“Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get Aids. Just kidding. I’m white!”
So tweeted the director of corporate communications for media conglomerate IAC yesterday, unleashing a storm of online protest. To be fair, the lady in question is apparently no poster child for sensitivity or good judgement in her utterances, having previously tweeted equally ridiculous and offensive missives. One hopes the backlash of this will teach her some tact – her twitter account certainly has been deleted since.
The fact remains though that the vast majority of stories being reported on out of Africa in today’s news are stories of poverty, disease, war or injustice. While Africa as a continent is certainly beset with great problems and those problems should be reported; if they become all that is reported and all that the majority of North Americans hear and associate with Africa, not only will their picture of Africa be very skewed, but they may well become too emotionally overwhelmed to actually engage in any way that is helpful – Africa then becomes either a topic to be avoided, or the butt of ridiculous jokes, as in the case of the tweet above.
The truth is that Africa is replete with stories of hope, stories of love, reconciliation, joy, ingenuity, beauty and value. Until we begin hearing and sharing those stories, we risk caricaturing and dismissing a continent of a billion people whose lives have a much greater effect on ours – even if we are oceans apart – than we may realize.
“We have two choices: One is to continue to see a poor, ill, crying Africa, carrying guns, that depends on other people forever. (The other is) to promote an Africa which is confident, peaceful, independent, but cognizant of its huge problems and great values at the same time.” — Zeresenay Alemseged in his TED talk: ‘The search for humanity’s roots’.
Here’s a fun little quiz I came across recently – where you need to find 20 random African countries on a map, or 48 countries on the difficult setting. Though it leaves out some of the smaller countries like Djibouti, Somali Land, The Comoros Islands and Swaziland, it includes the tiny Cape Verde islands for some reason?
Anyways, have fun – fastest I could do was 1m07s on the easy (20 countries), and 2m45s on the hard setting (48 countries).
Are wombs not wonderful? Strange way to start a post, sure, but think about it – they’re warm, safe, comfortable, loving enclosures where we ideally experience no want, no deprivation, no challenges, no pain. In them we are protected, cherished, and nurtured. We may only be able to grow so far in them, but while we’re inside, who needs to think about what the cold, hard outside world is like? We live in the moment, and love it.
I remember what I hope was the end of my formal education as if it were yesterday, when in fact it’s been almost 10 years. I didn’t realize until I was done how easy life was while I was in school – there was a set curriculum I had to learn and follow, I got tested in straightforward ways, and every year followed the other in linear progression. I knew exactly where I stood and what was next – the lack of need for any major decision was so warm, safe, comfortable…
By contrast, graduating from University is like running along a straight path right off a cliff and into thin air. All of a sudden there’s a wide world around you, and there are no markers, no signs saying ‘this is the best way!’, no way at all in fact. All of a sudden you realize that if you keep running you’ll end up a pancake, and you need to learn to fly, pick a direction, and try your best to avoid smashing your face into a rock without even knowing if the direction you picked was the right direction. Maybe you’ll find out… someday… down the line…
It’s so much easier to stay in the womb. No wonder babies cry so much!
I feel right now like we’re at another of those birthing moments in our lives. We’ve been puttering along nicely through these last few months – researching ways forward, finding what we think is the better way, making sure it’s ok, trying to learn more, trying to make connections, etc.; all the while comfortable and content in the safety of our ‘womb’ of learning, but not actually doing.
Increasingly though, we begin to find stretching difficult. Our movements become more constricted. We realize that if we’re going to keep growing, we need to ‘make like a baby and head out’. If we’re to keep moving forward we need to step off that cliff; and so, ever so grateful for this warm, safe time we’ve had to gestate in, we feel the time rapidly approaches to take the leap off that cliff and actually get back to doing. Time to learn to fly.
In our general and sundry research in preparation to launch To Bless Africa, we have come across tons of fantastic, exciting, awesome (not to overstate or anything) like-minded ventures (like check this one out for example – www.mamahope.org – how cool is that?! I especially recommend their videos). These ventures are run by individuals and groups who are passionate about the people of Africa, who seek to make a difference, and who are changing the world. Perhaps not too surprisingly, the majority of the ventures we’ve come across are non-profit initiatives.
