As it turns out, there were other things in store for me.  When the application for the position with Western Heads East (WHE) in Kigali, Rwanda arrived in my inbox in February, I knew I had to apply. The goal of the Western Heads East program is to establish probiotic yoghurt programs in highly underserviced areas of Sub-Saharan Africa with high HIV/AIDS infection rates.  While the intentions behind WHE may be good, after my first foray into international development projects last year, I was skeptical of its impact.  However, I was excited by the fact that a grant from the Canadian International Development Agency would require that I conduct an independent research project.

Moreover…

1. Rwanda was the one East African country that I had wanted to visit during my travels last summer but didn’t manage to.
2. The things that scare me the most are the very things that I believe I should do.  As Conan O’Brien said, “There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized.”
3. Having already lived in East Africa once, I would be able to challenge myself even more if I returned.   I would be familiar with little things like the number of people that can be crammed into a bus, a local meal of beans and rice, etc.  Rather than working in an entirely new culture, it made sense to return and delve deeper this time.

In four days, I am headed into the heart to Africa. Known as the “Land of a Thousand Hills,” Rwanda is rich in scenery but its history is no less coloured.  Most people know about the 1994 genocide where 800,000 people, about 11% of Rwanda’s total population, were killed in the span of 100 days but few know what the country and culture is like now.

Despite being familiar with East African context, I am still keenly aware that this summer will not be any easier than my last, when  I was largely left to my own devices.  At the time the freedom was amazing but I would have gotten more out of the experience if I had a little more guidance.  The WHE position provides exactly this: a little more guidance.  While I will still have to be very entrepreneurial, I will have a goal to work towards.  I will be working with another intern, a political science student, to jumpstart the yogurt business and streamline communications between WHE Rwanda and the African Priobiotic Yogurt Network based in Mwanza, Tanzania. My independent research project will explore the role of Life Stories in generating hope in hopeless situations.  Part two of my research involves looking into which technology platforms are most suitable for reaching a Rwandan, African and eventually, global audience.

I will spend just over three months in Rwanda and share my adventures and experiences on this blog.  Check back soon for my first update from Kigali!

Having completed 2 years of business school and 3 years worth of my liberal arts MIT degree, I see both sides of this B-school coin quite clearly.  I can speak only for the Ivey HBA Program, but hopefully this article will shed some light on people’s preconceived notions of Ivey and help some you decide if Ivey, or business school, in general, is the behemoth you want to tackle.

1. Higher Education

The HBA Program administrators and faculty care about making you successful.  Professors genuinely strive to be great professors and many are graduates of the program themselves.   There no doubt that the quality of education is very high. This is how higher education should be.  Yes, it is unfair that only those who pay for private education receive the best.  Unfortunately, the quality of education at the rest of Western pales in comparison to Ivey and until someone finds a way to reform the education system, this is the way it will remain.  At Ivey, you get what you pay for: better professors, smaller class sizes, more personalized attention.

2. Network

It’s about The Alumni  Network, Networking and Your Network.  Ivey makes the old adage true, “its not what you know, it’s who you know.” Some would even say that tuition is essentially to pay for access to the network: an internal database of all HBA, MBA and EMBA graduates since the school was founded in 1922.  The Ivey HBA program teaches you how to network. The difference between regular university and Ivey? At Ivey, everyone networks and that is why they get jobs. 

3. The Outliers

Much of Ivey’s ‘elite’ reputation is built on the top 10-25% of students (based on grades).   While every student in the program had to excel enough to be accepted in the program, only the very best get the most lucritive jobs.  Little did I know, I would sit on the polar opposite end of the spectrum in the HBA student body.  I entered the HBA program just as the Sustainability Certificate Program was gathering momentum and for that, I am eternally grateful to the faculty and students who paved the way for people for me.  Less than 5% of HBA students are in the Certificate program and thank goodness for this little niche of the more socially-minded young people. There is hope.

4. Money

You do not need lots of it to be happy and to be success; what you need is the ability think beyond your financial limits.  I often get asked about the price of tuition at Ivey and I usually do not give a definitive number.  I do this partly because tuition increases every year, but also because I do not believe in valuing one’s education solely in financial terms.  Being an HBA student has opened so many doors for to and lead to unbelievable learning moments, such as this, that it simply cannot be quantified in dollar terms.  (FYI, at last count tuition was $24,000/yr.)

Ivey is also NOT about the money will make.  A few will make the big bucks, but the majority of students will take on some other business-related job and make an average salary. To get the most out of your time at Ivey, stop thinking about how much money you will make and read #7.

5. Global?

Most of the jobs are in Toronto. This is changing somewhat as the school expands and naturally, not all 700 grads will work in Toronto.  I have known for years that I wanted to have an international career and have had to do most of the legwork to find work in my areas of interest myself.  Oh well, persistence and determination are always valued traits.

