If you are coming to the Skoll Forum, here are two sessions I would love to see you at.  If you can't make it this year, I promise to blog about the sessions to you can learn from them and discuss them online, too!

Acumen Fund Fellows Present:  Innovations Sparked by Voices of the Poor
When:  Wed, March 28^th from 8am - 9:30am 
Location:  Rhodes Lecture Hall, Said Business School, Oxford University

I will be on a panel with my colleagues from Acumen Fund to discuss our work in health, housing and water social enterprises in India, Kenya, Pakistan, Tanzania, and the U.S. We hope to share what we are learning about how to effectively deliver products and services to the poor. We will discuss challenges Acumen investees face related to distribution, pricing, and scaling.

Introductions by Brian Telstad, Chief Investment Officer, Acumen Fund
Moderated by David Lehr, Fellow, Drishtee, India
Panelists:
Ayeleen Ajanee, Kashf Foundation, Pakistan
Eric Berkowitz, Broadreach, U.S. and China
Adrien Couton, IDEI, India
Keely Stevenson, A to Z, Tanzania
Nadaa Taiyab, Medicine Shoppe, India
Jocelyn Wyatt, Advanced Bio-Extracts, Kenya

If you are registered for the conference, please join us!

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Interactive Workshop: Working at the Grassroots Level: Shared Challenges and Lessons Learned
When: Wed, March 28 from 10am-noon
Location:   Edmond Safra Lecture Theater, Said Business School, Oxford University

Before joining the Acumen Fund, I was the Interim Director of an amazing start-up organization called Social-Impact (www.social-impact .org).  Social-Impact’s goal is to accelerate growth and increase impact of social entrepreneurs’ programmes through mentoring, training, technical assistance, networking opportunities and access to finance.

Likely to be one of the best sessions on the programme (except for my own, of course) will be presented by two of the co-founders of Social-Impact, Peter Wheeler and Eric Archambeau.  They believe that organisations and infrastructure are for the most part undersized to tackle the scope of problems social entrepreneurs need to address. In this interactive workshop, delegates will be encouraged to share the challenges they face and the lessons they have learned to address obstacles and to create effective strategies for organisational growth and impact.

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I left to warm sunshine at Kilimanjaro airport yesterday and arrived in chilly Oxford--- a familiar and happy place to me since I wore my gown for exams during my graduate studies here in business administration two years passed.  The dreamy spires of Oxford are the symbol of this magical city full of knowledge and history.  Changemakers from all corners of the earth convene here in the UK annually to share social entrepreneurial ideas shaping our future.  The  Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship convenes an international community of outstanding practitioners and thought leaders in social entrepreneurship to set the future agenda for visionaries who want to transform society.  The Skoll Forum took root four years ago, when the Skoll Foundation launched a partnership with Oxford University to create the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship.  The Centre is housed within Oxford University’s Said Business School and is leading many interesting research initiatives, designing MBA curriculum and developing scholars and practitioners in the field of social change and entrepreneurship.  Recently, four colleagues and I published a working paper on social capital markets through the Skoll Centre, which you can read and discuss on Social Edge by clicking here.

This week, I am here for several reasons: 1) to meet the Acumen Fund Fellows who are convening for our mid-year meeting where we hope to focus on combing through common lessons and experiences among Acumen’s portfolio of businesses serving the poor, 2) to attend and deliver a presentation at the Skoll World Forum, 3) to teach a case study on social finance in Kim Alter’s MBA course.

Having attended all three previous years of the Skoll World Forum conference, I am excited at this year’s theme on innovation, and I look forward to blogging regularly to share what I am learning with those of you who cannot attend (woo hoo- I love high speed Internet!).   In the past years, the attendance of those from Africa has been minimal, so I know the Centre was trying to reach out to practitioners more aggressively.   This year we are expecting about 700 participants from 40 countries on six continents. Click here to view the official program for the forum.

Among the speakers featured at March 27-29 conference will be Jeff Skoll, founder and Chairman of the Skoll Foundation and Participant Productions; Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace laureate, Grameen Bank founder and microfinance pioneer; Peter Gabriel, musician, activist, cofounder and Chair of WITNESS; David Galenson, Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Chicago and best-selling author of numerous books on creativity and innovation; Dr. Larry Brilliant, Executive Director of Google.org and founder and former Director of the Seva Foundation; Bill Drayton, CEO and Chair of Ashoka; Jeroo Billimoria, founder of Aflatoun/Child Savings International; Fazle Abed, founder of BRAC; Susan Collin Marks, Senior Vice President of Search for Common Ground; Ashok Khosla, President of Development Alternatives Group; Nina Smith, Executive Director of RugMark Foundation USA; J.B. Schramm, founder and CEO of College Summit, Inc.; and Salman Ahmad, Pakistani musician, artist, activist and founder of South Asia’s internationally renowned rock band, Junoon.

