AKILI DADA: Educating Women in Kenya

     I have spent the last month or so interacting with Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg, the founder of Akili Dada, a start-up which is funding education for smart women in high school who need the financial and social support resources to get through high school.    In a number of ways, this adjunct professor  of politics and an Ethnic Minority Dissertation Fellow at University of San Francisco reminds me of my long time inspiration, Prof. Wangari Maathai. Her willingness to tap into the top girls and support them is inspirational, and an important resource for women in Africa and the diaspora.

For those who do not speak Swahili, Akili (Ah-keeley) means intellect, ability, strategy, knowledge, competence and Dada (Dad-uh) means Sister; a term of endearment and respect among women.

Akili Dada is an international non-profit organization which is dedicated to providing education opportunities for women in a manner that acknowledges the dignity and respect of the African woman. The organization provides scholarships and leadership training to the girls and offer the future leaders a chance to network with mentors and peers. Akili Dada awarded its first four scholarships in February 2006. This year, the organization more than doubled its number of grants. In Kenya, the group is a registered nonprofit; in the United States, it operates as a global support fund of the Tides Foundation.

Kenya has produced  illustrious female scholars, professionals, and leading experts in their fields, who have given us a series of firsts. Many of the leading women have sponsored school fees on a one-off basis or for a season. Akili Dada introduces a structured approach to sustainable educational investment in a helpful way to build Africa’s future women leadership by opening up the opportunity to invest to a wider audience.

In an interview for her alma mater, Whitman College, “The goal of Akili Dada is to nurture a generation of women leaders while restoring hope for young Kenyan women — hope that lets them see how vision and hard work can lead to success,” said Kamau-Rutenberg. “You’ve got dynamite if you can identify a brilliant young woman who has already overcome unspeakable poverty, link her to a network of her peers and other professional Kenyan women, and eliminate the burden of worry about school fees.” In another article in the San Francisco Foghorn, Kamau-Rutenberg says, “Akili Dada is about more than education. It’s about creating future leaders, infusing the girls with confidence to be whatever they want to be when they grow up. It’s more than just sending tons of people to school. They’re going to finish and excel beyond that.”One board member views Akili Dada as a ‘feminist, collaborative approach to empowering women’.

Akili Dada is offering students enpowerment through education, which is a value-based approach to donating to a cause. I always heard, and believe, that if you educate a woman, you educate her whole village. Think of the impact of an educated woman on the global village.

For more information on Wanjiru Kamau-Rutenberg’s work, visit akilidada.org, or read her blog for updates on Akili Dada at wanjirukr.blogspot.com

Teaching Entrepreneurship

Reading the posts on KBW always refreshes me, for all the times that I have read egm,
aco , kenyanmusings, mwariwadavid and many many others, I am proud to be associated. Join my foray into social innovation, entrepreneurship, development projects and travel.

Can one really teach entrepreneurship? The idea that the skills to start up and successfully run your own business are at hand within a teaching module begs every one to consider the possibility for testing the effectiveness of teaching these skills. In a normal class, every person learns and receives the same curriculum, then each takes the same administered test and then after that, the proficiency in the testing serves as a measure of how well you have assimilated the course material.

However, the truth is that standardized assessment tests are woefully bad at determining learning because many of them rely on the ability to reproduce the course material for the examiner and they rely wholly on rote memorization to achieve this level of knowledge. I am not discounting the fact that there are people, who learn from a certain course and retain that knowledge through analysis and application of the material, but it does prompt me to wonder, can we teach entrepreneurship skills be taught to non-traditional learners without this emphasis on standardized testing.

 In the United States, the National Foundation For Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE) is the premier youth teacher in the field of entrepreneurship. The Foundation believes that young people can learn the skills needed to change their own financial futures at any age. I have a feeling that this particular area of business skills can be taught to young women especially because learning a trade, such as hairdressing is only as successful as your management.

 Ryan P. Allis, a young entrepreneurship teacher said:

“Only by teaching does one really learn the material. Through teaching entrepreneurship I added quite a bit to my knowledge about entrepreneurship and business. I learned about Porter’s Five Forces, additional types of alternative financing, new distribution models, the marketing wheel, and a new type of break-even analysis.

Just as important, however, was my learning about people and leadership. I learned how to relate and connect to younger teenagers. I learned how to handle a position of authority. I learned how to write a forty-five minute speech in two hours. I learned teaching styles. I learned that if you know what you are talking about and can gain someone’s trust, he or she will follow you. I learned how to inspire and motivate. I learned how to understand motives and read the body language and tone of a person. I learned how to build rapport and relationships. And I learned how to go ten days with forty hours of sleep.”

I need to learn how to teach entrepreneurship and business skills.

Have an enterprising Friday

 

Social Entrepreneurship, StartingBloc and me

I have every pleasure to introduce you to the concept that has blown my mind ever since I started learning about it, called Social Entrepreneurship. Join me as I learn about this exciting movement.

The Institute For Social Entrepreneurs provides a definition starting point.

“Dependency”

The traditional business model for nonprofits, in which they depend solely or almost entirely on charitable contributions and public sector subsidies, with earned income either non-existent or minimal

I have always admired non-profit or NGO work. Coming from a developing country, one always has a heightened awareness of the need in the country. Kenya is a regional hub for aid operations in the eastern Africa region. Since those early days, when I was younger, I realize that their funding comes from donor agencies and other philanthropic individuals.

” Sustainability”

The ability to fund the future of a nonprofit through a combination of earned income, charitable contributions and public sector subsidies

I understand the vast numbers of organizations that have collapsed due to funding shortages.

” Self-sufficiency”

The ability to fund the future of a nonprofit through earned income alone

Few organizations have a long-lifetime.

” Social entrepreneur”

Any person, in any sector, who runs a social enterprise

Where I am, in my industry, I can live and work as a social entrepreneur.

“Social enterprise”

Any organization, in any sector, that uses earned income strategies to pursue a double or triple bottom line, either alone (as a social sector business) or as part of a mixed revenue stream that includes charitable contributions and public sector subsidies

For more information about the Triple Bottom Line, read Andy Savitz’ book.

Prior to this year, I had heard of social change through internship sites like idealist.org
On an Idealist.Org side note, if you are in the Chicago area, check out their Idealist Campus conference on March 23-25, 2007. They will have amazing opportunities for networking with like minded idealists.

I would not have learned as much as I have without the tireless folks over at StartingBloc, whose Institute for Social Innovation I attended this Spring in Boston at the Fletcher School, Tufts and Sloan MIT.

StartingBloc provides socially conscious students and young professionals with the training, experience, and networks necessary to drive social, economic, and environmental innovation through their careers and lives as engaged citizens.

We are asking ourselves the right questions as we enter the working world. Will my life work count for something? What meaningful contribution have I made to the world?

We are set to do great things.