Micro Finance and Social Entrepreneurship

When I set off on my walkabout, I intended to observe. I had a social scientist / anthropologist mindset. I would study what I encountered. What was Mandela’s Legacy? What I encountered engaged me. I got pissed off when I was pick pocketed in Johannesburg. The events sucked me in. People engaged me. Imagine three grown men bawling their eyes out. I wasn’t an anthropologists ass (donkey I mean).  Its like the Stones say “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes well you might find, you get what you need “.

I did encounter two sets of friends who were struggling mightily. Thembile and Nomathlubi are raising and sustaining a family while Thembile rehabilitates from a crippling stroke. Mighty courageous! Most recently he is enrolled in a physio-therapy program at Lentegeur Hospital outside of Cape Town. He hopes to gain some control over his left hand. Tentatively he plans to accompany Jeremy during portions of his community development work in the townships. This will give Thembile the opportunity to get out into the public space and practice his communication skills as well as learn to bake. Small steps toward being able to teach again.

Jeremy and Kim are striving differently. They have sunken two years of their life equity into a project with tremendous potential and deserve to be encouraged. They are truly innovating on a social level. Joyce and I are supporting them to the value of an oven (or more with a bit of help). (https://ackotze.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/abundant-nourishing-loaves/). 

Think of rocket ovens in the same way you would Wikipedia or Linux.  The design is applied, developed and perfected by hundreds of people all around the world. Jeremy and Kim use the rocket oven ‘low cost’ and ‘low cost of operation’ invention to serve a  local human need.  They have tested and are releasing plans to rocket ovens that will meet the needs of a single family. Such an oven costs $3.50 to build out of recycled cans. Simultaneously, they developed a commercial-scale rocket oven for baking. This oven can bake enough bread to meet the daily needs of 800 people. Jeremy is a skilled pastry chef and trains the bakers himself with the help of a conspirator, agitator and chef, Pete. The training is not just about baking but also about marketing and business management. They plug the bakers into a source of nutritious raw ingredients and a business model. One start-up requires a $4500 micro-finance investment.

I decided to involve my neighborhood in this cause and had a houseful of kids in our home baking. Our intent was to connect my neighborhood to this story in a real way. On hearing what we were doing our local backer supplied all of the ingredients. He had ideas about what grains Jeremy could use and recommendations for micro mills. Michael was not just generous with his product but with his knowledge and experience.

Our baking experiment proved to me that anyone can make bread with a bit of patience. The bread came out so well! We had it ready in time for a block party. Call me if you need any advice on how to bake bread with a kitchen full of kids 🙂 For instance, do you know that flour and water make glue? 

 

Those who are interested in supporting Jeremy and Kim http://www.breadrev.com/ can make a safe donation at: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/breadrev-adopt-an-oven. A philanthropic group of friends and colleagues have agreed to match funds that I drive to this site  multiplying the value of your contribution. The fund-raising site will remain open for the next 16 days. The matching offer ends September 8.

This is my last post on this blog.

Thank you for your interest in these thoughts. Thank you Joyce for helping follow my interest. I love you.

Tiny

Ellicott City

Photo Journal

Abundant Nourishing Loaves.

