You want the good news or the bad news first?

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

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?

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?

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. 

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

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

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