6. Career Management

The reason Ivey recruiting statistics are so high (97% of grads report employment, $60,000+ average starting salary) is that they DRILL it into your head that you will be a failure if you do not land a great job.  The worst part is, ‘they’ are your peers.  HBAs constantly ask talk about who is interviewing for what job and against whom.  Come recruiting season, the school is a fluster of suits, resumes and cover letters.  As someone who wants my work to be my life’s work, it is quite appalling to see the number of young people who seemingly throw themselves at companies without thinking twice about what they really want to achieve with their lives.

7. Limitless Possibilities

Despite all of the stereotypes and misconceptions about Ivey, the program’s ability to “Unlimit Yourself” is undeniable.  My dreams are now 10x bigger than they might have been had I only completed my MIT degree. The HBA Program is by no means perfect, but if you want to to be a changemaker and are up for a challenge, this is a priceless starting point.  I will be pushing my boundaries again this summer and it will be yet another quantum leap on a journey that switched into high gear when I smashed my liberal arts degree with excellence in business leadership.

When I turned 21, I told myself I would make this year count.  And in almost every way I have.  I travelled to parts of the world I never even know existed, I stretched myself beyond my limits and grew in ways I cannot fully even understand, and I met so many awesome people.   I even managed to knock a few things off my bucklet list:

1. Live on a beach. 
2. Learn to scuba dive.
3. Travel on my own.
4. Go Backpacking.

It was not all sunshine and beaches, however, as my 2012 was certainly filled with the greatest highs and deepest lows of my life thus far.  Some of it was my own [un]doing and other amazing experiences, I believe, were the natural result of putting yourself out there.  Looking back at why I may have burnt out:

September: I came back to university in Canada so pumped to be learning again. I threw myself into planning events in the HBA program.  I didn’t waste anytime trying to make an impact and used all of my free time in meetings and extracurriculars.  Academically, I was determined to make the textbook portion of my education count and to apply to what I learned during my time in Africa…

October: …Instead, I was required to take theoretical courses for my MIT degree, some of which were excruciating to sit through.  I started to fall apart: I didn’t want to go to school. I didn’t want to wake up in the morning.  I started to just do the bare minimum to get by.

November: I had 10 projects and assignments to do over the course of four weeks.  I had never come up again such a wall of work, which when combined with my already depressed mood, meant that I struggled.  I spent weeks up holed up in my bedroom in an effort to complete my schoolwork and neglected my social life, which only made my burden heavier.   One saving grace was my International Media & Social Change course.  For the final course paper, I choose media in Africa as a my topic and happily learnt  more about the democratizing potential of the Internet for Africa in my research.

December: Of course, I get my marks back from the semester and I did perfectly fine.  In some cases, I exceeded my expectations. I spent most of my Christmas Break recovering.  In other words, sleeping in and watching crappy chick flicks.

January and the road ahead:  This marks typically marks the best period of the year.  I get to start researching opportunities for the summer and typically take a hard look at what I want to accomplish with my life and its implications for my summer.  I can see the light at the end of the tunnel how, the sunshine that marks the beginning of summer and freedom.  Considering that I want to build on all that I accomplished and experienced last summer, I anticipate another big adventure (and steep learning curve) in 2013!

“You can’t control the waves, but you can learn to surf.” A Scene from Soul Surfer (2012).

I had absolutely no idea the kind of emotional toll coming back to Canada after 4 months abroad would take on me. Call it ‘post-travel blues,’ or call it having your mind blown, losing some of it and then trying to bubble-wrap it back together.  I will sum up the past few months simply by saying I had never been so unmotivated to go to school.   My sense of direction is slowly returning, but it is accompanied with the deep realization that my life will be far from following a straight and paved path.

In October, I organized a meet ‘n greet for HBA1 Ivey students to meet several HBA2s who had done “epic” things over their summer.  I wanted to make sure that HBA1s would get a chance to hear some of the awesome, life-changing, passion-driven things that their upperclassmen did this summer.  Ivey as an institution can be is so good at pigeonholing, so this was my effort to break that mold.

The meet n’ greet also gave me a chance to reflect on everything I’ve been through.  On one hand, I did something this summer that most wouldn’t even have the courage to try.  I flew to East Africa with some very loose plans, the emails and phone numbers of a few people, and planned to stay there for 2 months on my own.  Looking back, it wasn’t the smartest thing for a young woman to do alone, but it was exactly what I wanted.  My travels emboldened me, made me more globally-aware and pushed my limits according to my own higher standards.  I went out and did things that no one else I knew had the guts to do.  At first it was frightening, but once I was out of that comfort zone, I met countless people who were trailblazers in their own right.

