Date: 3rd April 2012 

In 2011, Nikki and Rob Wilson embarked on a journey of a lifetime from Cape Town to Cairo. No ordinary adventure, the couple travelled through 11 countries with one key mission: to find exceptional social entrepreneurs who are transforming Africa.

Having written a popular blog throughout their trip, Nikki and Rob have now jointly authored a book called On the Up. On 2^nd April 2012, the pair attracted an audience of 200 people to the Royal Commonwealth Society in central London to mark its launch. Joined by seven of the social entrepreneurs featured in On the Up, the evening included inspirational stories from extraordinary individuals running a diverse range of projects right across the continent of Africa.

Coming from a charity background themselves, Nikki and Rob are trying to shake up people’s pre-conceptions about charity work and counterbalance the bad press that Africa often receives. Drawing from their experiences across South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan and Egypt, they have created On the Up as a collection of short stories about entrepreneurial solutions to social and environmental challenges.

On the Up’s stories stretch across all causes and whatever your interest area, age or take on life, you’re sure to find a story which leaves you inspired. The book includes a Buddhist who is training rats to sniff out landmines; an ex-child soldier who uses his rap star status to change lives; a gap year student who now works on death row; and a mum and dad duo who are working with Coca-Cola to distribute medical aid.

Nikki Wilson commented: “In every country we travelled through we uncovered innovative projects run by such inspiring individuals. Unlike the major international charities, these people rarely gain the limelight. Yet they are part of a movement of committed social entrepreneurs driving change not just within Africa, but right across the globe.”

Thought-provoking, moving and often quite hilarious, On the Up challenges you to think about your own role in driving change and encourages you to see that anything is possible. It showcases what it means to be a ‘social entrepreneur’ and also demonstrates that, despite its challenges, Africa is on the up.

On the Up was supported by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust and the Vodafone Foundation. The book will be sold for profit but 20% of all proceeds will be donated back to the projects profiled.

- ENDS –

Notes for Editors…

General information:

On the Up is available to buy from 3rd April (£14.99 + shipping). We are selling exclusively through the amazing on-line book seller Better World Books: http://www.betterworldbooks.co.uk/On-the-Up-id-9780957202702.aspx

The website features all stories included in the book, as well as videos and a list of resources for those interested in driving change: www.ontheup.org.uk

You can follow the project on facebook: facebook.com/ontheupcapetocairo

More about the authors:

Rob & Nikki Wilson co-founded READ International www.readinternational.org.uk in 2004 – a student-led charity which collects books from UK schools, sorts them and sends the most relevant, up-to-date, and high quality to schools in Tanzania and Uganda. Any books collected not appropriate to send are sold online or recycled to generate funding.

READ now has close to 1,000 student volunteers involved across the UK.  To date they have sent over 1,000,000 books to East Africa, benefiting millions of school children. READ also delivers school workshops to  British school children about global citizenship and social entrepreneurship. Ever since its inception, READ’s success has shocked Nikki and Rob and brought with it incredible accolades including ‘Best New UK Charity in 2007’ and ‘Best International Aid and Development Charity in 2010’.

Rob is also the founder of NoPC www.nopc.org.uk, an IT social enterprise aiming to provide affordable, low power and low maintenance computer technology to schools across the developing world.   For his work with READ and NoPC, Rob has been recognised as Enterprising Young Brit 2010 and a Beacon Fellow 2010 for Young Philanthropist of the Year. Since coming back from his Cape to Cairo experience, Rob now works for Ashoka (www.ashoka.org), an organisation supporting the world’s leading social entrepreneurs.

Nikki started her career after university at Cancer Research UK, the UK’s largest charity, where she worked in a range of fundraising roles, from Strategy Planning to Community Fundraising, Direct Marketing and Retail. Since coming back from Africa, she’s decided to work for an organisation at the smaller end of the charity spectrum. She’s currently heading up the UK division of Wings for Life, a charity funding research into finding a cure for spinal cord injury.

Photos and Videos available on request

For more information contact:

Rob Wilson

rob@ontheup.org.uk

07793033618

 Copyright © Nikki and Rob Wilson 2011

Young people can solve society’s problems. And here’s the proof. In 2002 at age 18 Raghda El Ebrashi started a student crusade which has grown into Egypt’s first employment agency for the underprivileged. Alashanek Ya Balady for Sustainable Development (AYB-SD) now works with 1000 students across Egypt to provide training, coaching and employment opportunities to thousands of people a year. Starting out young hasn’t made her journey easy but Raghda has weathered every storm and remains certain about her ultimate goal: to end poverty in Egypt and beyond that, the world.

We arrived in Egypt within weeks of the revolution that toppled President Mubarak’s 30 year military rule over the state. More developed than any other country we’d travelled through, the extent to which the tourist trappings can create a smoke screen to conceal a country’s challenges is amazing. Unemployment, for example, is a major issue for young people. With 81 million inhabitants, Egypt is the Arab world’s most heavily populated country and also one of its youngest: two thirds of the population are under 30.[1] This under 30s age group makes up 90% of the country’s unemployed, totalling over 8 million young people out of work.[2]

Like so many developing nations, the contrast between rich and poor in Egypt is stark and the interaction between those at either end of this spectrum is almost non-existent. Born into a privileged family, Raghda El Ebrashi didn’t experience anything outside her well-to-do lifestyle in Cairo until a school trip took her to Sharkeya, a region 100 kilometres from the capital with much lower standards of living. It was here that she met a total stranger who changed the course of her life.

Raghda was 12 when she met Om Fathy, an old mother who invited Raghda into her own home. To Raghda’s horror she found just a tiny room with no roof, set in the middle of a field. “Where is the air conditioner?” she enquired out of innocence. Then Om Fathy introduced Raghda to her children, explaining that she rarely had all seven boys in the home at the same time as its limited space meant they had to sleep in shifts. Despite the lack of material possessions, Raghda was charmed by this unfamiliar world, shocked to find it in many ways richer than her own.

Clearly a feisty young teenager with well-formed views, she returned to Cairo with an ultimatum. Unless she was allowed to visit Om Fathy and her children every week, she would refuse to go to school. After one week of playing truant, her parents buckled and up to the age of 16, she spent every waking hour waiting for the weekends when she would go back to Sharkeya. “It was there I learnt the meaning of fun”, she beamed.

As well as having hours of fun, Raghda also realised she had a capacity to make a difference. Simple things like teaching Om Fathy’s boys how to write using sticks in the sand made her realise that she could help underprivileged Egyptians to live a more sustainable and dignified life. So she set about developing her own interventions, including literacy classes and art lessons for people in poor communities. Just to clarify, Raghda was doing this between the ages of 12 and16. Puzzled at how Raghda made this work, we challenged her: “Did people take you seriously?” we asked. “No of course not”, she replied smiling.

When Raghda entered university at age 16 (the age at which most enter the university system in Egypt), her vision was clear but her challenges remained the same. “By the age of 16 I wanted to run something on my own. I wanted a national academy where young students could contribute to community development. I wanted to revive the youth to do something for Egypt. But it was not permitted for a 16-year-old to open an NGO and become the CEO.”

The walls of the AYB-SD offices in Cairo are adorned with quirky quotes that sum up their ethos, such as, “successes come in cans, failure in can’ts”.  True to this motto, Raghda has never let bureaucracy deter her. As a fresher she went out to universities across Cairo, asking fellow students to volunteer their skills by running training courses for the underprivileged. Focusing on the capabilities needed to get people into employment, such as English and IT, students came on board in their droves. Soon she had 100 young people dedicated to playing their part in a workforce the like of which had never been seen before.

Students being students, they weren’t quiet about their work and you might well ask “why should they be?” But when you live in a world surrounded by watchful eyes, it pays to be inconspicuous and sadly, in the minds of a controlling state, those who speak out must be silenced. “Let’s just say we had a long term relationship with the State Security”, Raghda said coyly. Right from the start, the government tried its hardest to close down AYB-SD, but Raghda refused to succumb to their intimidating tactics.

After a long period of tension, Raghda was thrown a lifeline by a sympathetic minister. He invited AYB-SD to manage a project distributing food and shelter to 10,000 people in a deeply deprived area of Cairo. If she pulled it off, the permission she needed to run AYB-SD would be granted. Innocent and unprepared, Raghda rallied her students to the challenge and, although they just about finished the job, she admits it was a massive shambles. Unsurprisingly, Raghda was left feeling totally defeated: “I have to tell you the truth. I decided to let it go. I decided I would volunteer for other NGOs because I couldn’t see how we’d ever get the permissions.”

However, the project was judged as being far from a failure, and the minister, satisfied with AYB-SD’s aims, signed a stack of papers which granted them the status they needed to operate without interrogation. This allowed Raghda to take her vision nationwide and in 2002 she launched a campaign at ten universities across the country and began to formally franchise her model. With guidance from the Cairo HQ, affiliated student groups started to take root around Egypt, all focused on delivering training to support underprivileged people trying to get into work.

Interestingly, most social entrepreneurs we’ve met have admitted that they’d almost chucked in the towel at some point. These aren’t people who give up without a fight but when you look at the size of some of their challenges, it’s easy to see how they could appear insurmountable. When people give themselves the freedom to fail it shouldn’t be scorned; it can take more courage to quit than to carry on. In this case, however, Raghda had managed to triumph over a hugely bureaucratic state, a battle which many others in her situation have failed to win.

It’s hard to understand how she found the time, but Raghda did manage to leave university with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. By now somewhat skilled at multi-tasking she decided to run AYB-SD as a volunteer and work a full-time career on the side (amazingly, this is still what Raghda does today). Carving a career path was harder for Raghda than she had imagined and her first real job, selling soap for a multinational conglomerate, turned out not to be her bag. “I couldn’t stand it. I lied for money”, she laughed.  But she finally found her feet in lecturing and also embarked on a PhD, becoming the first Egyptian ever to write a thesis on social entrepreneurship.