South Africa is a very young democracy with a big hill to climb to put all of its citizens on a level playing field. Probably the greatest change since the end of Apartheid has been equal opportunity. However, a closer look still reveals tremendous economic disparity between voters. Understandably 20 years after the end of Apartheid people are getting impatient. http://www.news24.com/Columnists/ClemSunter/To-be-a-true-Economic-Freedom-Fighter-20130726. My personal belief is that political enfranchisement won’t come with out economic enfranchisement. Julius Malema offers a path forward through nationalization, which I don’t support. Economists and history suggests this will be a disaster and will wreck the economy for all; even for the the have-nots. The wider problem is that so much needs to be fixed in South Africa it could take another 100 years to truly level the playing field. Don’t get me wrong, a lot works in its favor; abundant natural resources, wildlife, people and more. So what happens while we are waiting for our assets and process to work for us?
Like the example of Bulungula, it comes down to “We the people”. The interim solution to the everyday struggles of people will be everyday people who notice what is needed, decide what they can do about it and then doing it.
Earlier on in My Walkabout I wrote about Kim and Jeremy (post: Living in Community, July 18). Jeremy is by training a pastry chef, he also has a tremendous heart for people. He has turned his community mind to the challenges of township living where energy is scarce and unaffordable to the unemployed. Rocket ovens are inexpensive to build and operate. About $3500 will pay for a commercial oven that can bake enough nutritious artisan bread to supply 800 people a day. http://www.breadrev.com/ $3.50 will pay for a D.I.Y family size oven. These ovens are not just inexpensive, they are very economical to run. A few pieces of wood will easily heat an oven to 600F which is more than enough to bake bread, pizza, veggies, or anything you care to cook in an oven.
His vision is fairly ambitious. He intends to give away plans to the family scale ovens he has developed making the technology broadly and freely accessible. The more expensive commercial scale rocket ovens that can supply bread to a large number of families will come with a business plan, supply chain and baking lessons. The quality of raw ingredient that is used by the macro bakeries is low to the point that the government loaf has to be fortified with vitamins to enrich it. Currently affordable bread is not sufficiently nutritious. While he is building ovens and training bakers, he is also securing a supply of affordable, nutritious raw ingredients. The product produced in these low coast rocket ovens is delicious, good for you and less expensive than a government loaf. Jeremy is not just offering vocational training and practical solutions to the problems of energy and nutrition he is building the equivalent of a franchise that can scale up significantly and provide employment. With a big enough install base he will be able to influence the growers, mills and distributors. He is creating a grass roots demand for the best, organic, nutritious raw ingredients and in doing so will be able to influence the cost, not just the quality, of the ingredients through collective buying power. Currently Jeremy is looking into micro-enterprise scale milling technology as a first next step.

A final thought. As I watched Jeremy and Pete (his collaborator a chef by training) prepare dough, they were laughing, chatting, enjoying the baking process and each other. Baking these abundant, nourishing loaves, was feeding their spirits just as much as the end product would feed people’s bellies.

I intend to sponsor a couple ovens to support Kim, Jeremy and Pete’s work. If anyone reading this blog would like to get involved please contact me and I will let you know how you may be able to contribute.
Tiny
Upper Saddle River

Such a long time to be gone, such a short time to be here…

We left Bulungula at 06:00 on 7/25. It has been a wonderful experience for Thembile and I. I will most certainly be back here with Joyce. The road to Cape Town took us across the Great Karoo and along some of the straightest longest roads you can imagine. 18 hours of driving. Returning was bitter sweet. It is great to see ma. Thembile steps back into his struggle with life refreshed but apprehensive. It has been so very good to reconnect with him. He thinks constantly in metaphors. You may fall of the edge of his logic occasionally but the patient listener is often rewarded with blistering insight. I have missed our friendship.
I am coming home chicken 🙂
Tiny
Cape Town

Mamas house!

Thembile and I found a local guide and drove about 30 minutes up into the hills to meet Mama ‘no Office. Mama is the local chief. Tribal structure is; King, paramount chief, chief, headman (induna) and sub-headman. Mama looks after her people across a broad stretch of land and is a very important local person.
The backpackers lodge where we are staying was started by David and on her land. Dave is mlungu that speaks Xhosa like a local; he has lived in this area for over 10 years. His Xhosa name translated means ‘Seeks Improvement’. David recently discovered that no ambulance or emergency first response resource exists in all of Mama’s lands. He wrote a petition to the Human Rights Commission and today they have come to listen to the petition.
Mama asks us if we are in a rush and invites us to attend the meeting. The meeting is opened in prayer for which we all stand and remove our headdress. I am dying to record the meeting. It is not the first such meeting I have attended but I thought some pictures will help the reader understand the scene. The solution is my iPhone which I casually place on my lap and start clicking.
After the prayer David stands and delivers the petition in flawless, regionally accented Xhosa. Mama goes next. Followed by the commissioner and them the assembled villagers. Each speaker begins with a greeting for the King, mama and the members of the commission. After a while the petition breaks down into a litany of significant complaints (used to describe the living conditions in previous post; Bulungula). Following the meeting it is off to Mamas house for delicious black tea usually taken with two heap teaspoons of sugar and milk. Jugs of fermented maze porridge are passed around with some yummy but simple sandwiches. The porridge is enjoyed straight from the jug. There is no question of insulting Mamas hospitality.
Improvement comes slowly. In this place it has not come from the government. The essential raw ingredient has been the people. David is very much part of this community and part of what makes it work. Actually this is mostly true across all of RSA. It is not the government that is making the difference. As I write these words, the fat cats in power are wriggling and squirming under the heat of a corruption scandal involving billions of USD in surface vessels, subs, fighter planes and similar such weapons of destruction. People leaning into people (black and white together), being resourceful, being concerned about the lives of others is what brings improvement in Bulungula.
Bulungula River mouth
Tiny