I hold onto that experience as a metaphor for my life: if you want to challenge the system, you have to cross the threshold into your unknown.  Once you are there, you will find that you’re not alone.  There is a better of way doing things, a better way of living life to its fullest.

A Dual Degree Just Double The Trouble?

One of the biggest lessons I’ve faced over the last few weeks is that happiness is never guaranteed.  I spent the last 4 years of my life, planning and anticipating this very moment.  Ever since I heard about the joint Ivey/MIT (Media, Information, Technoculture) dual honours bachelor degree in Grade 12, I told myself that if I was accepted to into Ivey, that was the program I would complete.  It required studying for a total of 5 undergraduate years, instead of the usual 4 and completing courses in both streams.  I made sure my marks were good enough to to meet all academic progression requirements. I participated in all the right extracurriculars.  There was hardly ever a doubt in my mind that Ivey/MIT was the program for me.  Now I am here, however, and I find myself doubting that decision. This semester has been by far the hardest in my university career.  I’m unhappy with my highly theoretical MIT courses.  I’m tired of sitting in classes. I want to get out and be doing real work.

I’m still on the fence as to whether the dual degree was a good or bad decision.  At the end of the day, I made this decision a long time ago and I am stuck with it for now.  I’ve learned that there is never a guarantee that you will be happy.  The point, however, is that I tried.  I tried to do the thing that felt the most authentic to me.  I tried to make the best decisions for myself at each crossroad but I’ve learned that it will not always result in immediate gratification. Perhaps I won’t discover the utility of my dual degree until 5 years down the road, when I come across an opportunity that beautifully combines the intricacies of my business degree and media studies degree.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.” –  Steve Jobs

That is what I’m banking on.  I’m learning to take in the journey with arms wide open as well. My current task is to do best I can with the circumstances I find myself in – even if it means being physically situated in London, Ontario for a few extra months and taking courses that involves words like ‘philosophic idealism,’ and ‘poststructuralism.’

A Reverse ‘Aha’ Moment: Part 1

In entrepreneurship circles, you hear about people having “aha” moments.  These are moments in entrepreneurs’ lives when something just clicked and they knew what was going to be their next big business idea.  They experienced something in life that ignited the passion that would carry them through all the struggles of running your own business.  I feel like this summer, the exact opposite happened to me.

Since high school I have wanted to work in the media industry, particularly film and video.  My determination to carve out a career for myself in the media industry was deep-seeded in the belief that media technologies are an integral component to changing the world.  If nobody knows what you’re doing and why, then your impact is limited.  If you want to get people on your side, they need to know about the issue.

Then I went to East Africa and all of my illusions of mass media for social change were shattered.  The mediums I studied in school and believed in – television, print, radio, film, video – didn’t apply to many people in East Africa because they didn’t have access to the technology! There so established daily newspaper or television stations.  This left me troubled for many days and it partially explains my dissatisfaction with the MIT program at Western.

These days I’m trying to explore how media technologies can impact large scale change, even in the harshest environments.  I’m looking forward to the winter holidays, when I’ll finally have time to regroup. More to come!

My Recipe for Success this winter.

I have a newfound respect for entrepreneurs.  I’m trying to initiate an innovations conference at Ivey and have run into so many roadblocks that I have begun to wonder if it’s really worth it.  No one is telling me to do this.  It is really only out of the goodness of my heart and the desire to make a positive dent in the student culture at Ivey that I embarked on this mission.  So far, it’s taken me in circles and I’ve ended up where I started : refining the conference proposal once again.  Over the last few weeks I met with numerous student groups, professors and admin to seemingly no avail, but the silver lining is in the learning process.  Even if I fail, I want to know that I tried.  As long as I try, I also believe that I will not fail.  I think the idea will simply morph and grow with me as I learn and the idea will become a different final product, conference or organization – an entity that I simply cannot imagine right now.  For the time being, however, managing this mission along with my school work  and other extra-curriculars has become a logistical nightmare and I will need to re-prioritize school  in order to meet deadlines.

To make matter a bit worse, the weather has gotten significantly cooler.  While I have no medical proof yet, I’m pretty sure I am one of those people highly susceptible to Seasonal Affective Disorder.  I am more tired and depressive in the winter and tend to need more sleep when the weather is cold.  I’m going to do my best this winter to take care of my health, stay motivated and carpe diem!

I think I am about to do what no person has ever done before (based on my google searches): blog about their Ivey experience.  I considered blogging during my HBA1 year, but that year was so all-encompassing and I allowed it to engulf me as I learned so much and challenged myself daily. As I begin HBA2, however, I want to share my experiences, my lessons and my passions.