This further period of study led Raghda to start questioning AYB-SD. “We asked ourselves questions like ‘will someone with better computer skills really be able to get a job and escape the cycle of poverty?’ No. The answer to every big question like this was no. It was a shock.” So Raghda went back to basics. Starting with the telecoms industry, she made enquires about the skills and capabilities they really needed. The Sales Manager of a multinational telecoms company working in Egypt made their requirements very clear: “Why on earth do I need him to know English? He’s working in areas where people don’t speak English. I need a salesperson to know sales.”

Knowing that this telecoms company was keen to grow their rural presence, Raghda negotiated a deal. She would train up ten people from poor communities in sales and subsidise their wages if the company gave her new recruits a chance. Subsidising the wage was a matter of principle, as Ragdha deemed the company’s £30 per month salary unacceptably low. Though apprehensive, the company agreed to give it a go and were thrilled when the AYB-SD’s trainees outperformed everyone’s expectations. Now a key partner for AYB-SD, in 2009 the company requested 400 more sales people and agreed to pay a salary of £75 per month plus commission. Result.

This model has now become the norm for AYB-SD. Using their network of student franchises (now totalling ten across the country), they review industry needs and train people from marginalised communities in the skills required. Training topics include administration, hospitality, textiles, housekeeping, nannying, sales and much more. They then match people to jobs, negotiate fair contracts and provide ongoing coaching support. In 2010/11 they placed 2,000 people in employment, partnering with an impressive list of private sector brands like Pepsi, Vodafone, Aramex, Shell, Nissan, Samsung and others.

To complement this, AYB-SD is also committed to nurturing entrepreneurship. For people interested in starting their own small businesses, they provide training in areas like pottery, textiles, mechanics, and mobile phone maintenance. They then offer loans, alongside ongoing capacity building advice, to help people start up and scale up their enterprises. This approach makes them considerably more holistic than many microfinance projects and to date they have given out 1000 loans to deserving individuals who might not otherwise have been offered this chance.

But for Raghda this is just the tip of the iceberg. With 44% of the Egyptian population earning under $2 per day[3], she believes AYB-SD must think big. In fact just days before we visited AYB-SD, they launched their Foq El Khat (meaning ‘Above the Line’) campaign with the goal of empowering ten million Egyptians to rise above the poverty line by the year 2020. This is brave and bold but so too is Raghda, and her list of backers demonstrates just how many people believe she can deliver. She has been hailed an ‘Arab World Social Innovator’ (by Synergos), a ‘Young Global Leader’ (by the Schwabb Foundation and World Economic Forum) and has been ranked in numerous polls as one of the most influential social entrepreneurs in Egypt and the wider world.

When it comes to funding her vision, Raghda’s done well to spread her revenue over a portfolio of different income streams. She describes three core ways in which AYB-SD raises money: firstly, ‘Mission Centric Money’ – income from companies which pay for their employment services; secondly, ‘Mission Related Money’ – income generated through their own social businesses, including a private training firm which works in both the public and private sectors; and finally, ‘Mission Unrelated Money’ – money raised through business ventures that capitalise on their skills but have nothing to do with their cause, for example an in-house design company which does branding and graphic design for a range of clients.

Spreading her income in this way has helped Raghda not to get too bogged down in the stress of fundraising. Instead, she loses sleep over the big issues. “I have challenges all over the organisation every day but they are trivial if compared to our main target: the alleviation of poverty”, she said. To us, this sums up Raghda’s style. Constantly preoccupied by the needs of others, she recently refused a stipend offered through her Ashoka award, asking them instead to donate the money to someone else more in need of the support.

When Raghda told us this, we laughed out loud. She’s the first social entrepreneur we’ve met mad enough to give away money. But Raghda is very principled about creating a ‘people organisation’ which relies on itself and not on her being at the helm. “If I die tomorrow and one of the staff resigns because I died, that means I failed”, she told us. Whilst this is an admirable aspiration, we would suggest that both AYB-SD and Egypt need Raghda as much as ever. Having just overthrown dictatorial rule, Egypt is a country where visionaries like Raghda will be needed to shape a better future, where the people come first and political dictatorships are laid to rest.

For more info visit:

AYB-SD: www.ayb-sd.org

  Copyright © Nikki and Rob Wilson 2011

Emmanuel Jal, founder of Gua Africa and We Want Peace

How does a surviving child soldier from South Sudan come to count Alicia Keys amongst his friends?  No, this isn’t another story of a celebrity ambassador adopting a child in need. This is the story of Emmanuel Jal, an extraordinary international rap star who, unlike his counterparts, uses music for a moral purpose. Against all the odds, Emmanuel survived a traumatic childhood and now uses his talent to put right the wrongs in his own past and to change the future for other young people. As he sums up in the first line of his hit record War Child: “I believe I’ve survived for a reason, to tell my story to touch lives.”

Sudan’s past is punctuated with periods of unrest, but the second civil war, which ran for over 20 years and officially ended in 2005, was devastating. Roughly two million people died as a result of war, famine and disease caused by the conflict, making it one of the highest civilian death tolls of any war since World War II.[1] To make it worse, both sides (the central government and the rebel forces) enlisted tens of thousands of children into their ranks;[2] Emmanuel Jal included.

Emmanuel was seven when his mother was killed by soldiers loyal to the government. His family took desperate measures to try and protect Emmanuel from any more traumatic consequences of war. They sent him to join the thousands of children travelling to Ethiopia where it was believed to be safer. But the risks were high and on the way, Emmanuel and many others were intercepted, snatched by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and taken to military training camps in the bush.

After several years of harrowing combat on the frontline, Emmanuel escaped along with 300 others known as ‘The Lost Boys’. Few survived their torturous three month trek to safety but Emmanuel’s bravery was rewarded when, at age 11, he was rescued by a remarkable British aid worker called Emma McCune. Emma smuggled Emmanuel to freedom in Kenya and enrolled him in school, but it wasn’t long before Emmanuel was forced to fend for himself once again. Tragically, just months after meeting Emmanuel, Emma died in a fatal car crash.

By now I’m sure you’re beginning to see quite why Emmanuel’s story is so extraordinary. Emmanuel admits that, after Emma passed away, rebuilding his life whilst living in the slums was an uphill struggle. But thankfully he found something which bolstered his resilience – music. “When I was in Kenya I was stressed out and confused; I didn’t know what to do so I used to go to church and see people sing and dance. The music was good. So, even though I didn’t like the pastors, I started going to church every Sunday because I liked the music.”

Despite having no musical background, from this point on Emmanuel sought inspiration and direction in music and became a huge hip hop follower. Religion also became central to his life, making P-Diddy’s hit, Jesus my best friend, a firm favourite tune. “Even gangsters can sing songs to God!” he told us with animation. Aged 20, Emmanuel took centre stage for the first time and shared his first song, All we need is Jesus, with his congregation. “We were rocking the church and it was explosive”, Emmanuel said in a voice tinged with surprise. The song became a huge hit in Kenya and received airplay in the UK.

As well being a full-time occupation, music became a form of therapy for Emmanuel. Sharing his personal philosophy about the power of music he told us, “It’s the only thing which can speak to your heart, your mind and your soul system. It can influence you without your permission.” Compelled to use his music to help others as well as himself, he started to write lyrics which lobbied for political change and called for peace and independence in South Sudan.

In 2004, he released his first album, Gua, meaning both ‘good’ in Nuer (a South Sudanese tribal language) and ‘power’ in Sudanese Arabic. Rapping in Arabic, English, Swahili, Dinka and Nuer (I wonder how many languages Eminem can rap in?), the album was a storming success. The title track, also called Gua, was a number one hit in Kenya and gained huge traction with everyone affected by the conflict in Sudan. Here’s a sample of the lyrics:

In my homeland, Sudan

Not one sister will be forced into marriage

And not one cow will be taken by force

And not one person will starve from hunger again

I can’t compare to anything

The time when people will understand each other

And there’s peace in my homeland, Sudan

If you type ‘Emmanuel Jal Gua’ into YouTube you can watch and listen to a version of this song, which is ten million times better than reading the lyrics on a page. Emmanuel’s style is totally unique. Poetic, soulful and rich with African beats, it falls under the banner of hip hop but couldn’t be further from listening to Jay Z. This alternative style, combined with a social agenda which comes out of the depth of his experiences, is precisely what excites people about Emmanuel. After being invited to perform in the UK at Live 8 in 2005, a music producer seized on Jal and since then his music has featured on an album alongside that of Coldplay, Gorillaz and Radiohead, and his singles have been used both on TV (namely ER…very exciting) and the big screen (namely Blood Diamond…even more exciting). In 2008 Emmanuel performed at the 90th birthday concert for Nelson Mandela and in early 2012 his third album will go on mass release.

All of Emmanuel’s songs promote the message of peace over persecution, a theme which resonates far and wide and has led hundreds of thousands of people to listen to his work. But more than just influencing the world through album sales, Emmanuel has used his music in a myriad of ways. Most significantly, a lot of the money he has made through music has been re-invested in building a better Sudan. “I never used to enjoy spending my money on myself”, Emmanuel told us modestly. “I like to use it to put somebody in school.”

Even before Emmanuel was earning a decent wage, he used money from odd jobs like washing cars to help street children and fellow refugees to pay their school fees. To formalise his efforts he founded the organisation Consolidated Association for South Sudanese (CASS), that later became a registered charity called Gua Africa. “I am so passionate about education because aid has crippled us and if we want to save my people, education is the only way”, Emmanuel said persuasively.

Based in South Sudan and Kenya, the core programme at Gua Africa is the provision of shelter, sponsorship and support for young people rescued from refugee camps. We met Matthew, one of the 32 young people currently being supported, at one of Gua Africa’s homes in Nairobi. Having lost his siblings to war, at age 11 his parents forced him and his only remaining brother to flee Sudan. After more than a year of travel by foot and transit truck, they settled at Kakuma Refugee camp in Kenya and joined a school run by the United Nations (UN).

