussions with my business undergrad students about what is a fair wage, and how big should the gap be between managers and workers. Business students easily argue that managers should be paid considerably more than workers. After all, they're planning to be managers one day. Sociology students are not as sure of this, and often feel the gap should be smaller than it is. They're also not planning to be managers.

Here on the ground in Kenya, we're confronted with the fact that what a Kenyan can afford to pay for services, and what a Canadian can afford (even relatively poor students) is quite a bit different. The people who live here know that as well. We're easily recognized as "tourists" (even though we're not tourists but volunteers) by our skin color--and so people here expect that we have lots of money, and should be willing to pay high prices for things.

Our major negotiations to date have been over cab fare. There are no metered cabs, so you have to decide on a price before the cab sets off.

Last evening, I had to make arrangements for our transportation to and from "school" every day. ("School" representing a tiny room over in the slum that has been rented to us so that we could conduct our workshops for the next 2.5 weeks). Several of the students were willing to take the mutatas--the little buses that serve for public transportation here. My view was that this was somewhat impractical. The buses look new and clean, but they only hold 14 people, and there are 7 of us. And every one that I've ever seen on the street has been full. So, I wanted to try to negotiate a van that would take us back and forth each day.

I'd been given various pieces of advice on what to do on this front, and it's hard to know what the right thing to do is. I had met a driver when I first arrived who who had offered to be my driver while I was here. I was open to that idea, because at least I'd met him, and interacted with him several times. And he was very respectful, calling me "professor" whenever we talked. It's always hard to know who to trust in situations like this, so you look for kindness in people.

One of the professors at the University of Nairobi whom I met the other day did not think that hiring one driver was the preferable way of doing things. He felt that a van marked with a tour company logo could signal to the people in Kibera that we have lots of money, and don't really want to mix with the local people, which is inconsistent with the reason why we're here. Also, he noted that drivers for the tour companies already have some guaranteed income, through the tour operations. So his thinking was that it would be good to spread our Canadian money around to help as many people as possible.

The problem with this strategy, even if I'm in agreement with it in theory, is that it is not necessarily totally safe for us to be standing at the edge of the slum, waiting for a cab that may or may not pass by. And now, having been there today, I realize that cabs would be very unlikely to be "just passing through." Even if they did, we'd be more at their mercy when we're out at the slum and have to get "home" than when we're at the hotel, and can just walk away from a fare offer that we don't like. Which is why I'd prefer some stability to the transportation system.

The hotel did not have a van available at the time that we needed it, but they offered to get us 2 cabs (because there are 7 of us), for a total of 2400 Ksh round trip. I tried to explain that this was far too steep, and that when I met with someone from Catholic University here, and asked what the "local" price for this trip might be, he felt 600 Ksh was probably the local roundtrip price. So you can see how much more was being asked of us.

By then it was 8:30 p.m., and I'd promised the students that I would take care of the transportation arrangements for the morning. After some agonizing, I decided to just call Amos, the driver I'd met earlier in the week, and see if I could strike a deal.

Before calling Amos, I did a fair amount of research so that I could formulate some "theory" for what fare I might like to pay. My research showed that the average annual salary for Kenyans is about $450 US. Obviously the average doesn't tell the full range of salaries, and I was not sure whether this figure was conditional on working at all, or was simply a figure that included all men, women and children. Still, it gave me some baseline to work with.

I finally reached Amos, and offered him 700 Ksh roundtrip. (Ksh stands for Kenyan shillings--about 75 shillings to the $1, so 1000 Ksh is about $14. This assumes that Cdn and US dollars are worth the same, which they are not, but we don't need to complicate the math. In the grand scheme of things, there's not enough difference to make it matter for our purposes.) He countered with 1000 Ksh. I said that was too high, but I was prepared to give him the job for a week at 700 Ksh per day if was willing to accept that price. That was interesting to him, but he suggested 800 Ksh per day. So, I said that the job might continue for the following week, but we wanted to pay 700 Ksh per day. If it was 800 Ksh, at the end of the week, I would look for another driver. We finally reached agreement.

So, back to the issue of fairness. What is a fair price for a taxi ride for 7 people doing volunteer work in Kenya, 6 of whom are students, and are paying about half their travel expenses out of their own pockets? My offer to Amos is basically the equivalent of $56 for the week. He will be doing about 30 minutes of driving per day for us. So he has additional opportunity during the day to drive other people, and make more money. If my research on annual salary is correct, the average person earns only $8.65 a week, for more hours per day than the 30 minutes that we're employing him for. That said, a cab in Vancouver, with one round trip per day for 5 days would probably cost me $100. Easily.


Posted by Nancy Langton