This Sunday was a harrowing reminder to me that life can be so short.  Those who know me know that I am already very in-the-moment person. Carpe Diem.  I try to make everyday count, and collectively, I want to make my time on this earth count.   I am constantly pushing myself to work harder and smarter.  I want to accomplish more this year than I ever have before.  If HBA1 taught me how to work at 150% capacity, then I want HBA2 to be the year I work at 200%.

As a MIT/HBA dual degree student, I am lucky because get to have one extra summer between my fourth and fifth year to travel, work, and figure out who I want to be.  Still, I tried to treat this summer as if it was my last summer in university and thus, I found a way to take myself to Poland, Russia, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya doing and seeing more things that I could have dreamed of.

I didn’t know Ivey HBA Gareth Coombes personally, but I think that if he was alive today, I would have met him within a few weeks.  He added me as a Facebook friend just a few days before the accident and I have a hunch that it was because he must have heard about my Africa adventures through the grapevine.  He also spent the summer in East Africa and by the looks of his Facebook wall, he had many adventures we would have connected over.

This past summer was monumental for Ivey.  As far as I can tell, more students completed internships in developing countries than ever before.  Gareth, and other students like him are setting a new precedence at Ivey – people who care about something much significant than simply getting a job for the sake of make money.

One of my goals this year will be try to make sure that young people’s dreams and passions are not squashed beneath the weight of practicality, aka. a corporate job.  Having gone through the process the Ivey recruiting periods twice now, I know that it is not always easy to hold your ground.  But it is possible and so worth the effort.

Photo courtesy of Ashoka Changemakers

I have been back in Canada now for less than two weeks have watched only movies with Africa or the ocean as a back drop.  I was reading travel blogs and articles and already trying to figure out where I would travel to next. I’ve forced myself to tone it down now, since I want to enjoy my time in Canada and learn as much as I can from university too.

Having said that, one quote I live by is:

The things I learned this summer may not have been particularly career-oriented but they were life lessons and life experiences that I will carry with me forever.

A friend I made in Zanzibar asked me to write a list of all the little things about “civilization” that I missed once I returned to Canada. I couldn’t write that list, however, without noting all of the things that I also miss about my time in Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.

Things I miss about life in East Africa:

• Fresh Air: Life in Africa is lived almost entirely outdoors.  Of course, that can depend on your occupation but I was outdoor for 99% of each day, especially when helping out at the dive center.  I love feeling the ocean breeze on my skin and having the windows open in my room all the time.  In fact, there was no glass on my window, just a screen.
• Sunsets:  Even if I wanted to watch the sunset every night in Canada I’m not sure where I would go.  It is hard to find a horizon here that is not lined with buildings and skyscrapers blocking your view. There is something about watching the sunset everyday that changes your perspective on life.
• Freedom:  Anything goes in Africa. There is a general lack of safety, sanitation and security and while that certainly has its disadvantages for a traveller, it means you get to see and sometimes do things would be unimaginable in Canada.  Like seeing people take live chickens in plastic bags on the public bus. Or riding on top of a moving truck.

The Real Outdoors: caught in a sandstorm in Arusha, Tanzania.

Connecting to the Net in Zanzibar.

Things I missed about Canada:

The little things:

• Speakers to play music on, loud.
• Soap, to wash my hands with.
• Paper towel, or some other means to dry my hands after washing them.
• Carpet.
• Asphalt.

The bigger things:

• Fast internet connection: Being such an internet junkie, I get much of my information and inspiration from organizations, causes and individuals that I find online.
• Daylight hours past 7pm and consistent electricity that allows me to work after sunset.
• Friends: People who know me, and who know where I come from.

With a best friend at a cottage in Niagara. Sept 2012

How to Be Canadian Again:

These are things I now highly dislike about my life in Canada, but have to put up with or make compromises for now.

• Drive everywhere. I much prefer walking or biking everywhere I need to go, but winter poses a challenge.
• Own too much stuff. I was incredibly frustrated moving back into London and realizing that I have so much stuff.  Too much clothes, too many pilows, too much of everything.
• Buy everything with packaging.  I’m still trying to get over how much packaging comes with our food and how much waste we produce.
• Check your phone all the time.  It happened almost automatically.  As soon as I stepped foot in Pearson International Airport, I kept checking my phone for the time and for messages.

It took a month of waiting around in Zanzibar for me to finally muster up the courage to go travel by myself.  The longer I waited for my research assignment, the more restless I became.  Two weeks turned into three, four, then five.  By the time week five came around, I had completely run out of things to do.  There was only so much exploring I could do in Nungwi and so much help I could offer my friends at the dive center, before I was left with nothing to do.