Gua Africa has strong working links with Kakuma and it was from here that they rescued both Matthew and his brother, bringing them to Nairobi for a better education. Both worked hard, determined to make the most of their new opportunity despite joining classes with people half their age, a certain challenge to any young person’s pride. Matthew is now studying Surgery and Human Health at university and throughout his journey, Emmanuel Jal has been his role model: “We appreciate him for what he’s doing. We normally listen to his music as it’s a lesson to us. It gives us a lot of encouragement.”

Matthew and his peers all aim to return to South Sudan once they have completed their education, a life choice which Gua Africa actively supports. By the time this happens, Gua Africa will have finished their first community education centre in Matthew’s hometown of Leer. Named the Emma Academy in memory of Emmanuel’s saviour, this school is a response to the hugely pressing need for education in South Sudan, where UNESCO estimates that less than 2% of children are completing primary school and where secondary education is available at just 40 schools [3] (Note: South Sudan has a population of 9 million and is 2.5 times bigger than the UK, which has nearly 4000 secondary schools).[4]

Despite his busy workload and being based in the UK, Emmanuel’s personal commitment to Gua Africa is striking. In order to raise funds for the Emma Academy he completed a 661-day ‘Lose to Win’ fast. Eating only one meal a day, he donated the money he saved to the project and encouraged others to do the same, raising over $200,000. “I thought I was that famous that I would raise money quickly”, Emmanuel said to us, admitting he underestimated how long it would take him to reach his target.

Undeterred by the two years he spent living on limited calories, Emmanuel had us in stitches over his next fundraising master plan which he’s called the Modern Day Nomad Campaign. “I will leave my house and close it and until I raise $1.5 million I won’t go back in!” he said in between bursts of laughter. Having gained an insight into Emmanuel’s eccentric ways during our interview with him, we felt assured that no matter how long it takes living as a nomad, Emmanuel would reach his goal.

Although $1.5m might sound like a lot of money, it matches the size of Emmanuel’s vision for the future. In the years to come he wants Gua Africa to “be able to help anywhere that is in need”, and he plans to do that by “setting up different scenarios to inspire the world”. Beyond his music and his charitable works, Emmanuel has already experimented with almost every medium there is to get his message across. As well as being an artist, he’s an actor (a documentary about his life called War Chid was made in 2008), an author (his autobiography was released in 2009 and he’s written feature articles for newspapers including the Guardian) and he’s an activist.

As well as supporting existing campaigns and causes like Amnesty International and Oxfam, Emmanuel has his own personal activist’s agenda. Most recently he launched his own We Want Peace (WWP) campaign to coincide with the referendum in South Sudan. This global campaign has a bold aim: to raise awareness of the fundamental principles of justice, equality, unification and conflict-prevention, through the power of music, worldwide.

Once again demonstrating the powerful potential role of music in social change, WWP is centred around a new release featuring Alicia Keys, George Clooney, Richard Branson and Kofi Anan. The call to action underpinning WWP is about asking people to take a few simple steps to promote peace and once signed up to the campaign you’re christened  a ‘Peace Soldier’ (nice touch). The campaign aims to have one million Peace Soldiers by the end of 2012. When we read through the jaw-dropping list of celebrity supporters behind WWP, we pondered how Emmanuel remains so modest about his work. When asking him what he was most proud of he offered a sheepish response, unwilling to big himself up. “I don’t really know, I’m just doing what I do. I just want to make a difference that’s all.”

But On the Up is about celebrating the incredible success of social entrepreneurs like Emmanuel Jal, so let us do some boasting on his behalf. Now it’s probably a step too far to credit him with ensuring the referendum process in Sudan remained peaceful, but it certainly would be fair to say that, together with his army of ‘Peace Soldiers’, his messages had a significant part to play. In January 2011, over 98% of the population of South Sudan voted in favour of independence and in July, South Sudan became an independent state.[5] Like so many South Sudanese, Emmanuel sees this landmark divide as an exciting opportunity for the years ahead.

Whilst the future of the country lies in the shaky hands of a new government, it’s people like Emmanuel Jal who are really making a difference. Emmanuel’s work just shows what real dedication from a public figure can achieve – he is keeping South Sudan present in the hearts and minds of millions of his followers and helping to ensure that the young people of this newest of nations have the skills and opportunities they need to stop history from re-writing itself.

For more info visit:

Gua Africa: www.gua-africa.org

Emmanuel Jal: www.emmanueljal.org

We Want Peace: www.we-want-peace.com

Copyright © Nikki and Rob Wilson 2011

From earthquakes to uprisings, you name it; the last twelve months have been witness to them all. And when a disaster strikes, what one thing does everyone look for? Information. If you’re in the thick of it, you need to know what to do, where to run and how to hide. If you find yourself in such a crisis without the information you need, here’s a top tip. Go online and download Ushahidi. Launched by four talented techies, the simple piece of kit allows you to organise yourself and others, ensuring that everyone can access accurate and up-to-date information during their time of need.

In December 2007 the Kenyan presidential election results were announced. The incumbent President Mwai Kibaki was given victory over his opponent, Raila Odinga. Claims about rigging of the results caused voters to go on a violent rampage and a political, economic and humanitarian crisis erupted. Former UN Secretary, Kofi Annan, arrived in the country nearly a month after the election and successfully brought the two sides to the negotiating table. But reports suggest that the impact was lasting, the BBC revealing that 1500 people died and 250,000 were displaced.[i]

When this post-election violence kicked off, Erik Hersman, Juliana Rotich, David Kobia and Ory Okolloh came together online and started a conversation. Acquaintances from the blogging world, these four virtual friends could have easily felt powerless. They were dispersed around the globe and had never met face-to-face as a group before. But these were not ordinary circumstances, nor ordinary people. The group were united by two important things which meant they couldn’t turn their backs on the crisis: firstly, they were all Kenyans who loved their country; and secondly, they were all technology fanatics who believed that software could save the world.

Erik Hersman kindly gave us his time whilst we were in Nairobi. Born in America but raised in Kenya, he describes himself as an “import” but calls Kenya his home. We were intrigued to meet Erik as his accolades reach far and wide. He writes two hugely popular blogs, the White African and Afri-Gadget, which together receive up to 50,000 unique visits a month (to put this into perspective, amazon.co.uk receives 24,000,000 unique visits per month)[ii]. He regularly shares the stage with the founders of Twitter, Facebook and Google and he’s a Senior Fellow at TED (a non-profit organisation offering events, conferences and the TEDTalks video website)[iii]. By all accounts he has the credentials of a Silicon Valley don. But the events of 2008 took his career off on a tangent.

“We’d always claimed that technology allows us to overcome inefficiencies”, Erik told us. “If we couldn’t have proven that during the most inefficient time in our own country’s history then we would have had nothing to stand on.” And this is why Erik and his fellow pioneers used their collective technical know-how to lend a hand back home. Following the suggestion of one team member, they decided to collate and map the news alerts coming from various sources, building a clearer picture of the unfolding events online. In a quick fire decision based partly on the availability of .com addresses, they called their new software ‘Ushahidi’, a Swahili word which means ‘testimony’. This word also happens to be impossible to pronounce… so here’s the idiot version: “oo-shah-hee-dee”.

Thanks to their pre-existing fan base (as bloggers they were already very well known), they managed to attract attention to Ushahidi very fast. As soon as they posted a message to promote their site, they started to attract 75,000 to 100,000 unique visitors a day. Over the weeks that followed the group developed numerous iterations of the Ushahidi platform, adapting it so that local people could submit their own reports via the web or using their mobile phones. Volunteers would then work to approve and verify the information, building a much richer story of the incidents going on throughout the country.

To walk you through what this would have looked like for a user, if you’d seen a riot in your neighbourhood, you would text the details to the Ushahidi telephone number. After a short delay, your report would be plotted on an interactive map on the Ushahidi website, along with other reports submitted across Kenya. To stay up to date with the situation you would sign up to receive news alerts to your mobile phone, or go online to view the latest version of the map.

With 45,000 active users contributing to the Kenyan website in this way, Ushahidi proved to be a success. It also planted the seeds for much more, acting as a catalyst for the founders to carry on working together. When they started to receive requests for replication in other African countries, they realised that their new innovation could be of great use to millions around the world. Unintentionally they had struck upon a new way to channel information during a crisis – from the bottom up.

“The technology was nothing new. We just created another mash up. The innovation was in the humanitarian element. We were shaking the foundations of the way information flows”, Erik explained. Instead of having to rely on information which comes top down from the authorities or media sources, the beauty of Ushahidi is that it harnesses the powerful knowledge of the people on the ground. It encourages society at large to come together, share what they know and build a picture of events which has greater breadth, depth and objectivity.

By August 2008, the team of four founders quit their conventional jobs and morphed Ushahidi into an organisation with a broader remit. Their aim was to become specialists in developing free and open source software for information collection, visualisation and interactive mapping. This description might sound intimidating to a luddite but here are two important words of note: ‘Free’ – Ushahidi develops software that is free for all to download and requires no registration, username or password protection so that the barriers to entry are kept as low as possible, and ‘Open source’ – Ushahidi develops software that is open for all to add their input, meaning that it’s constantly being improved by its community of users.

Over the last three years, the original Ushahidi programme has been developed to better suit people’s varied levels of technical expertise. For those born without the technology gene, a hosted version of the program known as Crowdmap is now available (this means that everything you need is available to you online without having to download any software onto your computer). Much faster to get started, this solution has proven very popular, with around 1000 people using it per month. Another piece of software called SwiftRiver has also been developed which, in layman’s terms, helps to make sense of vast amounts of incoming information. This one, however, is strictly for use by people with the gene. Nikki lost track of Erik’s explanation of SwiftRiver after an estimated five seconds!

