A Chinese, Latin American, and North American student are sitting in a classroom. The teacher pulls out a map of Africa, and asks ‘tell me what you see”. The Chinese student speaks of opportunity and business; South African steel, Congolese minerals, and Angolan oil to power his country’s growth, and an endless list of future contracts for Chinese-built roads, bridges, and infrastructure to link the continent. The American reflects on Darfur, the Rwandan Genocide, thatched-roof villages, famine, Bono, Madonna, nonprofit work, and starving children. The Latin American student draws parallels in a tragic reflection of the worst parts of his own country; nefarious warlords, corruption, and poverty.

Who is right, and who is wrong? No one. And everyone. The complexity of this mighty and expansive continent can hardly be confined to a single narrative. Over one billion people. 54 independent states (as recognized by the UN). Nearly 3,000 languages. And as remarkably diverse as the continent is, so too should be the stories that emerge from it.

As I stepped through doorway of my concrete apartment in Nairobi, Kenya the other morning, I had the strange feeling I’d done something terribly wrong. I had just returned from two weeks traveling by local transport — bus, boat, motorcycle, and foot — through the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and as it happens, had an incredible, inspiring, and uplifting time.

Before you barrage me with your criticisms, and claim perhaps I’m blind, insensitive, ignorant, or arrogant for eliciting pleasure from my time in the D.R.C., let me explain myself.

The journey went hard against the grain of the typical Congo narrative; I did not pay a single bribe. Immigration officials turned out to be the friendliest and most helpful bunch I met. No men with AK-47s kidnapped me. I spent Christmas day hunting with Mbuti pygmies in the world’s second largest rainforest, swimming in crocodile-infested rivers with their children. I met with grassroots NGOs and social entrepreneurs that were changing communities and bringing hope. I encountered warm smiles, and generous hospitality. I saw a beautiful, untold side of the country.

In short, I was fortunate enough to be able to peer behind the constant narrative of war, conflict, corruption and poverty. I saw real people. I saw real lives. I saw raw potential. Disabled women breaking down stereotypes in their villages by starting small tailoring businesses. Young men, left crippled by the war, training to be carpenters and welders. Communities that massacred each other just nine years ago, collaborating economically and socially. People returning from being refugees and attempting normalcy — school, business, family…..

Jeanne (Jane) Ugirimbabazi, sews a bag for Indego Africa at Cocoki, a women's cooperative in Kigali, Rwanda. Indego Africa is a social enterprise that partners with struggling cooperatives, helping them access global retail markets while providing essential business, literacy, english, and computer skills training.

I’m trilled to announce that a photograph from The (BoP) Project, documenting the remarkable work of social enterprise Indego Africa in Kigali, Rwanda, has won the ‘Africa Award’ for the World Bank’s CGAP Microfinance Photography Competition!

The competition, now in its sixth year, hosted more than 2,000 entries from professional and non-professional photographers from over 70 countries around the world.

The winning photos can be viewed in a slideshow here…

Thanks for all your support!

One hundred years ago, Nobel Prize winning, free-market capitalism economist Milton Friedman was born into this world. Private enterprises, Friedman claimed, must be the foundation of economic prosperity.

Since then, the capitalist system Friedman so avidly endorsed and its profit-maximizing private enterprises have undoubtedly created enormous prosperity and wealth, improving living standards around the world. They have been the financial steam engine powering sweeping advancements and achievements in technology and medicine, transforming the way we live, work, imagine, and interact. Yet at the same time, when spliced opened and examined, capitalism has certainly had its pitfalls. These same capital-driven advancements have also served to accelerate the proverbial “global race to the bottom” – an endless and occasionally dangerous global search to cut costs and boost margins. Capitalism as we know it has vastly increased income inequalities, created a stark clash of classes, exploited labor, environments and resources, and permanently destroyed natural ecosystems.

Which brings me to the heart of this piece. Capitalism is slowly undergoing a massive transformation – and the Best Idea of 2011 was the Reshaping of Capitalism – a call launched by Occupy Wall Street, and answered by the Social Enterprise Movement…..

(Read On…)

A “flying toilet” is a particularly Kenyan device: a small grocery bag used as a toilet and then tossed out the window onto the street. The first encounter is both fascinating and grotesque—was that seriously what I just stepped on?