And yet – you may realize – we have chosen to pursue a different path: arising from the same desire to positively impact people’s lives, we have chosen to create a for-profit company, and you may wonder at that. Dear reader, wonder no more for we are about to substantiate our decision before your reading eyes (or at least attempt to!). There are in fact several different reasons why we chose to pursue this path, and not necessarily in order of importance, the reasons include:
Scalability (is that a word?) – Not-for-profit ventures generally would have a limited pool of resources they can draw from – what the people and organizations they can engage with donate to their cause; whereas a for profit venture, if they build efficient systems that can be replicated, multiplied, and scaled up, have a potentially limitless ability to increase their operations, thus – at least potentially – being able to multiply their impact indefinitely and quickly.
Promotability (that’s definitely not a word!) The ability to promote the business – to have a bigger marketing budget than a not-for-profit venture, would allow us to engage a bigger audience which in turn would help the business grow faster. The faster the business grows the more communities we can impact.
Efficiency (now that’s a word!) Profit would not, of course, be THE bottom line of this venture, but by having the profit of the business be one of the bottom lines, there’s an added pressure and accountability to use whatever resources are available to us with ideally the most efficiency, the least waste.
Flexibility (also a word, lots of points in Scrabble!)- By making this a private, for-profit business, accountable to a board of like-minded individuals who understand its purpose and objectives, we believe the company would have greater flexibility in trying out different methods and approaches with the least amount of bureaucracy. Furthermore, we’d have the flexibility of being able to offer outstanding customer service, a great return policy, etc, even if it costs more to us, because customer satisfaction then becomes one of our top priorities.
Perspective – The media is replete with depressing stories out of Africa. By connecting with vibrant partners in the continent, we hope to help portray a different Africa – a productive, enterprising, striving, creative, exciting, value-creating Africa; as opposed to the same old war-torn, impoverished, malnourished, corrupt, suffering Africa that we see in so many movies, news stories, and donations appeals.
Having worked with charities through most of our time so far in Africa, we have a deep appreciation for the tremendous work they are doing across the continent (and the world!)- from education to healthcare, to healthcare education; from clean water to better nutrition to better farming practices – and everything in-between – non-profits are directly affecting the lives of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of African men, women and children on a daily basis for the better. Rock on!
But that, dear reader (you can start a sentence with ‘but’ if you’re using poetic license right? I’m sure I have my license here somewhere…) is why we have decided to pursue a different path!
An encouraging study by Brookings researchers – made popular when it was tweeted by Bill Gates yesterday as these things tend to go – has looked at the number of people living in extreme poverty (defined as living on less than $1.25/day) around the world.
In exciting-good-news, that number is apparently decreasing and will continue decreasing over the next few decades, thanks largely to increased economic growth and employment opportunities in China and India. Woot!
In considerably-less-exciting-bad-news, sub-Saharan Africa overtook India as having the greatest number of people in that demographic somewhere around 2010 with over 400 Million people, which means that around 1 in 2 people in sub-Saharan Africa live on less than $1.25/day.
Which to me says that we should hurry up and get this show on the road already! Come on!!!
So this past weekend we celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving (or, as it is called in Canada, ‘Thanksgiving’). It was so nice to be warm and comfortable as we looked out the insulated window at the beautiful colours of fall. So nice in fact that it reminded us of all the things we missed, spending the last few Thanksgivings in Africa. Here’s a quick (though not exhaustive) list for your enjoyment:
Clean Water!
As fun as it would be to have tea or some other beverage flow freely out of your bathroom tap, alas, brown water is not nearly as tasty as it sounds. Although I do hear it’s very rich in minerals and other nutrients…
Nope, that’s not chocolate milk coming out the tap!
Water Pressure!
Nothing reminds you how convenient showers are than having to bathe out of buckets for a few weeks. While we’re on this point – hot water! One of the greatest innovations mankind has come up with.
Neighbourhood kids taking a shower as the rain caused our water tank to overflow. I wished I’d thought of that!
Organized Mass Transit!