The thought of traveling by myself through Africa scared me to death, but it was almost June and I knew I would regret it if I spent three months in east Africa and all I saw was a bit of Arusha and Zanzibar.  After talking with some people who had traveled extensively in Africa and survived, I knew it was possible and I would be okay.  I was told, I would meet people along the way.  I didn’t need to be afraid.  The scariest part would be leaving my house and getting in that first taxi or bus.  Once I arrived at the first hostel, I would be feel so free and happy.  And that was exactly what happened.  I left most of my belongings and gadgets at my place in Nungwi, packed a few sets of clothing and set off.

In search of adventure, leaving Zanzibar for the mainland.

I wanted to leave as soon as possible.  I was going crazy with nothing to do in Nungwi. This became the perfect opportunity for something that I always wanted to do: travel without a plan.  I only knew that I would be going to mainland Tanzania first: Dar Es Salaam, and from there I would go wherever the wind took me.  The first traveler I met at my hostel in Dar happened to be a fellow Canadian who attended the University of Waterloo and whose parents lived 45 minutes from mine.  He invited me along on his voyage to Lake Bunyuni, Uganda, claiming it was the most beautiful lake he had seen in all his travels. Bunyuni is clear across the other side of Tanzania, in the southwestern corner of Uganda.  My new friend had been traveling down Africa from Egypt for several months already and he knew the ropes, so I went along.

It took us three days and over seven different bus rides (I stopped counting after seven).  I experienced everything that I needed to know in those few days getting to Lake Bunyuni.  Almost every problem that I had heard of happening on African buses, happened on the way to the lake.  A tire blew. The bus  broke down.  There were some questionable people on the bus.   But we still made it and the lake was just as spectacular as my friend had said.  With terraced fields, the hills looked like a scene from Southeast Asia.   I spent two days hiking and canoeing around the lake before I set off to my next destination, the city of Kampala, entirely on my own this time.

These children greeted us when we docked our canoe at a random hill on the lake. Fellow canadian traveller showing the children hand tricks.

I spent one night in Kampala, getting a “boda-boda” (motorbike) driver to take me around the city and then bused onward to Jinja.  Jinja is at the source of the Nile, where Lake Victoria pours into the Nile and flows downstream.  I went white water rafting on the Nile with a local-run rafting company because it was cheaper than the expat-run companies.  The decision to go local made my rafting trip much more interesting.   Everything was disorganized, but having already spent two months in Tanzania, I was used to it.  We didn’t start rafting until the afternoon, much later than the normal early morning start time. Because of this, however, we were able to catch the sunset from atop a hill overlooking the largest waterfall rapids.  I didn’t have my camera with me that day, but it was one of my favourite days and having to savour the experience without a camera made it that much more memorable. (Other pictures below.)

Next stop, Nairobi and Mombasa.  I finished these African cities quickly.  I wanted to be able to say that I saw them, and that was it. They are not exactly oases of paradise.  I thought Nairobi would be extremely hot, dirty and crowded, but Mombasa was even more so.  I spent a day in each city and caught a bus onward the next day.  For the final leg of my backpacking expedition I went up the Kenyan coast to see Watamu and Lamu Island.  However, they paled in comparison to Zanzibar and its crystal clear turquoise water beaches.  I was ready to go back Zanzibar. In all, stayed in 8 different towns over 18 days, travelling from the east coast all the way to the western side of East Africa and back.

Looking back, I sometimes felt like my summer turned out horribly.  I never received my research assignment and thus was left without direction for two months in Tanzania.  I thought, Africa disappointed. I also discovered some aspects of African culture that I highly disliked.  I learned to tolerate the beach boys in Zanzibar, but I did not like their behaviour.  The way Africans treat “mzungus” (foreigners) went against everything that we strive for in Canada: multiculturalism, diversity, equality.   Some Africans only saw your skin colour.  That was something I didn’t want get used to.  It was also a bit disappointing for me to realize that it would be near impossible to befriend locals because few women speak English and the men were always trying to sell me something, or asking marry me.

On the flip side, I accomplished so much more than I planned for.  I actually got to travel to Uganda and Kenya, like I had hoped for. I even did it backpacking, not on some organized work schedule, moving from project to project.  My experience backpacking was incredible.  I felt so limitless and I overcame my fear to step into some sketchy African buses by myself.  I’m intensely glad that I backpacked at this point in my life, because now I know how amazing it is and will include time for backpacking whenever I can and wherever I go. Knowing that I was able to handle the dangers and annoyances of traveling Africa, I feel that now I can travel anywhere in world (and it’ll be easier)!

I went back to Zanzibar for my last ten days in Tanzania. I spent my remaining time  scuba diving and enjoying a few last fresh mango juices while watching the sunset on Nungwi beach.  I will also forever be grateful the folks at Spanish Dancer Divers for giving me so many amazing dive experiences.  I love being underwater and to get to go scuba diving as much as I did was like heaven.  Now I also have an excuse to travel more: diving!