Bulungula

I am taking in a lot and am struggling to capture it all. I don’t think of myself as a writer and don’t have the bandwidth to post pictures. As a result I feel especially inadequate to communicate my experience of this place. I understand I am right now a blogger in the midst of an experience which skews my perspective. I write honestly based on what I have obtained in interview or first hand. Bulungula is one of the most beautiful places I have been to. The sky is blue, the surf constant and beaches are pristine. The hills are changing shades of green capped with houses built in the local style. Every hill is topped with a little community of huts. There are hundreds and thousands of hills. Livestock roam free with several heard boys tending to them. Every couple of kilometers you encounter a little village. The setting is quite magical.
I am so very humbled. There are people on this land. Many thousands of them. They are engaged in subsistence living. Water is carried. Clothes are washed in the river. Cholera lurks. The area needs income, essential services, schooling and opportunity for the schooled. It took us an hour to drive the distance that some kids walk and then bus to get to school. They need money to pay for the most basic of necessities brought in from outside and an economy to support the same. Many of the men have to leave the land to find work on the mines. Unemployment is at least double the national average.
So what is working? The people are happy, proud and dignified. Their values will be very familiar to you as reader. Ceremony attends most things and ceremony is good manners. The setting is spectacular. There is huge opportunity here; as measured by the scale of the need. There is an economy here but it is fledgling. Bulungula can most definitely support responsible Eco-tourism and there is plenty of opportunity for micro enterprise. Five hundred USD will be sufficient seed money to start a tyre repair clinic here. The Bulungula incubator is one way to get this seed money. The incubator is a community initiative in partnership with the Bulungula backpackers lodge that funnels donor money to the entrepreneur for just such reasons. We arrived with a flat tyre and there is no tyre repair clinic in 50 – 100 km of our location. There are ways that the community and the discerning traveler can win.
We had the tremendous privilege of attending a meeting between the King, International Human Rights Commission and the chief of the entire region. Mamma ‘no office as she is known. Down to earth and strong like a bull. I should dedicate an entire blog to female feats of strength that I have witnessed. In a fair brawl, perhaps with the Sargent Major as exception, my money will be on a Xhosa woman. Most mlungu won’t even go one round. The tribal system is still active and lives at the heart of the community. The regional wards and rural representatives of the state live a hundred kilometers away. In Mama ‘no office’s entire land not one ambulance exists. We are talking about the wealthiest country in Africa here. Not one ambulance to an area twice the size of Manhatten in the USA. You die on the way to the hospital. Xhora River regularly takes lives for lack of a bridge or crossing. To the tribal community this is their flesh and blood. To the government these are remote people on the fringe of the economy. Everywhere I go I ask the same question. What has changed since 1994 (1st democratically elected government). Consistently I hear little or nothing. I think if people really thought about it they would give me a different answer. I do actually see that much has changed. I think I have recorded a solid answer to this question from Thembile which I will post when I get the opportunity and the bandwidth.
To all those who are on the edge of being willing to enter an environment like this; come on in the water is warm. Do it responsibly and don’t go uninformed. Don’t be naïve. Be part of don’t distance yourself. Engage don’t be afraid. Charity is not welcome but needed occasionally.
Ubuntu
Tiny
Bulungula

Quick pics

href=”https://ackotze.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/20130724-085422.jpg”>

