Can't Believe Its Over!

It is now my fifth day back home in Canada, and I have been able to reflect on my Kenyan experience all week.  Honestly, I still cannot believe how fast my entire trip went; I left home on July 15^th, ready for a relaxing three weeks before the rest of the Sauder Africa team arrived in Kenya.  These twenty-one days now seem like a blur, filled with meeting relatives I had not seen years, travelling to the coast city of Mombasa, and playing lots of golf with my cousin.

Fast-forward to August 5^th, the day of reckoning: our first day of teaching.  I remember waking up that morning feeling quite nervous, and found it extremely hard to eat at breakfast.  So many different thoughts were racing through my head.  What are our students going to be like?  Will they be friendly?  Will I be an effective teacher?  Is language going to be a barrier for them?  How will they respond to the program and what we are teaching them?  On my way back up to my room after breakfast, I realized that all of these questions would be answered in due time.  All I had to do on this first day of teaching was embrace the nervousness that I felt, because this emotion showed how much I wanted our three-week program to be successful for our students.

All the nervousness that I had felt at breakfast evaporated in one moment at the start of class.  The first task that we wanted to complete was coming up with a set of rules for everyone in the classroom to abide by.  Instead of forcing these rules upon our students, we wanted to let them come up with a list.  One student in particular, Evans Odero, was a key contributor to this set of rules.  When we called upon him, he stood up and the first thing he said was, “Thank you for this opportunity to speak.”  Evans came up with rule after rule and each time he stood up to talk he uttered those same words, and each time the class burst out in laughter.  This light-hearted moment was all it took to rid me of my nervousness.

A highlight of my experience over the past three weeks was the opportunity to walk through Mathare along with some of our students not once, but twice.  I found this to be an extremely humbling experience for myself.  Seeing the conditions in which the people of Mathare live in truly made me see how lucky I am to be living in a first-world country such as Canada.  Talking to one of the students, I was surprised to learn that an average of seven people lived per household, and that an estimated 400,000 people lived in a five-kilometer radius.  I can only imagine how hard it is to live in Mathare.

Even with the hardships our students have faced in their lives, they always showed up to class with a smile on their face.  Their friendly demeanour not only made it easy to teach them, but also made it impossible not to want to be friends with them.  I hope to keep in touch with many of them through Facebook, and the next time I visit my family in Kenya, I hope to be able to visit some of them as well.  The effort and willingness to learn that they exhibited in class makes me proud to call them my students, and I wish each and every one of them success in their business ventures.  I am thankful for the opportunity that I was given this summer, to take part in this wonderful program, and will cherish the memories that have been created because of it.

Some of our students hard at work.

Bloomtown Kibera

Tracy He

BCOMM 4^th student in Marketing

Sauder School of Business, UBC

It has been a pretty intense three weeks for all of us. Particularly for me, it has been a very good learning experience.  You never really understand yourself until you step outside of your comfort zone. 

One of the things that I am getting to know more about myself is that I realize I am a bit quiet among this Canadian multicultural group. The challenge is that I started to learn English when I was in middle school and didn't have that much opportunity to practice it until I came to Canada for university. That probably explains why sometimes I keep asking people around me to repeat things they just said if they speak too quickly as my brain is still working on processing those words. Luckily, my Canadian group has been very patient to listen to me and repeat stuff if I haven’t got it. Even thought I still quite nervous about asking people to repeat for me but I figure out sometimes I have to do so if I really want to get more involved. 

I was also surprised to find out that how much energy and passion people have in Kibera. Before I came to Africa, I only read about some of the problems that Africans are facing and how we can help them. However, it is not until I arrive in this beautiful land that I realize that only the people who live in this land can really support their own communities. That's what asset-based community development ( ABCD) really about. Each one of the residents in Kibera has particular skill to contribute to their community and to tackle some of the tough issues in their community. We are here to learn more about the communities and to do what we could as educators to leverage their capacity through business education and social entrepreneurship. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset-based_community_development 

By interacting with the students in Kenya, I realize that they are just the same people like us. We are both like pretty dresses and we both love to make jokes and have fun in class. Even though they face many challenges living in Kibera, they are very happy and optimistic people. The really powerful moment was when I was listening to their personal mission statements. They all have great plan for their career and personal lives. It was very touching to hear that how they want to contribute to solve some of the problems in their communities. It was also a very good reflection time for ourselves too. I start to think about my community, my home country China ( oh yes, I have been hearing many interesting things about China in Kenya and China also has many social and environmental challenges ) and how I can do to bring positive change to our society.