Granted, finding a decent bathroom facility in a big city is never a fun endeavor. Even in the developed world, you can face an endless search for a public bathroom, perhaps ending with a dip into a Starbucks or McDonalds to purchase a latté and the privilege of a (relatively) clean bathroom for $2.

In Nairobi, $2 is half of many people’s daily income, and nearly half of Kenya’s population lacks access to proper sanitation. Almost 70 percent of everyone else uses the crudest form of “toilet” available—a hole in the ground. There are certainly no Starbucks, and only a handful of overcrowded, unhygienic, and sometimes unsafe public toilets are scattered around the center of the city—most of which have fallen into disrepair and cannot be used.

In the slums, where the majority of residents don’t have toilets in their dwellings, the solution is a small row of wooden shacks (pit latrines) with holes in the floor, built on raised platforms and shared by as many as 400 households. When it rains, there is nothing more than a few pieces of eroded wood stopping disease from floating around the rest of the neighborhood.

It’s been more than 30 years since the Kenyan government invested in urban public sanitation facilities, and what little infrastructure remained from the early era of independence has fallen into horrendous disrepair.

Yet while the government lacks funds, initiative, and directive for innovation in sanitation, a unique blend of social entrepreneurs have flocked to Nairobi, all seeking one noble goal: Profiting from peoples’ excrement.

Read Full Article!

They flock from America’s top universities, grad programs and consulting firms to the pulsing heart of a new Africa. From glass towers and Ivied halls to cramped garages, cooperative work hubs, and overflowing makeshift live/workspaces, these young, talented and driven entrepreneurs are riding a new wave of social enterprises, crash landing into a rapidly rising east African capital.

The most populated city in east Africa, and one of the fastest growing, Nairobi, Kenya has become an extremely strategic regional center for business, banking, development, and politics. A destination hosting a diverse mingling of foreign inhabitants, from emissaries, ambassadors and development agencies to mobile innovators, technologists and consultants, Nairobi has just recently to crept into the international market as a city to keep an eye on.

Yet economic potential and business prospects are only part of the reason why Nairobi’s become a bustling hub for young social innovators and social entrepreneurs from Brown, Harvard, Stanford, and MIT, who give up jobs at McKinsey, Bain, and Goldman Sachs to be here. So what is it?

It’s what I’ve come to dub as the four P’s — Potential, Poverty, Politics, and Parties -- a unique blend that draws a distinct class of Gen-y ers looking to make money, make a name for themselves, and make a difference….

Continue Reading at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kalan/potential-poverty-politic_b_969338.html 

(*Editors note: This isn’t entirely BoP Project related, just a tale of travel, adventure, and miracle medicine that is, in my opinion, entirely worth sharing

As the last scrap of sunlight dipped beyond horizon, we finally managed to wedge ourselves like a human jigsaw puzzle into the khaki colored Land Cruiser…

Our departure point was Arusha, the bustling wildlife safari mecca of Tanzania, yet a luxurious five-star safari to the Serengeti was perhaps the farthest possible experience from what we were in for. I could best describe the impending adventure as a “safari”, in the true Swahili sense of the word; A very long journey.

There were sixteen of us in all- three crammed in the front row, four in the second, and about nine in the back. A few mother and daughter pairs, a single businessmen, a government economist, a woman who held a prayer session every time we started the car, an old man who never uttered a word, and a handful small children- I still don’t exactly know who’s they were.

“Tumebanana!” Maria, a pleasant lady in her mid 40’s decorated in a beautiful green headdress and whom I was fortunate enough to share half a seat with, chuckled. “We are stuffed!” in English.

Three of us- photographer, journalist, and Max the translator- were headed to the tiny village of Samunge, in Loliondo, which lies deep in Northern Tanzania, skirting the boarder with Kenya. A rough five-hour drive from even the most faintly paved roads, it’s a place far beyond the beaten path of any foreign travelers, where brilliantly adorned Maasai warriors and their children chase down passing vehicles, hawking enormous bricks of salt hauled from Lake Natron. Ol Doinyo L’engai, (literally “Mountain of God” in the Maasai language) a highly active volcano hangs ominously in the distance, parading its destructive power through long, deep scars burned into the baron landscapes. Cell phones struggle to grasp even a single bar of reception.