Squishing 20 people into 10-seater vans (or an entire family onto a motorcycle), livestock onto carrier roofs, and cruising along at a steady 20 km/h (~13mph) are just some of the joys of commuting in Africa, where traffic rules are really traffic suggestions. Maybe.
extreme overload!
make sure the goats are on tight!
Supermarkets!
Between the convenience of finding everything you need under one roof, the ease of having expiry dates on things, and the facility of not knowing how much you’re being overcharged as you try to bargain things down, supermarkets might not be nearly as fun as the average Souq/Soko/Bazaar, but they sure are handy!
expiry date: today.
Markets are a ton of fun, but not quick!
Family!
I cannot imagine a people as hospitable, friendly and generous as the average African, irrespective of country of origin. People go out of their way to make sure you’re taken care of, and really make you feel like family. That said though, holiday times are certainly among the hardest to be away from mommy!
Came across a really fun photographic survey recently of families around the world and the groceries they consumed in an average week. Couldn’t help but be startled at the difference between the couple of places surveyed in Africa and the rest of the world. Here are a few of the pictures for some contrast:
Australia – Fire up the Barbie!
Canada – fairly accurate I’d say except our family eats a LOT more veggies thanks to the wife, and definitely less Eggo waffles
Japan – love the fish, bring on the sushi! Yum!
Germany – they like their beverages, those Germans!
Italy – a lot more bread than I would’ve guessed!
China – looks good, love Chinese food.
Mali – that’s a lot of mouths to feed!
The U.S.- is this an accurate representation?
France – seems pretty balanced to me…
The U.K.- Does that seem like a lot of processed stuff to you?
Chad – again, fairly accurate I’d say.
I thought this was especially cool because I’ve been to Chad and spent a week in conditions pretty similar to those pictured above, and other than the fact that the water-bottle pictured wouldn’t have lasted me more than a couple of hours in the 50 C (122 F) heat (I was drinking 8-10 litres a day and still having issues, but then I wasn’t as accustomed to the conditions as this family would’ve been), the rest of the menu seems pretty accurate. My gracious hosts actually slaughtered a chicken in my honour though, so I had various bits of the chicken through the week, fun times!
As I was about to post this I noticed the gallons of water behind the family, which means that little 2/3-litre bottle is probably cooking oil. THAT would be a lot more accurate!
That was me in Chad a couple of years ago – I’m the slightly lighter-brown one. I borrowed these wonderfully comfortable clothes from a friend. With water being far too precious to bathe with in the village, these clothes were my constant companion that week!
Several months ago, after having lived in Africa for several years and as a result of our love for its people, my family embarked on a journey to explore not only the best and most effective methods of making a positive and sustainable impact on the continent, but also to find ways of multiplying that impact beyond what one small family could achieve. After much reading, many discussions, and extensive exploration, these have been our conclusions:
1. Faceless people matter. We’re in this together.
If we don’t care where our t-shirts are made, hundreds die in Bangladesh under collapsing factories. If we don’t find out where our shoes come from, 10-year-olds lose their childhood in Pakistan making them. If we don’t know who mined the stones in our rings, communities get enslaved or slaughtered in Sierra Leone to put them there. We cannot afford to allow ignorance, complacence or indifference to be an excuse. We choose to care. When one human being is dehumanized, humanity suffers, and we are lessened as a result. We can do something about this. It is worth doing something about this.
2. Charity is important. Dignity is more important.
If charity and foreign aid were to end, millions of the neediest people on Earth would perish. Just like that. Don’t stop giving – your soul needs it. Nonetheless, the trillion dollars that’s been given to Africa over the last 50 years has not pulled it out of the hole, and we are convinced that the next trillion will be no different. It’s not until people are given the opportunity to not only survive, but to hope and to dream; not until they are allowed the dignity of striving, working, and sacrificing for the fulfilment of their dreams; not until they have the luxury of choice – including the choice to make their own mistakes and to learn from them, that communities – and nations – will begin to change. We are convinced that it is responsible, transparent, and sustainable enterprise that will bring forth this change.