As the new school year approaches, I’m very excited to begin my dual degree program.  I will be taking a combination of Business and Media, Information and Technoculture (MIT) courses in 2012-2013 and pursuing many other extracurricular initiatives. I’m looking forward to my new responsibilities.  As VP External for a two Ivey student clubs, I will be organizing conferences, speakers and workshops for the new HBA1’s and HBA2’s.  I will miss using the Swahili I learned, but it’s time to learn other things!

A child playing on top of a pile of garbage. There are no proper waste management facilities here so people just throw all of their trash into a huge pile in the village.

Its been a while since I last wrote an update about my work and travels, mostly because I’ve been in limbo for much of the last 3 weeks.  I arrived back in Zanzibar fired up to make something happen here.  My first few days I met with a few women who run NGO programs on the island.  I discussed with them the possibility of running a business entrepreneurship program, similar to the LEADER Project in Nungwi.  They were very enthusiastic about the idea and we had all of these plans for how to recruit students, how to promote the program and how to make use of the case method of learning.  I even started to revamp the LEADER curriculum based on what I learned in Arusha, and what I thought would work best here.

Then things screeched to a halt.  I was always working on somebody else’s schedule.  I had to look into what type of visa I should get to run a program here and that would take at while.  One of the ladies who I wanted to collaborate lived in Stone Town, 60 km from where I am staying in Nungwi. Then after 2 months of not knowing what I was supposed to be doing for my research assignment, I started to here back from my professor in Canada.  Now I’m waiting to get my official project from her to know exactly what programs I will and will not have the time to do for my next two months here.  The research project is supposed to be my first priority so I have to wait for that assignment to arrive in my inbox before I can start anything else.  In the meantime, I’ve become friends with some people who run and work at a scuba diving center here and I got a gig helping them with web and graphic design work.

The sunset from Nungwi Beach. I get to enjoy this view almost every day at 6:30pm.

Taken at Tumbatu on my last scuba diving adventure. My cold/flu/bronchitis has been keeping me out of the water for the last few days

I’ve finally settled into the “wait” but it was quite a struggle.  I was battling with the slow pace of life here, combined with my desire to be accomplishing something substantial this summer.  I’m so used to being on the “go, go go!” all the time.  While at university, I fill every hour of my day with meetings, classes, assignments, and general planning for all the things I’m trying to accomplish.  Here, things happen so slowly.  Even when I wanted to try to make the entrepreneurship program happen here, there are several things out of my control and all I can do is wait to see how things pan out.  The slowness of my life here was quite annoying for a few days but now, I’ve gotten over the restlessness and settled in.  I will have to just be patient and enjoy my time.  After all, I’m staying in a tropical paradise where tourists are paying heaps of money to stay at the resorts I walk past every day.  Plus, I get to see the other side of the tourism industry, living in the village instead of at the resorts, and I love that.

My beach princess. The little girl in pink, on the left, is always playing on the beach beside the Dive Center. She wears a variety of pink, peach and blue silk dresses that look like princess costumes, but they’re always dirty.

I’ve also settled into a neat little routine for food.  I spend very little, maybe $1-3 dollars for both breakfast and lunch each day.  For dinner, I can eat locally for $3-5 or I can eat at one of the resort restaurants for $8-$10.  I find it very amusing to be “eating out” at and feeling at home at the same places tourists are frequenting during their vacations.  It’s necessary once in a while though because local cuisine is very average.   Tanzanians eat a lot of plain, starchy and deep fried food.   At least the tropical fruit here is very delicious and very cheap.  I can’t get enough of the mangos and avocados!

Chipsi-Mayai: aka. French Fries and Eggs.  I call it an American Omelette.

Mao, the owner of the compound where I am staying, lives in the banana leaf shack that sits at the end of the path. He built the house of the left by himself, as well as the other 4 rooms that he rents out to foreigners and still he lives in his little shack. It’s interesting how people here can see the wealth that tourists and westerners bring to the island, but many are still not motivated to do anything to do anything to improve their own living situations.

Since LEADER Project Arusha 2012 ended June 15, the past few days have really given me a chance to reflect on my experience teaching with the LEADER Project.  I had big dreams and high hopes for what we could accomplish. The highest of these hopes was that I would work with the next generation of changemakers: young, budding entrepreneurs who wanted to create positive change through their business endeavours. Admittedly, this is not always what happens as we have such a diverse range of students across our 10 sites.  But with three new sites this year, there certainly some very memorable, life-changing moments.

I was fortunate enough to get to teach on two LEADER Projects this year, one in Yekaterinburg, Russia and the other in Arusha, Tanzania, working with two different teams of Ivey HBA and MBA students. Each site has its challenges but for a travel junkie and workaholic like me, LEADER never ceased to amaze me.