Before this year, Loliondo was nothing more than an unremarkable dot on some remarkably detailed map. Yet since February, Loliondo, and the man it posses, retired Evangelical Lutheran pastor and “miracle healer” Rev. Ambilikile Mwasupile (known to most as simply “Babu”, a title showing respect), has captivated Tanzania’s attention and led to a massive migration of people flocking by bus, car, motorcycle, land cruiser and for the fortunate few, by helicopter, to this tiny rural village. At one point in March, it was reported that over 20,000 people per day were arriving at Loliondo, in search of the cure.

The “Cup of Miracles”, “Kikombe cha Dawa” (cup of medicine), or simply the “Cup of Babu”, is the only attraction here, but a powerful one it is indeed. A “secret” potion, derived from the Carissa edulis plant (known locally by many names, including the Mtandamboo plant and Mugariga tree) is said to cure those who imbibe it of everything from common headaches to diabetes, asthma, epilepsy, cancer and HIV/AIDS.

Yet one must not be deceived by this modern medical breakthrough- it’s not the plant itself which contains the cure. It’s the distilled drink, according to Babu, which bears the “power of Jesus”, brewed solely by Rev. Mwasupile himself, drunk only within the gates of his compound, and by those who truly believe, which holds the cure.

It’s kind of like an energy drink from god, which is to be administered only under specific FDA guidelines….

In May, after probably months of internal debate, the government of Tanzania finally took a loose stance, declaring that the concoction was “not toxic and safe for use”, a vague statement at best neither denying nor endorsing its “healing” capabilities. The fact that dozens of ministers, the Prime Minister, and even the President of Tanzania himself, Jakaya Kikwete, have visited Babu of Loliondo and drunk from the cup, only serves to subtly reinforce its power to the public.

As chronically sick people from across the country, and even from around the world flocked to Loliondo in hope of a miracle cure for their ailments, they often were reported to have abandoned previous treatments, doctors instructions, and their anti retroviral medications (treatment for HIV/AIDS). A close friend who works at a private hospital in Dar es Salaam has seen dozens of individuals coming back from Loliondo to be re-tested for their illnesses. She has seen no change in results.

So, since I haven’t come across too many, in fact any, miracle healers in my lifetime, and I have quite the appetite for uncomfortable adventures, I simply couldn’t resist the chance to go.

Just after 8:30 p.m. on a Friday night, Raphael, our fearless MacGyver-like driver who’s number I managed to obtain a day earlier through no less than four degrees of separation, turned the key.  “Rreeww REEWW rrreeww” No start. He turned it again. Nothing. Again. Nothing.

Finally, on the fourth try, the starter kicked over and the engine picked up with moan. “Baridi,” Raphael smiled. “Cold.”  Not a reassuring start to a seven-hour ride into remote territories, I thought.

After a quick stop at a gas station to pick up some essentials- Red Bull, biscuits, water, and some Konyagi (a gin-like substance) in case of dire emergency, we headed north. A feeling of excitement and uncertainty filled the stuffy air inside the vehicle, as food was passed around and shared among the 16 of us. Two and half hours later, our Land Cruiser took a turn off the smooth pavement, and began hobbling down a dirt road towards the deep, mystic unknown; to Loliondo.

As we cleared the immediate brush and trees off the main highway, the landscape suddenly transformed, teleporting us into what seemed to be another world. We quickly descended down a ridge into complete, flat blackness. The moon was nearly full, but not a single dot of light could be seen on the horizon, just an eerie black ocean of terrain surrounded by sharp mountains.

Our high beams penetrating the cloud of dust kicked up by a constant rhythm of gas, break, gas, break as we meticulously navigated through the ravines and boulders, we raced through the landscape like a midnight rally cross.  We stopped only occasionally- to go to the bathroom, and marvel at herd of Zebras illuminated in our path. Sleep was hopeless, resulting in nothing but painful whiplash the moment the neck fell limp, so our minds drifted into the sea of darkness outside.

At 3:15 a.m., after multiple random checkpoints, we arrived at the main impromptu gate to Loliondo. Like a teenager waiting to enter a punk rock music festival, a sense of giddiness and electrified curiosity came over me. I’d read the reports in the local papers from weeks earlier. Thousands of sick people waiting for Babu. No water, no sanitation, no accommodations. A humanitarian crisis looming, it seemed. Bodies of those who couldn’t make it occasionally littering the path, they said.