A good place to be

Thembile’s speech is quite effected by the stroke. He can fully communicate, but the left side of his mouth is lame, it cannot perform all of the intricate movements required by speech. The driving directions to Bulungula are well meaning, and really are part of the adventure. 20km on the map will frequently be 18km or 22km on the road – the directions are more like guidelines. You have to interact with the community to find out where you are and where you need to go next. Getting here has been the first step in our little immersion experience. They warn not to use gps as a resource. As a little kick in the pants, Bulungula backpackers lodge and Bulungula village are on different sides of the Bulungula river. So… mlungu (white man) who bearly speaks any Xhosa and Thembile, who speaks 5 languages fluently enough to teach in them but struggles to articulate himself at the moment, had a pretty funny time getting here.
This is one of those good places on the planet. A lot of exploring takes place here. It is a great location to learn about village culture, not faux tourist attraction, the real thing. Most of the homes I see around me have no running water. Water has to be carried, yet Bulungula village is an enclave of community scale entrepreneurship. We are going to visit the local business incubator tomorrow. The business are all micro enterprise. I will be writing more about this. Micro enterprise is a big theme of my walkabout. Thembile has also arrange for us to meet with the village chief.
It is pretty inspiring watching Thembile get around. He navigated a flight of steps without a railing today (4 steps). It is a required route when he needs to use the communal bathrooms. I stood ready to protect his neck and head should he fall. It is hard to stand by watching him attempt risky things where the possibility of a fall and injury is real. Thembile’s tent is the furtherest of all the tents away from the main building where food is served, He is getting a lot of exercise. It takes him about ten minutes to walk 200 meters. He loves the rough terrain after the smooth surfaces of the city. He feels like it is waking up part of his brain that controls his motor functions. Physically the guy is a stud. He tries to do everything. As a goal he has decided to walk up one of the hills here. He celebrates every little achievement.
Mentally he is as sharp as he ever was, it just comes a bit slower. I see the biggest change in him is emotional. His emotions are just below the surface. There is a small degree of self pity there but not much. Mostly it is tears of frustration. I would not say that the emotion is as a result of the frustration, it is just that frustration is the emotion he feels most often. He also describes as sense of connectedness to himself and others.
As a Xhosa man you don’t cry. A lot of respect is earned by enduring the pain of ritual circumcision without crying. As a result of the stroke, Thembile cries when he gets emotional. Sometimes little tears, other times big sobs. He does not hide it and he is fully aware of it. He says the tears are healing to him. However he emerges on the other side of this stroke, I hope his connectedness and rich emotional world remains in some form and as a teacher that he passes some of the kaleidoscope of color that he sees, feels and senses on to others.
Bulungula River mouth
Tiny

Spirit Rising

We have arrived in one of the most beautiful spots. Bulungula Lodge is a community owned and run backpackers stop situated at the mouth of the Bulungula river. It is good to finally sit in one place and relax; slow down to the rhythms of the day. I think the purest form of backpacker is the one that brings a tent. That said the best views are saved for the purist. We are accommodated in safari style tents with doors facing East toward the rising sun. I watch my sunrise over the top of an enormous whale bone. More luxurious hut style accommodation is situated away from these great views. Whales, dolphin surfing the waves and goats are our companions.
East is significant in Xhosa culture. When the amakhweta (boy) become bafana (man) in circumcision ritual, a hut is built by the older brother or male relative. The door of this hut faces East. Manhood rising. I learned about the Xhosa male rights of passage 17 years ago from Thembile. In Xhosa culture, initiation into manhood is tremendously important. Thembile was 22 when he became a man. He tells me the biggest thing that comes with manhood is learning how to behave. In his current condition, Thembile faces a new right of passage. He has to rediscover his virtues, vocation and identity apart from his physical body.
My journey was always going to be a reflective and contemplative one. It just so happens that Thembile is along for the ride. He has become part of my experience and I have his permission to share my thoughts in this forum.
Lunch took the form of three fresh caught crayfish enjoyed with some of Jeremy’s delicious artisanal loaf and water. In South Africa, what we call crayfish looks exactly like a lobster without the claws. The crays were sold to us by passing villagers for a grand sum of R60.00 ($6.00).
Tiny
Bulungula River Mouth

On the Road Again

We had a 03:00 start this morning for the Transkai. I am fortunate to have Thembile along as my travel companion (post: The Big Walkabout 7/17). He will help me as my interpreter and as someone who can give me context for some of what I encounter. I am looking forward to slowing down and fitting into village life.
Tiny
East London

Sunrise over the Langeberg