St. Aloysius--Rising to the Challenge

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.

Posted by Nancy Langton

Nairobi – first sights, first thoughts

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.

Posted by Candy, Rob, Mike, Christi

And they're off!

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.

Posted by Mariela McIlwraith

Safari njema!

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!

Posted by jana

Meet Our Team!

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.

Posted by Mariela McIlwraith

Update on Thomas' Fundraising

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.

Posted by Mariela McIlwraith

Getting Excited!

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!

Posted by Mike Rimoin