Yet despite stories of the decrepit conditions of the area itself, the stories of “miracles” that Babu and his secret potion was responsible for spread like a wildfire across east Africa- of people who were cured, healed and set free from cursed spells.

The idea of a medicine man is not uncommon in this part of Africa. These traditional healers can be found in nearly every village, and in many cases they are the first medical line of defense in rural areas. Most people will see their local healer with an ailment long before they make a one, two, or even five hour trek to a medical professional.”Miracle healers” like Babu, however, are a little less frequently spotted.

As we arrived at the main gate, it only took a small bribe, the result of a passport mistakenly left at a guesthouse in Arusha (who knew you needed a passport when you weren’t crossing boarders?), and we were in. Our Land Cruiser crept up the hill, and we could see the line of cars snaking down the path. There were pop-up tents everywhere. An entire town, it seemed, built from nothing more than blue tarps and sticks. Not until much later, walking up the path towards Babu’s compound, did we see any permanent structures.

While most of our fellow passengers passed out on an open a blue tarp immediately after our arrival, the three of us set off to explore the area in the wee hours before dawn, talking to locals of the new pop-up tent city that resembles what I pictured parts of Haiti seem like- complete with mangy street dogs and all. It cost 500 shillings to go to the bathroom (a hole in the ground with a tarp around it). If you chose the seemingly more sanitary option, a bush, a Maasai tribesman would kindly round you up and point you the other way. To pay, of course.

We met Alfons, a village council member with good English who now runs one of the most high-tech tents in the town- it has a generator, multiple phone chargers and a TV that blares Bongo-flava DVDs from 6:00 in the morning onward.

Rehema, a woman who was at least a few sheets to the wind from Konyagi, Tanzania’s finest (and cheapest) gin mixture, served in double shot plastic packets, came all the way from Dar es Salaam to see Babu because of a headache she had for two weeks. Her mother-in-law came with her son from Germany, and her grandma came with heart trouble (and a massive obesity problem, Rehema joked.)

As dawn approached, small fires began stirring in the lanes between the cars and tents, filling the air with an aroma of milk tea and greasy chapati bread. Wake-up time was the moment Alfons cranked on the television- sleep was again futile in the midst of the blaring music videos. We had already been up for 24 hours, and had spent the last two days on buses to get to Arusha, but the Red Bull was doing its best. If the Cup of Babu could do anything close, I would be quite impressed.

The transient city awoke slowly, and people began trickling out of buses, Land Cruisers, tents and bushes and into the small food stalls. As the light dawned on Loliondo, the situation was much better than I had imagined. Trash littered the dirt road, half-hazardly constructed tents precariously balanced on one another, but there were no dead bodies, no open defecation, and plenty of food and water for an entire army. The line of cars, trucks, and buses stretched perhaps only 300-400 deep, carrying no more than 3,500 people.

At 8:00 a.m., Babu himself was scheduled to speak to the crowd in front of his compound. We anxiously made our way up the hill, as he began preaching the powers of his medicine, and the restrictions of it’s use- most importantly don’t take it off the compound, because it won’t work, and if you’re a witch doctor, it won’t do anything for you. It might even kill you, actually, if you are a witch doctor..

Halfway through his quite uncompelling speech, I found myself pulled out of the crowd and hassled by yet another immigration offer. This time, I got away without a bribe, after I assured him I was simply, cough, a “Christian from America seeking to drink from Babu’s cup of miracles.” I was, absolutely, not a journalist. Wink….

After his rather unmoving speech, we were ready for our holy grail- our cup of miracles, our magic cure, our… whatever you wish to call it.

I was stunned, in fact, completely shocked when we were all instructed back to our cars, and told that we would simply drive through the compound and receive our drink by Babu’s servants, in the uncomfort of our vehicles. Wait, seriously?!?

Not even McDonalds’ playbook could hold something so brilliant and divine. A drive-through-cure of all your ailments, served in red, green, blue and yellow plastic cups..

In less than an hour, our Land Cruiser rolled into the compound. Multi-colored cups of an opaque greenish liquid were thrust into our windows, and we were ordered to drink. I waited patiently as we passed the cups to the families in the back seat, until I received mine. Without hesitation, I downed the sucker, which left an earthy, almost minty aftertaste in my mouth.

And then it was all over. We returned the cups, and drove off, back another 7 grueling hours to Arusha. I felt kind of used.