I look forward to sharing with you the scoop!

John Massangwa, a journalist in Arusha, set out on a journey this year to investigate the situation of orphans.  AIDS is painting a grave picture as more and more children find themselves without parents in a system without resources to care for them.  There are approximately 1,100,000 orphans in Tanzania. Massangwa recently interviewed senior leaders in medical institutions, senior leaders in religious institutions, and visited many orphans himself.  He discovered that many people knew a lot about the situation of orphans.  So he asked himself, if they are so knowledgeable, why weren't they doing anything to help such a huge population of potential future leaders?  How could so many powerful people witness such a loss of human potential and simply ignore the situation as if they didn't care.

This is when he began to research on the concept of attitude and the power of simply caring.  He knew that people would not be moved to action simply by knowing the facts, but they must know how to care. The only way to inspire people to do something about the orphan situation is to get them to care.  So, he read many books and discovered one quote that inspired him by John Maxwell:  " People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care."  From here he took the knowledge from all his interviews and decided to write a drama that he produced in hope that this format would inspire people to care and be moved to action.   Because he knows the work of social entrepreneurs is founded on passion for the issues they seek to address, Massangwa wrote this story of Rehema's life below for Social Edge blog readers. I video taped John delivering this piece below in voice to you, but my Internet is too slow to upload it.  I hope to do so when I go to the UK for a conference so you can experience the full emotion.

Rehema's Story
Rehema is a thirteen year old girl; right now she is at the burial ceremony of her mother after her father's death of HIV/AIDS one year passed. She is thinking now about where life will take her and now she is like a ship without a sail thinking where the wind will take her. She is now standard seven where she is about to join secondary school; but right now she has to stay with her aunt. After a few days living with her aunt, Rehema was forbidden to go to school because she was responsible for the home activities.

Her teacher at school has sent two students to visit Rehema and find out what is wrong with her; they discover that Rehema is severely abused and she can't come to school. Her teacher tries to resolve the matter with the headmaster of the school but headmaster's response was that he is responsible for the students who are coming to school and Rehema is a girl, only one, so the teacher should concentrate on teaching the students who can attend the class. After the failure of the school plan Rehema is in a family that doesn't care about her life at all. Because of severe abuse, Rehema decides to escape from her aunt and run to the streets.

On the streets she meets a lady named Salma, the lady took Rehema in, promising that she will help her go to school and she will take care of everything. At this time Rehema is so discontented by her situation, she decided to live with Salma in town. Salma is a twenty-eight year old lady, she is not married, and she is a prostitute. She has a plan of using Rehema in a same business as far as she will be taking a discount. Rehema is now fourteen years old; she is convinced to join Salma in the business because it will help her pay for her studies.

Like a person that tries to measure the depth of the sea by the foot, Rehema sinks into a deep and black world of prostitution and drug use. Within one year she becomes pregnant with a baby of an unknown father, within four months she becames sick and she stops the business. After a long run she realizes that she has all the signs of the HIV virus and because she didn't take early measures she is in AIDS condition where death is claiming her life.

At the same time her baby girl is in the hands of Salma who gave Rehema that way of life, what will happen to a Rehema's child?

I once had a dream of creating a universal educational curriculum for homeless children.  In my teenage years, my friends and I organized a Halloween party for homeless children who attended the Mustard Seed School attached to Loaves and Fishes soup kitchen in my hometown.  Forever singed into my memory is the picture of a young boy who had no legs and who would place his body on a skateboard to roll around the streets because he could not afford a wheelchair.  I remember looking into the eyes of so many beautiful children and admiring their ability to find joy during this party even tough they did not know where they would sleep or if they would have food tomorrow.  That is the great thing about children-- they live in the moment, assuming that the future is full of safe and healthy possibilities.
 
This experience sparked a deeper passion within me to use my life in a meaningful way.  It also inspired an idea to create a universal educational curriculum for children whose life required them to be transient.  It seemed like a good solution since much of the reason why the cycle of generational poverty gains momentum is because children are moving from place to place and never get the opportunity for stability and consistency in their educational support. 
 
My engagement over the years with various other shelters and transitional housing institutions reaffirmed this interest, and although I spent time doing some initial research on how one might create an institution to do this, other adventures in life tempted me away from pursuing it further.  
 