To date there have been 17,000 deployments of the Ushahidi solution and, interestingly, it’s used by people in a huge variety of ways. The team have analysed trends in its use and discovered that it works best in ‘hot flash scenarios’ i.e. events which take place over a short period where people have a strong demand for co-ordinated information such as natural disasters, elections, political uprisings and terrorist attacks. In fact Ushahidi has played a co-ordination role in most of the major global crises of recent months and years, including the Haiti Earthquake, the Japanese Tsunami and the Arab Spring Uprisings.

“What this really is, is an extension of what the Red Cross should be doing but online”, Erik explained, an analogy which made a lot more sense once we’d been given some working examples. To share a couple with you: in Libya the UN used Ushahidi to collect and co-ordinate information from 400 volunteers across the country. This provided them with an accurate view of the violence and attacks, allowing them to target their response efforts more effectively. After the Haiti Earthquake, Ushahidi was used both by the emergency response agencies, and the people on the ground. In this case its purpose evolved over time. Used initially to identify missing people, it was later used to track the number of people who had died and then the outbreak of disease.

As Ushahidi is open to all, this does mean that the perpetrators of immoral acts could use it to co-ordinate their efforts, too. Terrorists, for example, could use Ushahidi to map out their target sites and consolidate information from their informants. The Ushahidi team are aware that the multi-purpose nature of their programs could lead people to use it for dubious purposes but they follow the same line as all major software developers. “It’s hard to be objective but the technology is fairly neutral”, Erik explained. “I could use Gmail or Word to organise terrorist activities as well.” Thankfully, Ushahidi has only ever been used once for “iffy purposes” as Erik called them, which was during the recent revolution in Egypt.

In general, people use Ushahidi to co-ordinate information for themselves. But in some cases, when the situation on the ground is highly complex, as, for example, after the Haiti earthquake, Ushahidi use their paid team and their huge cohort of volunteers, to source, approve and verify all the incoming information and then build it into a map. You could argue that this brands them a disaster relief NGO with a difference but Erik disagrees. “If someone calls us an NGO, we correct them right away. We’re a non-profit tech company much more like Mozilla.” (Mozilla are the company who own Firefox, the internet web browser program.)

Like it or not, in terms of the funding model, Ushahidi does run much like an NGO, as 80% of their costs are covered by private foundations. However, the remaining 20% of their funds are raised through contract work for external clients, making Ushahidi look much more like a company. Nike, for example, have approached Ushahidi about building them an interactive map which would help them to track grievances raised by sweat shop workers (a potentially marvellous plan; let’s hope they pursue it). Also, the team are looking at significantly reducing their dependency on foundation funding by introducing a broader suite of chargeable services.

The culture of the company is also totally business-focused. “We work fast and loose”, Erik explained, the kind of words more frequently heard from those with a business background. Ever since Ushahidi was first used in Kenya, the company has stuck to the principle that everyone involved has to be a self-starter capable of responding to any situation on their own and at speed. “If there’s a problem you solve it, you don’t go to someone else to help you”, Erik said plainly. This is essential when you can’t just knock on the door of your boss. The Ushahidi team works entirely virtually, holding only one face-to-face meeting a year.

Ushahidi only has 15 paid staff but they are supported by a huge community of volunteers who tinker with their software and are on-call when something big kicks off. Still, they’re nowhere near the size of the Googles of this world, and they plan to keep it that way. “We’re small so we can be disruptive!” Erik said, pointing out that larger organisations stay well away from anything this controversial. Whilst ‘disruptive’ might sound rather militant, in techie-speak ‘disruptive technology’ is used to describe innovations which shatter the status quo. In that way, Ushahidi is a perfect example of a ‘disruptive’ design. “We just really love creating software that disrupts the world in a way which helps ordinary people”, Erik said with glee.

The Ushahidi team plan to continue the exponential growth of their non-profit tech company and they are also supporting others to do the same. Compelled by the desire to give something back to their volunteer community and uncover the next Ushahidi, they have set up two initiatives to hot-house technical innovation. The I-Hub, an incredible community space right in the centre of Nairobi, provides a range of resources for its 4500 members including free access to the internet, training, pre-incubation advice and the best cappuccinos in Kenya! The M-Lab is for I-Hub graduates who have a serious business idea which needs further incubation and investment. With seven ideas currently under development, the M-Lab is sure to produce another prize-winning company.

Meanwhile, the Ushahidi solution couldn’t be timelier. As we were writing this article, riots were raging across the UK, bringing home to us the fact that no country is immune to unrest. However, knowing that Ushahidi is on hand to help make sense of crises to come, makes us feel a lot more reassured. When considering how to tackle social and environmental challenges, we think more people should experiment with technological solutions. The world needs more people like Erik and his partners, so if you’re an emerging talent in technology, why not give Erik’s story some serious thought and join this techie crusade.

For more info visit:

Ushahidi: www.ushahidi.com

White African Blog: www.whiteafrican.com

Afrigadget: www.afrigadget.com

Copyright © Nikki and Rob Wilson 2011

Many believe that food shortages like those currently faced by the people of Africa’s Eastern Horn are a vision of the years ahead. But imagine a future where Africa, instead of being a case study in suffering, had become a saviour in the frenzied battle for food security. Nick Moon, co-founder of KickStart, adamantly believes that African agriculture is an untapped resource in the fight to feed the world. “All that land, all that water and all that labour… there’s not a problem here, there’s a solution”.

When you travel through Africa, the vast expanses of open space make the cities feel like mere pin pricks on the landscape. Staring out of bus windows we noticed the huge amount of fertile land, some of it in cultivation but much more of it not. When we met Nick Moon, he was quick to explain that “Africa’s true competitive advantage is agriculture”. The trouble is that right now, not only is a lot of land left untouched, but the agricultural practices of small holder farmers means that land is not being used effectively.

Plant your crops and wait for God to bring the rains.  This is the test of faith lived out by most subsistence farmers. As admirable as this fatalistic belief in God might be, it doesn’t make for good business. When the rains come (if they come at all) everyone takes their harvest to market where supply outstrips demand and profits are therefore very low. What’s more, once the rainy season passes food becomes very scarce again, forcing farming families into a vicious cycle of feast and famine.

Co-founded in Kenya in 1991 by Nick Moon and Martin Fisher, KickStart is dedicated to breaking this cycle. KickStart develops agricultural technology specifically geared towards the needs of small holder farmers so they can work themselves out of poverty quickly, efficiently and sustainably. Though they have a range of products on sale, by far the most successful is their MoneyMaker Water Pumps which allow farmers to irrigate their land all year round.

To date, KickStart has sold over 180,000 pumps across their operations in Kenya, Tanzania, Mali, Burkina Faso and through partners in Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique. For every 100 pumps sold, they estimate that 91 of them are used to transform the productivity of a farm by at least 400%. As a result hundreds of thousands of farmers are now growing crops for both internal and external markets, creating enough food to feed their families and earn an income which lifts them above the poverty line.

Nick and Martin have developed an array of agricultural products over the last 20 years but water pumps, they insist, are the most important of them all. “There may be other issues like seeds, soil fertility, access to markets, post harvest storage… but the primary bottleneck is water management. If you can capture, store and lift water onto your crops… you can grow more food, more intensely, more often.” As we travelled out to visit a MoneyMaker Pump in action, Nick explained to us how he and Martin came to become such experts on agricultural development.

A rampant socialist in his teens, at 17 Nick jacked in his formal education to train as a skilled woodworker. A high-flying student at the time, this move to join the modern-day proletariat showed real commitment to the Socialist cause (and upset his parents a lot). After re-training in woodwork he set up a social co-operative which evolved into a specialist company for the restoration of Georgian homes. However, Nick felt his business was too much of a divergence from his values. “It troubled me that we were becoming joiners for the gentry”, he explained. So in 1982 he sold up, moved to Kenya with Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO)[1] and has never gone back to live in the UK.

Posted to a small village in Western Kenya, Nick’s VSO experience was a steep learning curve. “I learnt a lot about what the world looks like through the lens of a small holder farmer”, he said, explaining how tough life was for the rural community he had lived in. After three years, he moved on to work for a well-known international NGO where he met Martin Fisher, a Stanford super brain who originally came to Kenya to pursue his academic interest in the link between technology and poverty. From what Nick told us, Martin’s academic credentials definitely put Nick’s unfinished secondary school career to shame!

Together Nick and Martin worked on just about every kind of development intervention, going from building rural water systems and schools to creating job training programs.  Though Nick and Martin had a great time in the NGO world, they felt scarred by the pattern that emerged. Nine times out of ten, when they handed over a project to be run locally it would collapse. When this happens, it’s easy to point the finger at a lack of commitment from local people, but Nick would argue that it’s usually short-sighted NGOs which appear to be the cause of this recurring problem. They are accused of growing so obsessed with their own priorities that they lose sight of the genuine needs of the people they’re trying to help. “It’s a lot of money, a lot of work and a lot of expertise for very little social return”, Nick told us, convinced that conventional NGOs have had their time.

Determined to develop a new model for fighting global poverty, Nick and Martin started to look at the alternatives. What they concluded was simple but it required a softening of Nick’s socialist ideals. They realised that, just as is the case anywhere, the number one need of poor families in Africa is to find a way to make more money and that social interventions must reflect that. From this insight, ApproTEC (later renamed KickStart) was born.

Their model was, and still is, to develop, launch and promote simple money-making tools that poor entrepreneurs could use to create their own profitable businesses. Nick and Martin started by designing a press for making stabilised soil building blocks. However, despite the product proving popular, it didn’t hit the mark for their vision. “It meant people could build stronger houses for less money but we kept on asking ourselves, how do we really generate wealth?” Nick said. They challenged themselves to go further.

After years of searching for how they could truly help people at the ‘bottom of pyramid’, they decided to focus solely on small-scale farmers and in 1997 the first MoneyMaker was developed.  Since then the pump’s design has undergone numerous iterations but it always follows the ‘plug and play’ principle. A local farmer can pick up a MoneyMaker pump in their local store for a very competitive price ($35 or $95 depending on the model) and start their new irrigation regime that very same day. Even better, if they can’t afford the investment outright, KickStart offer a microloan service to reduce the burden.