My biggest lesson from LEADER was that you can’t help everyone.  One of the student groups we taught in Arusha was the street kids. Of the 15 or so street kids, we got to maybe 3 of them. The daily challenges they faced to provide for their basic needs made it so difficult for them to grasp some of the higher-level critical case analysis, which is what makes LEADER valuable and unique. That is not to say that people should not help street kids, but they were not a good fit for LEADER Project and our limited resources would best be used to assist a different calibre of entrepreneurs. This was LEADER’s pilot project in Arusha and we have already the gears in motion to recruit a different group of entrepreneurs in Arusha who would benefit most from the curriculum in the future.

My favourite moments from the LEADER Project:

1. Final Presentations: I loved seeing what the students had learned over the course of the project and how much they grew. Some were very nervous but there always others who exceeded our expectations.

2. Meals with the students: In Yekaterinburg, I got to eat lunch with some students almost everyday after class. These were the times that I really got to build a personal connection with some students and learn about their lives.

3. Coaching sessions: this was when I really got to push the individual students’ business ideas to the next level and challenge them to think outside of the box.

I am very excited for what the 2012-2013 year of LEADER Project. No doubt a new, more focused direction has been set for LEADER as we forge ahead and take on Emerging Regions internationally. Over the next few months we will be evaluating each of the sites and recruitment for the next crop of  MBA’s will also begin shortly!

On behalf of the 2011-2012 LEADER Project team, I would like to thank all of our donors, supporters, family and friends for your continuing support.

Tutaonana! (“See you!” in Swahili.)
Anita Lee
2011-2012 LEADERite

When I asked my class, what are some of the problems in their lives, I got a lot more than I expected.  The morning class of the LEADER Project in Arusha, Tanzania consists of a rambunctious group of street kids and graduates of an alternative education program who now have their own businesses.  The street kids in particular are something else.  They are the younger of the two groups, being between the ages of 15-18. They also have little formal education so our participatory style of learning suits them fine.  Compared to the stone-faced students who are accustomed to lectures, the street kids are dynamic, enthusiastic and always up for a challenge, but they also lack a basic education foundation.

The very first class of the Project involves a lesson on opportunity recognition: finding business opportunities in problems.  So I asked the class, “what are some problems you have noticed in your lives?”  To provide some context, in Canada we would get answers like waking up late, losing one’s phone or nagging parents.   We were not prepared for these kids’ answers.  Poverty. Education. Infrastructure. Police harassment.  Typically, the follow up question is something along the lines of, “how would you solve this problem with a business?” But what am I supposed to say when our students are facing police harassment because they are essentially hawkers, operating a semi-legal business? It hard to discuss business expansion plans when all that these kids know is selling fruit on the city streets.  The things that they deal with everyday are a lot harder than our typical students.  They have to operate businesses because that is the only way they feed themselves everyday.  It has been challenging balancing with the classroom dynamic – making sure that the street kids do not feel inferior while also catering to the small business owners.

Teaching in Arusha, Tanzania

The Problem with Non-Profits

I have a problem with non-profit organizations, especially when I hear that my homestay family is not being paid enough money, when the caretaker at our school is not being paid on time, and when our translators are being paid a near slave wage.

The way the LEADER Project operates is that we work partner with local organizations who can handle the on-ground logistics.  While this NPO in Tanzania is one of the main reason why the LEADER Project was able to go to Africa this year, the more I learn about their operations, the more I question what their overall mission is.  Almost all of the locals that are employed by our NPO partner are underpaid.  As LEADER Project, we cannot do much about the situation, since the NPO is covering our in-country expenses and unless we could find another NPO is the funding, we would not even be in Africa.  The NPO gathered our young students for us, but in the process they are paying the locals fair wages.

The Tanzanian government does not monitor how aid organizations use their money and all the Canadian-based NPO has to do is prove to the Canadian government that they are using their funds “appropriately” and they will continue to receive funding from CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency).

The beauty of helping people through business is that, when you have the right entrepreneur, businesses run much more efficiently that NPOs.  The entrepreneur relies on the business for his livelihood, so he will not squander away the money. Businesspeople are more likely to think twice about where they spend their money because they have to work harder for it.  It doesn’t just come from the government for free.

Wrap Up

On a brighter note, the final LEADER Project of 2012 wraps up tomorrow.  After Arusha, I will be working on my own projects in East Africa and online. In spite of the challenges of teaching with Swahili translators and cultural barriers, it has been an amazing learning experience.  I’m looking forward to applying what I’ve learned as I continue my work in Zanzibar!

A social entrepreneur is someone who operates a business for more than just profit.  He or she also want to help the local or global community in some way through their business, be it education, environment, poverty, human rights, etc. As I travel throughout Tanzania, I will profile some of the young people I meet who are social entrepreneurs but who have never heard of the term.   They are people who have big ideas to help their communities and who using business to make it happen.  They also might never get to enter fancy social business competitions but they are no less social entrepreneurs.  They are Unofficial Social Entrepreneurs.