In a recent conversation, someone mentioned a social entrepreneur who is creating a curriculum for teaching refugee children.  The lives of these children have many of the same characteristics as those who cycle through homeless shelters.  The person to whom I was speaking could not recall the name of the person or project.
 
Does anyone reading this know about a program that is designing a curriculum for children in refugee camps?  I would love to see if there is any synergy and to brainstorm a bit more on how to move forward with my idea.

Growing up in America, I really have taken infrastructure for granted.

I now live on a street in Arusha where I not only dodge the occasional cow, goat and chicken, but the government decided to drop huge piles of dirt five feet tall on the road and leave it there for days.  I am sure they will fix it, but in the meantime, the traffic (foot and car) is a nightmare.  Last night, people were running on this road as it started raining heavily and the car I was in got stuck in the mud.  My friend Bariki was driving and as we were trying to get unstuck, he said:

"People in Tanzania are not afraid of cars coming at them (they never move out of the way), but when it starts raining, they run as if they are in great danger."

Rainy season has begun- watch out!

AtoZ has a fantastic distribution system for delivering its products into Tanzanian homes through wholesalers and retailers.  Most of these wholesalers purchase other items AtoZ manufactures such as plastic buckets, bottled water and T-shirts.  Retailers are usually running tiny shops in villages much further away from the commercial centers where the wholesalers operate.  They purchase items and strap them to the back of a bicycle to transport them back to their shops or sometimes (if they are making enough profit, they transport them via bus of train). 


Bundling these other items for distribution through Tanzania’s wholesaler/retailer networks has made it very cost effective for AtoZ to get mosquito nets to remote areas of the country where people really need them.  At times, AtoZ’s marketing team is identifying potential retailers and linking them to wholesalers in the nearest commercial center. 

I accompanied one of AtoZ’s intrepid truck driver-salesman, Fred, as the nets left the factory in Arusha destined for homes in a region called Ifakara.  Carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars in AtoZ’s merchandise, we encountered bumpy unpaved roads, bridges too narrow to fit a truck, and wild animals roaming free on the road in Mikumi park.  Sometimes Fred is away from home for two weeks, but this time we were out just one week.   

One of the most interesting deliveries we made was to a wholesaler which is selling only mosquito nets.  Most wholesalers sell many other items such as flour, cooking oil, (and, of course, the most profitable) Pepsi/Coke, beer and cigarettes.  I was amazed and proud to learn that this wholesaler was profitable enough to have created an entire wholesale and retail business aimed at preventing malaria.  As a married team, Mr. and Mrs. Kimambo have run this business for over 12 years.  Below I have shared a photo story for you to better understand their work:

Photo 1:  AtoZ’s truck driver salesman, Fred, with his seven-ton-carrying delivery truck.

Photos 2:  This is the market in Morogoro where Mr. & Mrs. Kimambo have both a wholesale business and a retail shop.
 
Photo 3:  This is one of the tailors outside of the Kimambos’ shop doors reviewing her patterns before she starts working on the most exquisite sewing machine.  

Photo 4:  Outside of the Kimambos’ shop- a nicely painted wall with a big mosquito and a message about strategies for preventing mosquitoes with malaria.

Photo 5:  Mr. & Mrs. Kimambo are assisting a customer who has come to purchase a net.  She looked first at the polyester Safi-net (which has to be retreated with pesticide every six months and costs less than a dollar with her voucher).  She then decided she wanted to purchase AtoZ’s Olyset net (which lasts for 5-6 years without any retreatment), but she was 20 cents short of being able to afford the better net.  The Kimambos paid the extra 20 cents so that this pregnant mother could protect her family at night with a better net.  

Photo 6:  AtoZ’s team unloads nearly hundreds of nets for the Kimambos’ shop.  Its hot and heavy work since Fred had to park the big truck far from the shop on the road. 

Photo 7: This is the inside of the shop where Mr. Kimambo, Fred (AtoZ’s truck driver salesman) and Peter (AtoZ’s Marketing Manager), handle the billing and inventory check for our delivery.

Photo 8 & 9:  A retailer named Peter came to the Kimambos’ shop to buy nets.  Unlike most retailers, Peter is only traveling across town and he could only afford to purchase a few nets.  His delivery ride will be much simpler than most retailers who sometimes travel for days in rough conditions.

Photo 10: After saying good bye to the Kimambos, we made our way to a town called Ifakara, where we discovered the most beautifully painted mural on the side of a medical clinic, which featured women tying up mosquito nets!