We went to see a MoneyMaker Pump in action at a local farm on the outskirts of Nairobi. Johnson, a fit, youthful looking farmer, was working with his family on a plot of French beans for sale overseas.  His MoneyMaker Pump was in full swing and Nick explained to us how the process works.  The farmer digs a hole up to eight metres deep until they hit the water table lying just beneath the surface.  The pump, which is operated manually like a step machine in the gym, sits next to the hole with two long hoses coming out of it. When you start pumping, water is sucked up one hose and pumped out the other. Though Nikki’s efforts to work the pump were feeble (months of no exercise had taken their toll!), this design is infinitely quicker and more efficient than the bucket and rope alternative which many farmers still use.

“I have become a serious businessman and this is my office”, Johnson told us whilst he looked out across his rugged plot. Before he invested in a MoneyMaker Pump he rented 0.2 acres of land and watered his crops using a bucket and well. After being lent a MoneyMaker Pump by a neighbour, he was able to significantly increase his yield and make the transition into growing high value commercial crops. He now owns two MoneyMaker Pumps, rents 2.7 acres of land, has bought 0.9 acres of his own and grows everything from bananas to water melons and maize. Chuffed to be setting an example to his community, Johnson makes enough money to send his three children to school and is about to buy a motorbike.

KickStart is not the first or only organisation to produce these kinds of pumps (also known as ‘Treadle Pumps’). Thanks to the collective efforts of many organisations such as IDE, SK Industries and Practical Action [2] significant improvements are being made in small-scale irrigation whilst many large-scale developments have failed to meet expectations.[3] Africa as a whole continues to be the world’s most food-insecure region[4] but the United Nations believe that increased roll-out of low-cost treadle pumps could significantly boost food security across the African continent. [5] In order for this to happen, it’s essential that the organisations driving this change are scalable and sustainable. And that’s where KickStart’s market-based solution really stands out.

Whilst KickStart helps people like Johnson to set up their own self-sustaining businesses, KickStart itself is not a profit-making company. In 2011 they spent $10m, one third of which is was covered by income from product sales and the remainder by funders like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.[6] Importantly, however, KickStart never intends to become a profit-making entity. Instead they want to stimulate a market for water management products and encourage new competitors to enter the game. “Others might come in and do it better than us and we don’t care, we want them to do it”, Nick explained. At this point, KickStart plan to shift their focus onto new products and markets.

As yet, they haven’t attracted any real competitors into the market as most organisations in this field are producing lower volumes of pumps and invariably give them away free. But KickStart are not worried. Consumer demand is growing but reaching a critical mass takes time, especially when your products require people to adopt a whole new mindset. KickStart’s marketing strategy has to convince people who’ve relied on the rains for centuries that a pump is better. What’s more, if KickStart want the market for water management products to be sustainable, they have to showcase the fact that farming can be lucrative and stem the flow of young people leaving their villages in hopes of a more comfortable city life.

These challenges are exactly why KickStart’s sales strategy is very hands-on. In Kenya, for example, KickStart has a team of 65 regional sales representatives who work with people face-to-face. Key to their approach is local demonstration events held on farms where people come together and see the MoneyMaker Pump in action. Using traditional sales methodology, the sales reps use these events as an opportunity to convert their hot prospects and build their list of future clients. Every effort is made to promote the brand with caps and T-shirts – always a popular give away and we too weren’t allowed to leave the office without a MoneyMaker baseball cap.

This business savvy approach is reflected in every part of KickStart’s operating model. But, as with their iterative approach to product design, it’s taken time for the KickStart business to reach today’s level of sophistication. Nick’s decision to complete an MBA was a key turning point for the organisation, enabling them to lay much stronger business foundations. All the same, KickStart has been winning awards left right and centre for years, including recognition from Skoll and Schwab, as well as Bill Clinton.  In 2003 they also picked up another nice little accolade – TIME Magazine’s European Hero Award and in 2012 they were recognised in Forbes Magazine as one of the Top 30 Social Enterprises in the World.

Hero status is big. But we think it’s justified. KickStart estimate they have helped 600,000 people out of poverty (and that’s a conservative number). Even better, they see this as just the start. Nick told us that within the next 15 years he believes, “Every single person of a responsible age in Africa will know what agriculture water management technology solutions are out there, and what value they can offer them, and be able to walk down to their local store and invest.”

Nick is not a man of few words and every question we asked him opened up a long debate over the best way to tackle social change. Luckily, he’s a hugely fascinating guy so we never got bored…in fact he’s currently planning to move on from KickStart and we definitely think he should become a lecturer. He left us totally convinced that where a cause or need can be linked to a market-based solution, it should be. What’s more, he left us dreaming about a future where Band Aid’s 1980s hit ‘Feed the World’ becomes a massive irony. With help from KickStart, it might just turn out to be Africa that ends up feeding us all.

For more info visit: 

www.kickstart.org

[1] See www.vso.org.uk

 Copyright © Nikki and Rob Wilson 2011

David Kuria, founder of Ikotoilet

In general going to the toilet whilst you’re travelling in Africa is not an experience you look forward to. To be totally frank, it’s so bad that invariably it makes you gag. But in Kenya, ask anyone for the nearest ‘Ikotoilet’ and all your dreams come true.  For just five shillings (3p) you get to do your business in a spick and span public loo. What’s more, once you’re done you can top up your phone, buy a cold coke or get your shoes shined.  The vision of David Kuria, this simple social business aims to challenge toilet taboos and make sanitation sexy.  Sound a bit crazy? Not one bit. Poor sanitation kills millions every year and David’s ‘toilet talk’ strategy is saving lives.

“In most parts of Africa, you can’t talk about sex and you can’t talk about toilets. It’s considered very private”, David explained to us. Let’s be honest, conversations about personal hygiene are uncomfortable the world over. But when every 20 seconds a child dies of poor sanitation[1], it’s not an issue which can be ignored.  Most international NGOs do register the importance of this problem and along our journey we’ve seen an abundance of toilets installed by World Vision[2] and the like. Thankfully David is as skeptical as we are about the impact of these initiatives.

“I don’t think NGOs will ever support any real service delivery impact”, David said. Having worked in the NGO space for numerous years, David had every right to hold to this personal point of view. Before his Ikotoilet venture, he set up and ran a new government department aimed at co-ordinating the NGOs working in Kenya’s slums. After that he ran the Nairobi office of an NGO that does hands-on development work in urban settings. But, after eight years of drilling boreholes and building toilets, he saw the challenges facing Kenya’s slums growing worse, not better. Convinced there must be another way of doing things, he quit his comfortable NGO job and decided to go it alone.

With no real plan and a limited amount of savings, David set up a registered business called Ecotact in 2006. When trying to justify the sanity of his actions to his wife, all he could say was that he wanted to tackle a pertinent issue in an innovative way. Whilst his family worried for their future security, David beavered away at a borrowed desk, and after six months he had hatched a master plan. “Sanitation is more important than independence”, Gandhi is famed to have said. After a thorough review of the challenges facing his people, David decided Gandhi was undoubtedly right.

So improving sanitation became his chosen mission, but what about the innovative approach? Totally disenchanted by tokenistic toilet-building, David set his sights high. “I wanted to re-invent the whole sphere”, he told us. After hours of hard graft and research, the Ikotoilet concept was born and with it three core objectives:

1) To transform the architecture of the toilet

An architect by training, David believes all buildings should be beautiful. “No one has given any thought to the toilet as a piece of art”, he said to us not even breaking into a smile. Determined to prove that with beauty comes respect, David purposefully designed every block of toilets (each block known as an ‘Ikotoilet’) to be a striking landmark. Using funky shapes and bright colours, it’s fair to say the Ikotoilet isn’t easily missed. What’s more, both the staff and the customers take time to keep the loos in great condition, proving David’s mantra that if you build something beautiful, people will want to take care of it.

2) To implement a business model that disrupts the status quo

For just 3p, an affordable price for all, the general public can go to an Ikotoilet and access clean, safe and hygienic sanitation facilities. A service that before Ikotoilet, simply didn’t exist.  This might not sound revolutionary but here’s the twist. The Ikotoilet block is also known as a ‘Toilet Mall’. The space surrounding the loo block is rented to local businesses that provide a range of services like hair cutting, shoe shining and money transfer. Drawn in by the opportunity to advertise to a captive audience, bigger businesses also pay for wall space to promote their brands.

Income from entry fees, rent revenue and advertising deals covers all the overheads of each Ikotoilet and leaves enough left over to repay David’s investment loan. In fact, within five years each Toilet Mall will be turning a tidy profit. Aside from being a nice little money-making scheme, the beauty of this model is that it removes the stigma around stinky toilets, creating instead a space where communities can convene. In turn, this places important pressure on the Ikotoilet staff to keep their standards high and their facilities 100% stench free!

3) To get people talking about sanitation and hygiene

Using innovative mass media campaigns, David tackles cultural taboos which keep toilet business a ‘hush hush’ topic of conversation. To date he has recruited Miss Kenya to serve toilet tissue to customers, at the same time talking to them about the link between hygiene and beauty. He has also brought in other public figures to do the same, including the Vice President, key religious leaders and Kenya’s top comedian.  In 2010, he took an even wackier approach. He brought together 18,302 children, 1050 adults, 40,000 litres of water and 23,000 bars of soap at one venue to break the Guinness World Record title for ‘Most Number of People to Wash their Hands in One Day’. Unsurprisingly, this campaign and others successfully keep hygiene in the headlines. “We have got people talking about toilets”, David told us positively, explaining that driving behavioural change is the objective which underpins everything within the Ikotoilet strategy.