Did it do anything? Well, I felt a little light-headed. But my guess is that this was from the lack of sleep. More than anything, however, I just couldn’t get my head around the whole endeavor. I understand the power of faith, I do have a belief in traditional medicine, and can see why, when faced with little alternatives in a failed health system that people would seek this miracle cure from all over East Africa. But, I mean, a drive thru? I didn’t expect anything glamorous, and didn’t expect the concoction to work (although, as everyone pointed out, of course it didn’t work because I didn’t have “faith” in it), but I expected something a little more… inspiring?

Oh well. It was certainly worth the adventure. And if the government of Tanzania declared it “non toxic and safe for use,” well, what did I have to lose? Aside from, perhaps, my already dwindling faith in the government….

(See more photos from the trip at http://www.puravidaphotos.com)

April 22^nd, 2010 was the last time Sahal H. Abdi, Kenya Red Cross Regional Manager for North Eastern Kenya, can recall a single drop of rain touching down on the scorched earth in Garissa, Kenya. That was over 16 months ago.

Since then, the riverbeds have emptied, leaving nothing but dusty scars on the landscape. Carcasses of goats, cows, and camels litter the side of the 370 km dirt highway between Garissa and Wajir, two of the largest towns in the region.

Last week, I took a 5 day trip into the severe drought-affected areas of Kenya with international Red Cross teams from Finland, Austria, Belgium, and Kenya to document the Red Cross’s work in the region. The purpose of our trip wasn’t simply to document a disaster. There’s enough of that already, and as BoP Project readers know already, I tend to focus on solutions.  We were sent to document the short term and long term solutions that the Red Cross has implemented to try and relieve the emergency situation, and mitigate the impact of droughts in the future. Unfortunately, it’s no easy task, and as I have learned over the weeks trying to understand the situation in Kenya, the problems the region faces cannot be ignored.  The solutions will only work if the core problems are addressed- which is why I feel it necessary here to provide a bit of context for the situation at hand.

For the areas of Garissa and Wajir, not far from the Somali boarder, droughts are not a rare occurrence.  It’s a hot, dry and arid region, exponentially worsened when rains fail to arrive for such prolonged periods of time.

We all (or at least those with half a brain…) are well aware that as result of global climate change, weather patterns are shifting drastically. The rains are becoming more sporadic, erratic, unpredictable and unreliable. While some countries have the infrastructure, policies, programs, and emergency relief services to be able to provide security for their citizens in times of crisis, Kenya, unfortunately, is not one of them.

The Problem in Kenya;

The World Bank’s lead economist for Kenya, Wolfgang Fengler said recently in an interview ”This crisis is manmade” “Droughts have occurred over and again, but you need bad policymaking for that to lead to a famine.” Based on my observations, I couldn’t agree more.

Yes, severe drought is caused by global climate change, but it’s the conditions that allow the drought to truly affect the people which is the biggest problem…

Here are some of the greatest challenges I’ve seen…

1.)   The Population;
The communities in North Eastern Kenya are mostly pastoralists. Their livelihoods depend on their livestock, so they live day to day with no formal settlements, moving nomadically from one pasture to the next, looking for places for their cows, goats, and sheep to graze. They carry their homes and belongings on the backs of donkeys or camels.

These communities have no knowledge of farming and agriculture, and in most cases are quite content with this nomadic life. They don’t want to change.

But when the rain stops coming…. what can they do? They run out of pastures to graze in and river beds to drink from. Their animals die, and they are left with no choice to but temporarily settle somewhere they can access food and water. The environmental conditions are forcing them to change their lives drastically. If the rains come, they will most likely set off again and continue their pastoral ways.

2.)   Marginalized communities;
Most pastoralists in the remote parts of the region probably don’t vote. And even if they do, sadly their voices hardly matter. There are few if any valuable resources in North Eastern Kenya, and little revenue coming in from the region- no industries, no big businesses, nothing. Just people, animals, and vast landscapes.

As a result, they are highly marginalized by the government. An aid worker once told me off hand that “the elected officials want to keep these people poor. That way, come election time, they can easily buy their vote and retain power”. While I’m not sure how true this is, I do know that votes are bought, and quite easily, in East Africa.

A point to this marginalization is that February last year, the office of the Prime Minister released a bulletin from their early warning systems saying that there would be severe drought from June-Oct of this year (2011). People knew this drought was coming. Yet was anything done? Unfortunately not.