Lekishon’s Dream

Lekishon, sitting outside of our classroom (in the background)

Lekishon Tutunyo is one of my LEADER Project students in Arusha.  He stood out from Day 1, decked out in traditional Masai Tribe clothing: pieces of plaid fabric tied around his shoulders.  LEADER Project students have to present and pitch their business idea to a panel of potential investors on the last day of class, at the end of the two-week project.   On the third day of class, Lekishon handed us a printed business plan. Needless to say, I was impressed with his initiative and I took the time to interview him after class.

Lekishon is the founded of the Enjipai Community Project. He hopes to build a Maasai-run school with an equal emphasis and balance between high quality instruction and indigenous knowledge, centered in Mfereji village. He said that one of the biggest problems in Mfereji, his hometown, is the lack of education.  Most villages, including Mfereji, are located very far distances from the nearest primary school. Walking to school would take over five hours, and for a young for a young child this is neither safe nor feasible. In some instances children are sponsored to go to school, thus leaving their home for months on end. Many Maasai elders feel this is not a viable option for their children, fearing they will miss out on fundamental aspects of their cultural practice and indigenous teachings. To do this, he needs money and his business idea to start a cultural tourism business in this village.  Tourists would pay a fee to see and experience life in a Masai village, enjoy a walking safari and live in the village if they wanted.  The profits from the business would help pay for the school for children.

Lekishon teaching the village children under a tree because there is no classroom. The blackboard was donated by volunteers who Lekishon befriended in Arusha.

Technology Enables

I also learned that Lekishon has a laptop and regularly goes online.  This was surprising because we did not expect our students to have access to a computer or printing, especially the morning class that Lekishon is in.  This class is a group of small business owners who are graduates of an alternative education program in Arusha and street kids.  Small business in Africa means working from the side of the road, your house or if you’re lucky, renting a small shop space. These are not young people with a lot at their disposal.  I asked Lekishon what he does online and how he learned to use the internet.  He explained that he used to go to an internet cafe and someone there showed him how to go online and created an email for him. (Fun Fact: that person also spelt Lekishon’s name incorrectly in the email, but Lekishon did not realize until it was complete.  Not knowing how to fix it, Lekishon kept that email since 2003 and now it would be too much of a hassle to change it.)

Now he uses the internet to learn more about how to market his business and contacting people who might be able to help fund his project.  I was really happy to see how he was using his access to the Internet because I believe that whilst the internet cannot solve all problems, if you know how to use it, it can be an incredibly powerful tool for education and communication.

I asked Lekishon what was the biggest challenge for him as tries to get his cultural tourism business off the ground.  He said it was providing form of accommodation for the tourists, so that they would have somewhere to stay overnight at the village.He said that he had support from his village elders – they liked the idea of building a school for the Masai children – but they could not understand how cultural tourism would work.  Most of the tribe members had no formal education and little or no english, making it  difficult to find people who could help implement the tourism business. It also makes it difficult to find qualified teachers to teach the Masai children an obstacle.  Since living in the city part-time, Lekishon made friends with volunteers in Arusha who helped him with various aspects of the business plan and finding funding but for now, he is trying to educate himself better and learn more about business.

This weekend in Arusha is Karibu Fair, the leading travel trade event in East Africa.  It is the place to be if you are involved in teh tourism industry in Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya and Uganda. I told Lekishon that he should go check it out.  When he seemed indifferent, I asked him if he knew why I was telling him he should go.  He could learn so much there and make contacts with people who could potentially help him start his business.   Lekishon told that me that he had planned to go to Karibu Fair but he could not have marketing materials like brochures and business cards designed and created in team.  He had a friend design half a brochure for him but it’s not enough.

I told him that I could teach him to use some basic design programs on his laptop and he was ecstatic. Moments like this drill home how fortunate I am. Raised and educated in a developed country, I have so much more than I know.  Not only do I have seemingly limitless access to possessions but my education have given me the tools and know-how I need to help someone launch a business.  As much as I want Lekishon to succeed, I can only do so much as I will be leaving Tanzania in three months and his is a very long term project.   Still, if I can teach him a few more computer skills and direct him to resources that he may not otherwise have exposure to, I might help a little.

Final Thoughts:

You need less than you think and you have more than you know.

“We are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have capacities, talents, direction, missions, and callings.” – Abraham Maslow (Courtesy of Workisnotajob)

Learn more here:

Enjipai Community Project - http://enjipaicommunity.blogspot.com/

Huffington Post - Social Entrepreneurship Soars as a Career Choice: Finding meaning in work and life