The success of Ikotoilet in Kenya has come as a shock to David, especially as Ikotoilet almost failed to get off the ground. In 2007, when David was trying to get started, he was turned away from every Kenyan bank for a loan. “They would give me an audience but when I told them it was about a toilet, they would look at me as if there was something wrong.” On the brink of chucking in the towel, David managed to convince Acumen Fund (an investment company solely focused on social ventures)[3] to take a chance on him, granting him a $750,000 loan in three installments. Luckily, this risk paid off. Within just three years, 50 Ikotoilets have been installed in 20 municipalities across the country and in 2011, Ikotoilets expect to receive ten million customers, an average of 30,000 per day.

Importantly, Ikotoilet is also providing employment to 150 staff and, much to David’s delight, people are clamouring to get a job in the company. “This is not a toilet team, it’s an Ikotoilet Team”, David told us, explaining how his staff are employed in “sanitation hospitality”.  Determined to create a dignified place of work, each of the operators at an Ikotoilet receives a uniform and a tailored training programme. Ingeniously tackling sanitation taboos from every angle, these basic provisions support the shift in mindset that David is trying to create. The job of a toilet attendant has actually become desirable. Now I bet there are not many countries which can make that claim.

But Ikotoilet can make many claims. Not only have they completed an almost clean sweep of social enterprise awards, including recognition from World Economic Forum, Ashoka, Clinton Initiative, World Toilet Organisation and Global Water Challenge, [4] but they are also Kenya’s single largest toilet roll consumer! This might not build their environmental credentials, but Ikotoilets make every effort to keep themselves green. They use waterless urinals, low flush toilets and water-saving taps. They even try to make use of human waste by converting it into bio gas for cheap cooking fuel and fertilizer for community gardens.

If these awards tell you one thing, it’s that Ikotoilet has a bright future. David estimates that Ikotoilet is only responding to 10% of the demand in Kenya, providing ample space for growth over forthcoming years. Within Kenya, he’s also branching out into sanitation for schools. Using donations to cover the initial building costs, he’s already built ten Ikotoilets on school grounds and will use corporate advertising to pay for the ongoing overheads.  Hoping to shape the views of the next generation, each new installation is also supported by an education programme which promotes hygiene, sanitation and good health. Not content to stop at the Kenyan borders, David is also looking at scaling Ikotoilet across the whole continent. With the financial support of East African Breweries, a ten toilet trial is about to launch in Uganda, and there are plans in the pipeline for Tanzania, Ghana and Liberia. This expansion is essential as currently it’s estimated by the United Nations that only 60% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa have access to basic sanitation facilities.[5]

Having travelled through much of Africa, we can vouch for the fact that the demand for these sanitation facilities is sky high.  Now you could argue that governments should be encouraged to take responsibility for providing these basic facilities themselves. But David’s experience of working with bureaucrats is sad proof that politicians are not willing to fill this gap. David approached the Kenyan government for financial support to help him scale his business much more quickly. He also proposed that all Ikotoilets be handed over to local councils after a period of time. Unfortunately, all of his proposals have fallen on deaf ears and the government is willing to do nothing more than publically endorse his work.

Apathetic politicians are a massive frustration for David, as well as countless other social entrepreneurs. But in all honesty, Ikotoilet’s response to the improvement of sanitation is far bigger and far better than any government could likely provide.  Though David can’t yet measure it, he knows that his facilities and campaigns are having an impact on the incidence of sanitation-related disease. When we visited an Ikotoilet in central Nairobi for ourselves, the long queue of customers was evidence enough that people are taking onboard his messages. In Swahili ‘Ikotoilet’ literally means ‘There is a toilet’. After our Ikotoilet visit, we decided we wanted to add a few extra words. There is a toilet…which is changing the world.

For more info visit:

www.ecotact.org

Copyright © Nikki and Rob Wilson 2011

What do you get when you cross a rebel attack in northern Uganda with three innocent young Americans carrying a cheap video camera bought off eBay? Three dead innocent young Americans no longer carrying a cheap video camera bought off eBay? Nope. This is not a story which follows normal rhyme and reason. What this sequence of events actually gave birth to was a hugely successful charity that has taken America by storm:  Invisible Children.

Jason Russell, Bobby Bailey and Laren Poole headed out to Africa in 2003 with the dream of making a documentary to show to friends and family back home in San Diego.  Between them they had limited miles on their travel-o-meters and absolutely no experience in making films. But they had tons of testosterone, a thirst for adventure and a sack full of naivety – all the ingredients needed for the journey of a lifetime.

Dead set on throwing themselves in at the deep end, they went searching for danger. “We picked the most random place we could find that had a civil war”, Laren told us. With the benefit of hindsight he now admits that their strategy was a little on the crazy side. “Looking back on it, it was really stupid. We could have definitely been killed.”

Sudan was their chosen destination until their heads were inadvertently pointed in a new direction. Whilst travelling through Uganda, a truck in front of them was ambushed by the rebel group known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The three narrowly escaped death, those in the truck just yeards in front of them did not.  Unknowingly, they had walked into a war zone.

In 2003 the war between the LRA and the government of Uganda had already been raging for 17 years and it wasn’t until 2006 that the LRA left northern Uganda, moving the conflict to neighbouring countries instead. Unlike most wars that are often rooted in tribal difference or land dispute, this conflict was deeply warped. The LRA leader, Joseph Kony, believed  that he was possessed by spirits directing him to overthrow the government and enforce a rule of law based on the Ten Commandments. Unsurprisingly, he struggled to gain followers through conventional means and recruited an army by abducting children using brutal force.

Year after year families living in northern Uganda went to sleep at night fearing that the LRA rebels would storm their village, stealing their children for soldiers and their women for sex slaves.  To avoid this terror thousands of children started a nightly commute into local towns where they could find shelter and relative safety. After the ambush Jason, Bobby and Laren were forced to rest a night in the town of Gulu where they came face to face with this phenomenon. “The first time we saw it, it was bizarre. An exodus of young children. It was like a Hitchcock movie or something! It was crazy to see”, Laren explained.

Appalled that a crisis of this scale was going unnoticed, the boys de-prioritised Sudan and made Gulu their base. Up for anything that would make their money last a little longer, they “lived in an abandoned building, peed in water bottles and stayed up all night to film the night commuters”. But after two months they ran out of cash and were forced to bid farewell to their crowd of friends.

Struggling to turn their backs on Gulu, the boys agreed to find the funds to pay for the school fees of two brothers who had become their close allies. On the face of it, Jacob and Thomas were just local Gulu boys who loved to play football with their American mates. In fact, after being forced to watch the murder of their own brother, the two had run away from the LRA and were living in fear.. As three young college kids from affluent families, Bobby, Jason and Laren knew they could find some school fees. Little did the trio know that they were in line to achieve a lot more.

Back at home and after a year pulling together a documentary, the boys set up some screenings for their local community which, to their astonishment, attracted a crowd of 3000 people and a decent chunk of donations. Having watched the film called ‘Invisible Children: Rough Cut’, it’s obvious why it so quickly won over hearts and minds. A feat of creative genius, it’s a perfect mix of laugh and cry footage. In between moving scenes of children crammed into their refuge centres, you meet the real Jason, Bobby and Laren whose antics (including killing snakes and slaughtering chickens) are left uncut.  Not one bit try-hard, it’s 100% authentic.

Until then, the boys thought that telling the story would leave them satisfied that they’d done their bit. But their viewers all left the screening with one remaining question: What are you going to do about it? “Everyone else out there was meant to do something about it!” Laren recalled with laughter. No such luck. A dawning realisation hit the three boys and they grabbed the moment. They decided to stop being three young kids who stumbled into something. Instead they transformed into changemakers, devoted to stopping the LRA.

In 2005, Invisible Children (IC) was founded as a non-profit organisation and since inception their strategy has remained simple. They tell stories to change lives. Groups of young volunteers (a.k.a. ‘roadies’) tour the United States and screen creative and compelling documentaries about the LRA and the devastation they leave behind them.  Their plea is always the same: Give us your Talent, your Time and your Money. Through donations and merchandise sales, to date Invisible has raised nearly $50m. “That’s a freaking lot of money”, Laren said before we did, still amazed by their fundraising prowess.

Unlike many broad-reaching NGOs, their funds are hyper focused on one mission. IC wants to stop the LRA, see the leaders brought to justice and help their victims to get a fresh start. Thanks to the strength of their public support (an estimated ten million people have now seen IC’s movies), they have become an influential mouthpiece. They worked closely on peace talks held with the LRA in 2008 and although the talks were unsuccessful, they’ve kept the pressure high on the American government. Thanks to the advocacy efforts of hundreds of thousands of young people and the leadership of a few key members of congress, in 2010 President Obama signed a bill into law that required the US to design a strategy to apprehend Joseph Kony.

The IC founders have even managed to bend the ear of President Obama directly in a face-to-face meeting at the White House.  They decided to spend their precious ten minutes with Obama retelling Jacob and Thomas’ story. In response, Obama sent back a typically presidential message. “Tell those boys that the President of the United States knows about this and he’s going to do something”, he said. Since then, the US have sent troops to Uganda to advice forces within the region on how best to manage the ongoing struggle against the LRA.

The LRA has now retreated from northern Uganda so IC focuses its work there on supporting victims and investing in the next generation.  Educational support is central to their services and, as of December 2011, includes the provision of scholarships and mentoring to over 840 secondary and university students, infrastructural and capacity building support to 11 carefully selected secondary schools, and a Teacher Exchange Programme between Uganda and the US. Their work with in rural communities is equally impressive and includes the establishment of Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA) groups, which support families returning from displacements camps, an adult literacy programme and a tailoring project known as Mend which supports females formerly abducted by the LRA.

When we visited IC’s work in Gulu, we were struck firstly by how polished it was and secondly by how thoughtful it was. IC has always advocated the approach of ‘Ugandans helping Ugandans’ and their dedicated team of locals is sensitive to the every need of their community. Sister Susan, Head Mistress at Sacred Heart Secondary School for Girls, was the first to point this out: “What I found impressive is the rounded support they give. They look at the entire needs of the students.” Over 130 girls were abducted from the Sacred Heart Secondary School during the peak of insurgencies and many of their students are nursing the wounds of war. So too are the women working at the Mend centre. But with 24/7 support from a local social worker based in their office and a steady income from the beautiful bags they produce, they are beginning to rebuild their lives.