3. The challenge is enormous. Enormous is not impossible.
War, terrorism, disease, poverty, ignorance, famine, corruption, hatred… the list goes on, and does not fail to overwhelm. That is not sufficient reason to give up. We will never cure every ill, right every wrong, impact every community. But every ill we alleviate, every wrong we help bring to light, every community, family and individual we impact will make a difference; and the more of us that come together, the greater that impact and the greater that difference will be. Africa doesn’t need us – it could carry on just as it has for decades; but today we have the opportunity, the honour and the joy of standing together and making a real difference. We choose to seize that opportunity.
4. Ultimately, it’s all about Jesus. It has to be.
We love Africa, and we love her people – they are kind, gentle, hospitable, generous, industrious, beautiful people. But if this endeavour becomes about them – eventually friends will let us down, corruption will dismay, cultural differences will shock and fatalistic worldviews will exasperate – it’ll be a matter of time before indifference or despair sets in, and then this potentially amazing endeavour becomes just another chore or worse. We are of the absolute conviction that if this endeavour is to thrive it has to be about something greater, greater even than a continent of a billion people. We love Jesus – tremendously – and we pray that never changes. Jesus loves every man, woman and child in Africa – more than we ever could – and desires to see their families and communities blessed. That will never change. Our driving force in this endeavour is, and will always be, Jesus and His love.
Rooted in these convictions, we hereby establish ToBless Africaas a trading company that will seek to form partnerships with communities across Africa, that will seek to encourage, promote and advance local enterprise while at the same time modelling integrity and transparency, and that will seek to genuinely bless the communities it does business with rather than to hold to the pursuit of profit as its ultimate goal. In the fulfilment of this endeavour, To Bless Africawill seek to develop relationships with communities across the continent so as to procure the best locally made merchandise available, and will seek to sell these goods in North America – thus creating an avenue for anyone who so desires to not only buy and enjoy them, but to have a direct hand in impacting and blessing our partner communities. Would you walk with us – we want to go far. So help us God.
Through the public posting of this manifesto of our foundational convictions, we ask any members of this community who agree with them and would seek to support this venture to please help hold us accountable to them. If you would be willing to do so, could you please indicate this below by means of a comment?
I do believe we have taken the first bite of this elephant!
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” -Lord Acton
It strikes me that a great chasm seems to exist between who we are as people and who we would like to be. It further strikes me (one more and I’m out!) that humans desperately need accountability to ensure that we are moving towards becoming who we would like to be. Built with an innate need for companionship/community/society, it would seem to me that though the rubbings and friction caused by being around others (and the closer we are the more friction we generate!) are often a pain and sometimes our least favourite thing, they might be a lot more necessary than we realize in keeping us in check, in keeping us accountable, in keeping us human.
Wise groups of people though history have realized this, ensuring that principles were laid down in constitutions and systems of government so that those with the greatest power and the thus the greatest freedom to make decisions, were still kept accountable for their actions. Sometimes those systems break down – as they did in central Europe in the late 1930s, leading to a small group of people who sought to become who they thought they should be even if it came at the expense of others. It took the intervention, labour and sacrifice of many of the world’s nations to hold the Nazi party in check and to bring them to account.
A series of similar breakdowns seem to have taken place in Africa through the last few decades. Though the continent has seen inspired, wise and sacrificial leaders like South Africa’s Nelson Mandela or Tanzania’s Julius Nyerere, so many of Africa’s leaders have tragically left a legacy of self-seeking, self-serving, selfish behaviour – from doing whatever it takes to seize and keep power, to using national budgets as personal expense funds, to brutally crushing any dissent. The International Criminal Court (ICC), established to investigate charges of crimes against humanity and genocide, is currently investigating 8 situations worldwide – all of them sadly in Africa, several of them tragically against current or former heads of state. Even more heartbreaking is that some of these leaders are now accusing the ICC of being racist and pushing for the African Union to withdraw from the ICC. Accountability isn’t fun.
When it works however, accountability can be a powerful motivator. It can keep neighbours from harming each other, nations from invading one-another, the powerful from stealing/hurting/exploiting the weak. It can help people strive for and attain astounding goals, it can help ensure the development and growth of people, communities, and nations.
