Maji Mazuri in Mathare …. Meet MC and Danny

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

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!

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

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.