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!