3.) Infrastructure;
This is the greatest challenge that drought-prone areas face; and in fact the entire country faces. Paved roads are almost non-existant in parts of this region once you get past Garissa town. It’s expensive, difficult, and sometimes dangerous to get goods and supplies to the people that need it. Add to this the soaring cost of foods, and goods in the markets can be prohibitively expensive.

The saddest part of this is, and I wrote about this in a recent HuffPo Blog, is that farmers just a few hundred km south of Garissa, in the southern rift valley, have the reverse problem. They are throwing away their produce because either the market can’t reach them, or they can’t reach the market.

96% of sub-saharan African agriculture is still rain dependent, meaning only 4% of sub-saharan African can actually grow and harvest crops if the rains don’t come. Resources are vastly underused, and the lack of agricultural innovation and investment is close to tragic. There is water, underground, above ground, that’s not being used.

Along the Tana River in Garissa, where we visited a Red Cross program that helps formal pastoralists establish farms and irrigation systems along the river (which has been extremely successful), the Red Cross estimates that only 10% of rivers capacity is actually being harnessed.

The African Development Bank has also estimated that the region’s lack of infrastructure- roads, housing, water, electricity, sanitation- reduces it’s output by 40%. I’ve seen this first hand, and there’s no denying its truth.

The short term programs from the Red Cross and other nonprofits/agencies such as Water Trucking (sending water trucks to fill big tanks in more remote communities), School Feeding Programs, and Greenhouses, are unfortunately highly unsustainable. The Red Cross knows this, everyone knows this. But they are emergency measures to keep people alive, which at this point is quite needed. Unfortunately, these “emergency measures” are taken year after year.

The long term programs are much more successful. The example of the farms on the Tana River, called the Tana River Drought Recover Project, gave me a sense of hope that if people can only tap into the existing resources, and organizations can supply the knowledge and skills to help them do so, at least some of the situation can be mitigated, in certain parts along the river. Boosting the number of local farmers in the area would help boost the local economy, and potentially reduce the cost of food in the market.

Yet ultimately, the answer will come from better infrastructure, more investment in new agricultural techniques, more deep water wells, and a global attempt to try and curb climate change. People in this region will continue to be pastoralists, roaming the land in search of food and water for their livestock, except when those resources cannot be found. We can’t entirely change their lifestyle- and shouldn’t. But we can at least provide viable alternatives, better solutions for them when the wells run dry, and make it easier for them to adapt in tough times.

“Emergencies situations” should not be anticipated. And if they are, there is no reason they shouldn’t be prevented, or at least have solutions in place to deal with them.

Here’s my take on the situation in northern Kenya for the Huffington Post- Comments appreciated!!

—–

East Africa is facing a massive tragedy. And here’s the thing; severe drought is only the half of it.

While severely malnourished Somalis are fleeing across the Kenyan boarder to escape famine (and persecution), an estimated 3.7 million Kenyans in the northern regions of the country are starving and in need of immediate assistance.

What’s worse? Small landholder farmers, several hundred kilometers away in Kenya’s southern Rift Valley, are being forced to ditch their crops. It’s a complete lose-lose situation. Farmers aren’t getting any returns on the crops they’ve invested their backbreaking labor, sweat, and cash into; people across the country are dying of starvation…..

Read More on HuffPo; Wasted Food in a Famine: the Real Tragedy

It’s been a whirlwind of adventures in the “developed” world over the past 2 1/2 weeks, and as I sit writing this from the [lovely] Days Inn of Windsor Locks, Connecticut, in some sort of travel purgatory (my flight to Colorado was delayed, I wouldn’t make my connection, so they dumped me here for a night), I figured it might be a great time for an update!

Partially because of constant access to high-speed internet, the past weeks have been insanely productive. To start things off, I flew to London for the Diageo Africa Business Reporting Awards at the end of June. Unfortunately, I lost in the Agribusiness category to a fantastic BBC World Tonight report (not too upset about that…. quite a worthy competitor , but the trip was full of incredible conversations, meetings, brainstorms, and connections. I was able to meet fellow young journalists working all across Africa, exploring similar themes of development and the new african narrative, as well as get a free tour of BBC’s head offices in White City. I was able to reconnect with old friends, and make plenty of new ones. A great evening with Christian Busch, Co-Founder of Sandbox Network, got me thinking more about Nairobi, and vast potential of Impact Entrepreneurs waiting to be connected all throughout the city. Definitely check out his recent TEDx-talk “Impact Organization”!