However, as many begin to put their lives back together in northern Uganda, just over the borders in Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan, the LRA continues to tear lives apart. Conflict is an ongoing challenge in Africa and it continues to rank as the world region least at peace.[1]. More than one fifth of the continent’s population remains directly affected by conflicts.[2] But wherever Kony goes, IC will follow.  They have expanded their operations to Congo and CAR and introduced a raft of new initiatives to support those being affected. Dedicated to LRA disarmament, they are also treading potentially dangerous ground by encouraging rebels to defect. By using innovative radio messaging they’re showcasing the stories of ex-soldiers who’ve escaped and been given amnesty, in the hope it will encourage others to do the same. Remarkably, it’s working and from the bottom up, IC is chipping away at the might of Mr Kony.

“We’re not leaving until Joseph Kony goes away”, Laren told us emphatically. Perhaps somewhat harshly, he added that until this happens, IC is technically a failure: “We’ve had some great wins along the way, but we’re a failure overall – we haven’t yet accomplished our big goal.” When your cause is so focused on one long term goal, it can be hard to justify your progress on a monthly or annual basis.  However, we felt IC’s niche focus is exactly what makes it so compelling. Those who give their time, talent and money in support of IC’s work are totally clear about where their donations are going and to what end, however distant it might appear at times. All too often you just don’t get this kind of transparency.

We left Gulu with a resounding respect for Invisible Children and its founders.  Though IC has attracted a lot of attention (they have even featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show), Jason, Bobby and Laren’s efforts are ego-less. Despite all the recognition for their work there was no hint of arrogance. The clearest demonstration of this is their decision not to cling on to CEO status; all three have handed over the responsibility of global operations to others they deem more qualified.

“I’m not CEO because the CEO has to do things that I’m not trained to do”, Laren told us. Though Laren no longer plays a role in the day to day operations of the charity, both Laren and Jason still spend their time making movies.  In actual fact, these roles are by far the most fundamental because it’s their fresh, eclectic  style which has made IC such a success. Check out their films and you’ll see exactly what we mean and, even better, you’ll get a free copy to pass on to a friend. Never an opportunity missed, we swear that IC has thought of it all!

For more info visit:

Invisible Children: www.invisiblechildren.com

On a gap year with a serious difference, Alexander McLean worked in a Ugandan Prison. Deeply disturbed yet hugely inspired, he went on to found an organisation which is redefining Africa’s approach to imprisonment. African Prisons Project (APP) ventures to where so many will not go. Based in Uganda but also working in Kenya, they are bringing education, healthcare, justice and rehabilitation to thousands of prisoners who would otherwise be ignored.

Alexander didn’t set out on a gap year to work with prisoners and was originally working on a volunteer project with Hospice Africa Uganda.[1] He worked for three months bathing, clothing and supporting people coming to the end of their lives in Kampala’s Mulago hospital and it was here that Alexander first met inmates from the local prisons.  Frequently dying from starvation and dehydration, prison patients were usually grossly maltreated by hospital staff and left to die without an ounce of dignity. Appalled by the fact that these people were treated no better than animals, Alexander made it his mission to see what prison life was like. After weeks of persistence (understandably the prison services were somewhat dubious of this unusual 18 year old), he was granted permission to visit death row at Kampala’s maximum security prison[2].

We’d hazard a guess that Alexander is the first gap year student to take a trip to death row and the very fact he did sums up what an incredible guy he is. Unsurprisingly, what he found wasn’t pretty. Living conditions were dire (over 300 people occupied a building built for 50), judicial rulings were questionable (inmates were condemned to death for crimes like kidnap, cowardice and treason) and the general wellbeing of prisoners was totally sidelined. Staff ruled by fear and the concept of rehabilitation didn’t exist. But despite all of this, Alexander found he was greeted with immense warmth by the inmates, many of whom were similar to him in age. Having opened the door on something that most people freely ignore, Alexander felt it was impossible to just walk away.

By this time Alexander had already well extended his trip to Uganda (he was only ever meant to stay for two weeks) and his parents were growing increasingly uncomfortable with his African adventures. “My parents did everything possible to try and stop me from going. They thought I was throwing my life away for nothing”, he told us. But, in his mind, his gap year was not complete. After a short trip back home to collect funds from the congregation at his local church, Alexander returned to the prison. With the help of inmates and staff, he refurbished the totally dilapidated health clinic. At this stage Alexander wasn’t thinking about the long term impact of his work and was blown away by the transformation this simple project made. Over the next year, there was a significant drop in the number of deaths at the prison.

This one project set the ball rolling for many more initiatives aimed at improving prison infrastructure. Whilst in his first year of studying law at the University of Nottingham, Alexander miraculously managed to raise the funds to go back to Uganda and build its first ever prison library. We first met Alexander while running our own volunteer project at Nottingham. Not the kind of student you meet every day, we were hugely impressed by him and donating a few books seemed like the least we could do to help.

The more work Alexander did, the more he saw what was possible. His reputation was growing and other countries became open to his work. During his second year at university he convinced his father to join him in Sierra Leone where they refurbished the cells at a children’s prison and then a few months later he took friends out to Kenya’s Kamiti Maximum Security Prison where they did up the sick bay and kitted out a library. Fast becoming a prison expert, he also ventured on a research trip to Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe where he found the same pervasive needs. “I saw that people in prison were keen to learn, they wanted an education and health services. But more than anything they wanted justice”, Alexander explained.

If you met Alexander your first guess might be that he’s a lawyer – he wears smart clothes and he’s the personification of articulate. But since graduating, law has been his part-time hobby and prison regeneration his full-time occupation.  By now working as a registered organisation known as Africans Prisons Project (APP), Alexander returned to Uganda in 2007 and soon realised that the provision of infrastructure, namely libraries and health clinics, was only the first step in delivering lasting change within prisons. To build on this APP developed a holistic repertoire of services for inmates. They now cover education (adult literacy classes and book clubs), healthcare (sports clubs and counselling), justice (workshops to support inmates through the court process) and re-integration (advice and guidance on services available once released).

“I’m not very good at planning”, Alexander admitted. As a result, APP’s strategy has emerged as Alexander has learnt more and more about what works and what doesn’t. One area which has sprung up as needing more attention is the integration of prison staff into APP’s activities. Interestingly, one of APP’s greatest challenges has been the attitude of prison staff who are naturally wary of APP’s approach and envious of the facilities being provided to prisoners. To combat this APP have deployed a range of effective strategies, including a great new resource centre which runs out of their Kampala head office. Specifically for prison staff, as well as ex-inmates, the centre offers a fully-stocked library, computer skills training and a weekend club for wives.

It was here at the resource centre that we met our prison guide, Frank.  Having lived on death row for many years, he was the perfect guy to give us a real insight into prison life and the impact of APP’s work.  A million miles away from being intimidating, Frank was softly spoken with a slight build and mottled grey hair. He had been sentenced to death for a fictional crime, designed to hide the fact that his ‘wrong doing’ was related to politics. For the first decade of his sentence there was no way for prisoners to appeal, but when Uganda abolished the mandatory death sentence in 2009[3], Frank set about clearing his name through the Court of Appeal. After 23 years on death row, he was released.

Since being let out Frank has returned to the condemned section of Luzira Prison every week as an APP staff member and it was a true privilege to join him on a visit.  Welcomed by prison staff and inmates alike, stepping onto death row was not one bit like we imagined. Yes, conditions were shocking but what was more overwhelming was the family atmosphere. A source of great wisdom, Frank explained that this community spirit comes from living among people who are all forced to accept their fate. Everyone we chatted to was brimming with warmth towards APP and spoke of Alexander as a brother. “Alexander is our friend, part of us in fact. He has done a lot for us”, shared the inmate who oversees the APP library. In a bustling courtyard filled with people playing board games, we found a score sheet pinned to the wall with the title ‘Sir McLean Draughts Tournament’.

The eagerness to learn displayed by most inmates was really striking, and thanks to APP, many have been able to really apply themselves, earning O-Levels, A-levels and even university qualifications whilst still inside.  Alexander lists APP’s educational feats among his proudest achievements and justly so. Thanks to a partnership between APP and the University of London, in 2011 55 inmates and prison staff applied to study for diplomas by correspondence from Uganda. Whilst on our tour of death row we met one of APP’s first university students, Patrick. Thrilled to be accepted onto an undergraduate course in law in 2010, Patrick is planning on using his new expertise to help prove his innocence in his forthcoming appeal case.

APP currently supports one third of the 35,000 inmates in Uganda and has already expanded its reach to Kenya, Nigeria and Sierra Leone.  The organisation has built a strong reputation for itself and as a result their services are in demand. Southern Sudan, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe have all invited APP to work in their prisons. Alexander is keen to take APP Africa-wide and is working on a standardised package of model services which would allow APP to offer the best of their facilities at a reasonable cost to more countries across the continent (and maybe even beyond).  Despite these grand plans for expansion, Alexander‘s ultimate vision is that APP will no longer need to work in these countries: “If we can establish model services … prisons will gain confidence in this new approach and then take it on for themselves.”

Realising this dream will require a long term commitment from APP. Most African countries have been running their prisons according to brutal rules and regulations for decades, if not centuries. Having now visited over 70 prisons across the world, Alexander also knows that changing the lives of people in prison isn’t straightforward. “There’s no simple answer, no quick fix”, he explained. That said, APP already seems to be shifting the mindset of the prison services. In recent years in Uganda, the government has started to provide support to selected prison schools and welfare officers are being introduced. Though nobody chose to credit APP with having influenced this, we felt sure there was a link.