Overall, I would say that it has been very positive experience for me in Kenya. It is great to meet all the students in Kibera and Kenyan students and friends. I feel really lucky that I am one of the participants for Sauder Africa team this year. Especially thanks to my group in Kibera and Frances for all the hard work, I feel that this program really speaks to the Sauder's mission of opening door and opening worlds. In the past weeks, we made new friends and learnt about new culture and discovered a bit more about ourselves. I encourage Sauder students who have a global vision and passionate about solving social issues using business methods to apply to this program. 

At last, I have to say that indeed, Kibera is such a boom town! Travelling from Canada to see this massive urbanization in Africa continent ( I am thinking about urbanization in China as well ) is quite a experience. There is a very interesting article about Kibera from Economist that worths reading. As it describes " Kibera may be the most entrepreneurial place on the planet". After seeing Kibera in my own eyes, interacting with students and hearing their life stories, I agree with mostly what's written on the artile "Kibera is an African version of a Chinese boomtown, an advertisement for soild human ambition. Like Guangzhou and Xiamen, it acts as a magnet for talent from rural areas, attracting the most determined among young farmers. To equate slum with idleness and misery is to misunderstand them. It is particularly interesting to me as many of my family members migrant from rural area in China to urban cities and I have been to and lived in Guangzhou and Xiamen. 

http://www.economist.com/news/christmas/21568592-day-economic-life-africas-biggest-shanty-town-boomtown-slum

Indeed, "all bright shining cities start as mud. Slums are far from hopeless places; many are not where economic losers end up, but rather reservoirs of tomorrow's winners." Good luck with all my friends in Kibera! I wish you all the success! :) 

Rethinking Charity

Jorline Ou
Sauder School of Business
4th Year Student, Accounting and Marketing


One of the questions that have been on my mind is, “are we making a difference?” We would hope, all our efforts, time, and sweat have all been for something. There have been hundreds of non-profit organizations and NGO’s whose singular purpose is to alleviate poverty, so why does it seem like no one has gotten it right?

There has been a prolonged debate about how to deal with poverty in developing countries. There has been continuous scrutiny of financial aid and lack of conditional monetary donations. It has been a part of our economy’s tradition to trade at value and exchange goods/services/currency that has provided growth to many countries, then what are the impacts of foreign aid?  It is, perhaps, a little crazy to give money to the poor with no strings attached.

The critique about foreign aid is no longer a foreign subject.  It has been considered to actually support corruption, as financial aid has been given to political systems that are still unstable (which is why SAI program hopes business education will bring a more sustainable impact.)This article: “Do cash grants really make a difference in business expansion?” [Business Daily Africa], outlines a few of the critiques of giving money out freely, on a macro-level but especially on the small-business micro-level.

Here are the highlights:

• Economist Dambisa Moyo authoritatively asserted that aid to Africa is making the continent poorer and should cease to exist
• African leaders have taken advantage of financial aid for personal gain
• Developing countries becomes expectant of the west to provide for the poor
• Business owners that invest own money has been said to take more due diligence in the management of their start-up
• Free money/grants provide way too much comfort and not enough discipline to elicit successful businesses

On the flipside, giving out money directly could also have positive results, as GiveDirectly advocates. The philosophy of GiveDirectly, is to donate money with no conditions and donate directly to the impoverished. This article “Is it nuts to give to the poor without strings attached?” [New York Times], explains their model in more depth.

Here are the highlights:

• GiveDirectly was inspired by the actions of the Mexican Government during the economic crisis in the 1990s, where the Mexican families receives cash transfers in exchange of the promise to keep their children in school and take them to regular health checkups
• Many people benefited from GiveDirectly, in spite of the worries of misuse of donations, people used the money in productive ways
• The money has been used on much needed home repairs, medicine, education, start a business, or expand a business
• This model “puts the choice in the hands of the poor”

These articles simply remind me that there are new things to be learned every day, even about the topics we believe we have expert opinion on. This TedTalk: “The way we think about charity is dead wrong,” also sparked my interest in re-evaluating my involvement in the social sector. In the end, regardless of whether or not you are a volunteer or a benefactor, it is always important to get well informed of the repercussions of the organizations you’re supporting.

To engage in the issue of poverty is already a noble feat, but being able to --- take off those rose-coloured glasses --- rethink your model of change --- adapt it with newly acquired knowledge, is what separates the organization that "means well" and the organization that "makes a difference." Even at Sauder Africa Initiative, we take the effort to get new perspective and evaluate our program's presence and impact here in Kenya. 

Other than that, we've been taking it all in and having a wonderfully, challenging experience. Here's some of our teachers and students from the Kibera Class of 2013!