While back in the U.S., I’ve been able to put faces behind many long email chains, scramble to backup gigabytes upon gigabytes of precious photos and documents, and spend a few days wearing out my shoe leather on the pavements of NYC meeting with a handful of organizations and individuals.

I followed up with the good folks at Indego Africa, and as a result was finally able to finish and publish a blog on them for The Huffington Post IMPACT section, titled “Empowerment Trade in Rwanda”. I’ll be contributing to Huff Po as much as possible, working as always to expand the reach of these social entrepreneur’s stories to a fresh new audience around the globe.

Pending another airplane technical failure, I’ll be off to Boulder, Colorado tomorrow for a couple of days to see a few friends, catch some fresh mountain air, and try to connect with the team at Unreasonable Institute  as they hold their second annual institute for fellows.

A week from tomorrow, I’ll be headed back to Tanzania, where I’ll begin to pack my (few) things for a new life in Nairobi, Kenya. I’m looking forward to the adventures ahead, and will, of course, keep you posted!

Cheers!

Jonathan

Ciprian Bwile makes toys, animals, and bookends from scrap wood

For close to a year, I’ve been taking a first-hand look at East African social enterprises, as part of The (BoP) Project. I’ve encountered a wondrously diverse ecosystem of enterprises and entrepreneurs, including smaller pilot endeavors like Egg-Energy and old-timers like KickStart. I’ve seen some remarkably innovative approaches and models built to profitably serve the needs of those at the base of the economic pyramid in the region—from mobile phone payments for clean water to pay-per-use toilets and showers in slums around Nairobi. Yet despite the variances in sectors, target markets, funding sources, and so on, they all seem to have two quite distinct commonalities: a comprehensive, impact-driven business model, and a plan to “scale big.”

Paul Hicks, founder of Wonder Welders, has neither—yet he has trained and now employs 35 local, physically disabled staff at a welding and crafts workshop in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

A photographer by profession, Hicks never really intended to take a “market-based approach to creating opportunities for the disabled,” or to develop a social business model that has the potential—with the right kind of help—to scale. But he has.

Back in 2003, Hicks would pass by several disabled individuals at an intersection on his way to work each day. Many were victims of polio, which if left untreated and in severe cases can lead to a paralytic disease most commonly affecting the leg muscles, causing them to become weak, poorly controlled, and finally paralyzed. Others he encountered were born with various birth defects, resulting in stunted development or complete loss of control of their legs. Eventually, they started asking for some kind of work. “I was a photographer; I couldn’t give them a job,” he said.

A Wonder Welder’s employee puts the finishing touches on a metal pig.

But after toying around in a friend’s welding shop one day, Hicks realized that there was nothing preventing the disabled people he met from welding or doing other types of crafts work. In fact, he saw their often-tremendous upper body strength as an advantage. So, in 2004, with seed funding from Goat Race charity, he launched Wonder Welders with just a handful of disabled workers, to make “Hip, Recycled Art” out of scrap metal, glass, paper, cans, pineapple tops, and other donated items.

Despite being a social enterprise that has demonstrated near-complete self-sufficiency (they accept but don’t actively seek out, donations), Wonder Welders does not specifically brand or market itself a “social business.” Apart from its website, there is no indication that products are made by disabled workers, and the organization has never even bothered with an impact assessment. Hicks, originally from the UK, has never attended a social enterprise conference and never called himself a social entrepreneur. In Tanzania and other parts of Africa, people with disabilities often are not considered hireable—Hicks simply hired them.

Metal crocodiles for sale at Wonder Welder’s Workshop in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

“If everyone knew the products were made by disabled workers, many would buy them just to support the organization,” Hicks says. “Instead, we’d rather people buy them because they’re high-quality, recycled pieces of art. And they do!”

But Wonder Welders has hit capacity. While Hicks has no doubt the model can scale across Tanzania, and even to other parts of Africa, its approach will certainly have to change. The business will need investment, and to attract investment in this space, so the pattern goes, they will need to produce two things: detailed impact reports and a plan to “scale big.”

Joseph Mpepo, originally from a southern region of Tanzania close to the Zambian border, has extremely limited use of his legs, and like most employees, works on the ground.