APP is an exciting organisation. Most others doing hands-on work in prisons are small scale and have a religious foundation, whereas APP does not. What they’ve achieved already is groundbreaking and, should APP grow according to plan, they are on track to create a systemic shift in Africa’s approach to imprisonment. Alexander will be pushing this shift every step of the way. Since he started APP, he’s only ever received a small stipend and yet he’s not one bit deterred. In fact, he’s 100% dedicated to spending the rest of his life in this line of work.

For more information visit:

African Prisons Project: www.africanprisons.org

 [1] See http://www.hospiceafrica.or.ug/

 Copyright © Nikki and Rob Wilson 2011

When Mary Kayitesi Blewitt OBE returned to Rwanda in 1994, weeks after the end of the genocide, she found out that fifty of her family members were dead. “How did it feel?” we asked her. “You can’t explain to anyone. You just survive. You live. You exist. You’re there but there’s no words for it”, was her reply. Despite the enormity of her loss, Mary was able to look beyond her own tragedy and devoted herself to supporting the survivors of genocide. 

The Rwandan genocide broke out in April 1994. The target was the ethnic group known as Tutsis and the perpetrators were the Hutus. The tensions between  Tutsis and Hutus were not new; they had been raging since European colonisers created divisions between the two groups. But this time the Hutu militia and army set about bringing a final solution to the ‘Tutsi problem’ by raping, battering and butchering. Despite being warned about the pending atrocities, the international community looked on and the genocide only ended when the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) managed to gain control of the capital, Kigali. Over the course of 100 days, an estimated one million men, women and children had been brutally murdered.[i]

Living in Kenya at the time, Mary Kayitesi Blewitt could only listen to the radio for information about what was happening to her homeland.  When she finally managed to get into Rwanda on a Chinook Helicopter carrying NGO workers, she describes what she found as “pain, pain, grief, pain”. Mary’s family had been forced to leave Rwanda in 1959 during an earlier period of Tutsi persecution but most of her family members had stayed. When Mary first arrived in Rwanda it was very difficult to find anyone she knew so she tended to the dead and listened to the survivors. As a way of managing her own loss, she threw herself into volunteer work to register those who had died and those who had survived. “There was no point in thinking about my own people because one million is bigger than fifty”, she explained

Whilst working as a volunteer Mary saw that there was a gaping hole in the management of the mass influx of aid organisations coming into the country. In response she volunteered to manage and help establish an NGO Co-ordination Unit at the Ministry of Rehabilitation, despite the fact that, coming from an NGO background herself, she had developed a deep cynicism about relief work.  She found most organisations arrogant, self-interested and uncontrollable. What’s more, Mary was angered at their ignorance towards the issues surrounding survivors. To give you a sense of the types of survivors, reports estimate that during the genocide one third of children saw their families murdered. The genocide left 34% of homes headed by women or orphans[ii] and tens of thousands of women infected by HIV, victims of ‘rape brigades’ who deliberately spread the disease during the genocide attacks[iii].

Every day Mary would come face to face with the challenges facing survivors.  Far from feeling fortunate for having lived, most felt survival was its own kind of torture. Widows and orphans were struggling to provide shelter and education for their dependants. Women who’d been raped were living with HIV. Trauma left many suicidal. Yet despite these wounds, Mary began to see survivor-led organisations forming. One group in particular stood out – a small set of widows who regularly gathered to provide one another with peer support. Recognising their potential, Mary took them under her wing. She encouraged them to organise, form a constitution and register as an NGO.  Today the Association of Genocide Widows (AVEGA) has well over 25,000 members across the country.

After two years of hands-on work to support the genocide survivors, through AVEGA in particular, Mary returned to the UK where her husband and family were based. . Compelled by an unrelenting sense of anger, she put her outspoken nature to good use by raising awareness about Rwanda at any opportunity. At one NGO conference in Dublin she was invited to the platform to say her piece but, when her fifteen minutes was up, she refused to leave the stage. Startled by her own indignation, she knew from that point onwards that she had to do more. Increasingly resentful of the way that international aid was being managed in Rwanda she decided: “I will set up a charity and I will show them that I can do it better. I am going to reach every single person who needs to be reached. And that’s exactly what I did.”

Working from her own front room with a donated computer, Mary set up Survivors Fund (SURF) in 1997. Its mission: to rebuild a sense of self and trust in humanity among the survivors of the Rwandan genocide. Since SURF started, Mary has supported 14 out of the 16 grass roots organisations working in Rwanda to support survivors. With SURF’s support – both financial and non-financial – these organisations have responded to all the core needs of the estimated 300,000 vulnerable survivors of genocide. [iv] From counselling to combat trauma to HIV treatment for rape victims; from new housing for those lacking shelter to scholastic support for orphans; from business loans for those seeking employment to… well, the list could go on and on.

SURF has also delivered a number of initiatives directly, the most memorable being 40 burial sites that provide a respectful place of rest for over 500,000 genocide victims. We were shocked to learn that, even now, bodies are still being discovered. Owing to the nature of the attacks, many of the dead were thrown into pits or buried where the militia saw fit. Slowly, as more and more perpetrators have come to justice, these locations have been revealed and SURF has made it its goal to ensure that surviving relatives have the chance to bury their loved ones with dignity.

But, as one woman working from the UK, how has Mary achieved all this? When quizzing her on her recipe for success, she listed the following three attributes: commitment, hard work and never taking ‘no’ for an answer. Mary brands herself as “a fighter” and her feisty ways certainly lend truth to that trait. Through sheer determination she has managed to bend the ears of many influential people, including Clare Short, Cherie Blair and David Cameron, and her efforts never fail to pay off. In 2004 she was invited to Downing Street for an evening with Cherie. Out of that was born a celebrity-studded campaign (bagging among others, Beverly Knight and Helen Baxendale) that led to DFID donating over £4m for anti-retroviral drugs for rape victims infected with HIV.

SURF’s operating model is also a key contributor to their success. Probably best described as a catalytic investor, SURF identify and invest in grass roots leaders who need funds and support to start up and grow their own ideas.  Their core strategy is focused around capacity-building and their golden goal is to help every organisation become self-sufficient. And when it comes to dishing out the cash, they take an approach that most other foundations could learn a lot from. They’re not rigid – they respond to any request from any survivor organisation; they’re not precious – they broker relationships between those they work with and new funders; they’re not remote – they have exceptionally close relationships with everyone they support.

SURF and AVEGA have worked so closely together that the two organisations’ work is almost inseparable.  Under SURF’s strategic guidance they have de-centralised their operations and vastly expanded the services they offer to widows. The centre piece of AVEGA is their eastern division which has developed under the leadership of Odette Kayirere, with Mary as a mentor and supporter. AVEGA East has built an incredible support centre that is staffed by 40 widows and orphans. To pay for the support services available, Odette has set up a number of profit-making business initiatives at the centre: a conference centre, guesthouse and restaurant. When we visited their site we were incredibly impressed by what we saw. Rwanda’s largest bank was paying to use their facilities for a meeting, the regional group of widows were gathered in the courtyard for business training and the health centre was bustling with patients waiting to be seen.

Another pearl in SURF’s portfolio of partners is Solace Ministries. John Gakwandi, the founder of Solace Ministries, survived the genocide by hiding with his family in a cupboard for 80 days. Afterwards he felt a calling to provide comfort and support to fellow survivors. Starting out as a small organisation, Mary guided their expansion and today they work in 59 communities. “Mary helped us to know more”, John explained warmly. Among many things, SURF has provided Solace Ministries with the funds to provide new housing for hundreds of survivors. We took a trip out to visit one site where 60 homes were funded by SURF. Sandrine Mukayitesi welcomed us into her front room to share her story.

Sweet-natured and softly-spoken, Sandrine bears the physical scars of a brutal attack. At aged nine she witnessed the murder of her parents and was taken by the militia to the Congo as a human shield. Separated from her siblings, she explained that the men “mistreated” her. After a brave escape, she made her way to Kigali and lived in a derelict building with fellow orphans. Discovered by Solace Ministries, she was provided with vocational training and counselling, both of which helped to cure the persistent headaches she’d never been able to get rid of. Then in 2006 she was provided with a home, funded by SURF. “Since I got the house, I can struggle and survive better”, she told us.

When you hear stories like these, you can understand why organisations like SURF have lobbied hard to try and raise financial compensation for survivors. But to date, this campaign has proven a lost cause. Keeping the genocide on the agenda of international governments and donors is a key challenge for SURF. As the years pass by, new priorities have arisen and the Rwandan government are keen to put the genocide in the past. They have even threatened to cut the small amount of funding they currently donate to survivor support. But Mary, who confesses herself that she has no interest in diplomacy, is very frank about the deep scars which are still tearing Rwanda apart. Mistrust and pain still run through the underbelly of society: “The survivors don’t want to say it because the government will crack down on anybody who says there is not forgiveness and love between ourselves. We don’t really have love.”

It was saddening to hear Mary speak so openly about the ongoing struggles which face so many people but this did not belittle her achievements.  Though Rwanda is far from healed, Mary has seen a change in the survivors she set out to help. “When I first met the survivors, they just wanted to die… I said to myself, I want to see them fighting. When they start fighting for themselves, for their rights, it will be time for me to go.”

Confident that she could see a change in survivors’ attitudes, Mary decided to step down from SURF in 2009.  Though she was left exhausted by her emotional journey, she has since written a book and retrained as a complimentary therapist. If you’re in need of some TLC and you’ve got a social conscience, we’d recommend you look up Mary Kayitesi Blewitt OBE. Her spirited personality is sure to mean your muscles will get a good pounding and more importantly, this is her latest social enterprise and profits from the session will be donated to survivors of genocide.

For more info visit:

SURF: www.survivors-fund.org.uk

AVEGA: www.avega.org.rw/English.html

Solace Ministries: www.solacem.org

Mary Blewitt: www.marykblewitt.com

Copyright © Nikki and Rob Wilson 2011