If we are to establish this company through which to bless communities in Africa, accountability would need to be hardwired into it – accountability to the public in North America, ensuring that our workings were transparent, honest, and true. Accountability to our partners in Africa to ensure that we truly did seek blessing for their communities, and not just profit. Ultimately though we would need a commitment to model accountability and transparency in all our business dealings, to mentor, foster and encourage accountability in all we did and all we worked with, and to require that accountability of those we partnered with. Before accountable leaders can be elected, accountable leaders have to be cultivated.
This, it strikes me, could be a good thing. That’s three and I’m out!
So I may not have posted on here in a while – what with the baby and all, but that does not mean that the purpose for this blog has been far from our hearts. Our hearts still long to bless communities across Africa, our hearts still long to make a difference in people’s lives – to provide people and families opportunities to better their lot, to provide opportunities for greater education for those who wish it, and to provide better health education for those who could use it.
In the tension created between this desire and the knowledge of our limitations, this blog was created to explore avenues through which the impact we can make could be multiplied. We had ideas, but they were uncertain. After much thinking, talking, praying and research over the last few months however, we believe we see a possible way forward:
What if there were a company that connected with cottage industry, mom-and-pop enterprises, and hard-working co-ops in Africa, sourced the goods they were creating, and sold them in North America? This company would provide greater markets for existing enterprises, thus securing existing jobs and creating new jobs amongst the needy. This company would encourage and reward enterprise among hard working people with initiative by providing them with bigger markets, thus helping them expand and increase their economic impact in their communities (expanding farms/workshops, hiring more workers/new apprentices, all of who would then spend the money they make locally). This could make a considerable difference in the socio-economic development of poor communities, whether in rural villages or in urban slums.
This company could, through accountability and transparent business practices ensure honesty and responsibility in its operations and also foster a similar work ethic amongst the businesses it partners with. Furthermore, through its members’ blogs and writings, it could expose and try to combat corruption at all levels of government, which is currently rampant in most African nations.
This company could, by placing strategic people in strategic positions, provide mentorship and business education to its partners to help further increase the scope of their enterprise. Eventually perhaps even encouraging the formation of new co-ops and businesses that utilize locally-available raw materials and expertise in the fostering of new enterprises – more jobs, more opportunities.
This company could, through the reinvestment of some of its profits back into the communities that generate them – create scholarships, encourage education and promote a greater health-awareness – thus directly blessing communities even beyond the businesses it would partner with.
By operating as a trading company, this company would not only make a tangible difference to the communities it partners with, but it would help in the economic development of the entire nation; and it would seek to do so increasingly more efficiently and sustainably, and with detailed accountability.
And finally, this company could – by making the goods it sources from across Africa available to the North American market, give consumers in North America – whether they’re buying woven carpets or wood carvings, coffee or jewellery, the opportunity to directly impact struggling communities and economies throughout Africa, to make a difference, to be a blessing. Furthermore, by making transparent the company’s ongoing relationship with partners in Africa, it could give consumers in North America the opportunity to see how their purchases are making a direct impact in the lives of individuals and communities. This would allow all concerned – from families in villages and slums in Africa to families in suburbs in North America, to move towards greater awareness and knowledge of one-another and a greater interdependence.
This idea has grown in my mind these last couple of months, but it strikes me that for anything to happen in this regard it would be imperative that people on this side of the ocean believe in it. Finding people making cool stuff in Africa is the easy part. Finding people who need jobs in Africa is even easier. But finding enough people in North America who believe in and are willing to stand behind such a venture might be more difficult.
What do you think? Would this kind of initiative even be viable? Would it be able to take off in the US and Canada? Would people be interested in buying goods made in small communities in Africa even if they’d have to pay a bit more than buying them at Ikea/Sears/Costco/Pier1? Would people in general even be interested in the welfare of others so many thousands of kilometers away?
As I mentioned in earlier posts, we’ve
spent the better part of the last 10 years in a different continent, so understanding the North American zeitgeist – how people are thinking, moving, what motivates them, is not really our forte. That makes your thoughts so valuable to us – would you please let us know what you think of this idea? Your insight/help/advice could make all the difference.
To Bless Africa 