Stephanie Harvell ’12Journal 1
I have been working with ThinkImpact for four weeks. I spent the first two weeks training and learning about the curriculum in Washington, DC, and Johannesburg, South Africa. As an advisor for ThinkImpact, I am responsible for facilitating, teaching, leading, and advising six undergraduate students from various American universities. The students participate in the Innovation Institute, which is a seven week, curriculum-based program in a rural village in South Africa. The Innovation Institute is designed to teach and create future social entrepreneurs. The curriculum is based on the tenets of asset-based community development (ABCD) and human centered design thinking. The curriculum is divided into four phases of learning: Immersion, Identity, Inspiration, and Innovation.
After our training, I drove with my team to Huntington, the village where we would be living with host families for seven weeks. As part of the immersion phase, there are activities designed to help the students learn more about the culture and the people in Huntington. These experiences include fact finding, shadowing various community members of different ages and genders, capacity inventories (asking community members questions in order to determine their skills and talents), and asset mapping. Another important part of the process is the practice of shared austerity. Whether bathing from a bucket, collecting water at the community tap, or hand-washing our clothes, by the end of the first week each of us felt like we had been in the community for much longer. This illustrates to the village that we are here to work with community members to create business ideas, rather than the traditional aid model of working independently or giving money or building businesses based on preconceived notions of what the community needs.
In the first week, I faced various leadership challenges. I realized quickly that the students were all here for different reasons and had different expectations. Some of the students are more interested in cultural immersion, some in international development, and some in business ideation and implementation. One of the highlights of this program is that it has the ability to offer all of these things. But, finding a way to balance team discussions and keep the students engaged, proactive, and motivated has been a challenge. The students are also at different phases of their lives. Half of the students have one or two semesters remaining and thus are starting to seriously question what they want to do with their lives. Coupled with culture shock, it has been an interesting challenge to adapt my leadership style in this new environment.
My goal for the internship is to successfully facilitate and advise my three project teams on business ideas that create employment within the community and also develop a positive social impact on the community. I hope to develop solid relationships with both the community members and the undergrad students, and use my MBA skills and past experience to inspire, mentor, and facilitate the ideation of social businesses in Huntington village.
Journal 2
I only have two weeks left in the village, and I am extremely proud of the accomplishments and work that my group has achieved thus far. I have learned more about social entrepreneurship and international development through our work here in Huntington.
During the last four weeks, I have facilitated, advised, and led my team of scholars through the inspiration and innovation phases of the curriculum. During the inspiration phase, pairs of scholars identified the community members with whom they wanted to work to develop a business idea. This proved very easy for some, and much more difficult for others, as they dealt with the language barrier and cultural differences. Once the business teams were established, each team did a design challenge in which they identified a problem in the community that they wanted to address.
This design challenge is based off of IDEO’s design thinking principles and encourages each person to think outside of the typical business challenges and solutions. This human-centered approach looks at business ideas through three different perspectives: desirability, feasibility, and viability. It was interesting to see the progress of each team as they found different areas of interest within the community.
The design challenge was useful in opening up the minds of both the community members and the scholars and helping them work together to achieve a common goal. Once they brainstormed ideas and synthesized their research, each business group decided on a product or service to prototype. The inspiration phase begins with the R200 prototype project, where each team gets a stipend of R200 to develop a quick-and-dirty prototype of their business or service to test the market and gain feedback in order to further develop their final business idea. The prototyping activity was a great way for the scholars and community members to understand the challenges and risks in starting a new business and developing a new product for the marketplace. Most of the teams are still currently in this prototype phase. In my last journal entry post, I will write about the three social businesses that each of my three teams developed and the specific challenges related to each.
As I have worked with the different teams, I have seen the depth of the challenges that come from working in international development and in rural poverty. One of the huge obstacles to overcome is the concept of aid. Even in a rural village like Huntington, the community members expect Americans to come with money. Many of them do not understand how we could possibly start a business without any money. Many of them do not believe that we are not giving money or capital in some way, and thus this is their reason for wanting to be involved in our projects. This has been disheartening for me, as it shows how they have become reliant upon the help of other people and have no confidence in their own abilities. I am hopeful that we can build and pilot some strong social businesses that we can leave with the community in order to change this mindset and set a positive example for the community to realize its potential.
Journal 3
During my summer fellowship, I learned about social entrepreneurship, international development, and managing teams in a cultural context. It has been a truly enriching experience and I have no doubt that it will shape my future career. The six students I was advising worked in pairs to develop social businesses with community members and using local resources.
Group 1: Access to Information
Background: Based on immersion fieldwork, this group realized that the unemployment rate is very high in the village. There is no internet in the village, nor are there any other means of finding out about job openings in the area. Also, many people have trouble applying to jobs since there is no printer in the village to print their resumes for job applications, and the only option is to take a shared taxi to town, which costs around five dollars USD.
Design Challenge: How might we improve access to information in the village?
Prototype: Newspaper delivery service — one community member will drive to town to pick up newspapers at the market and then sell them to people in the village.
Pilot: Because the prototype was successful, the pilot period was devoted to trying out different types of newspapers, different places to sell the papers within the village, and different price points.
Business Development: The group decided they will put 50 percent of their profits into a savings account. This money will be used to expand the initial idea of providing better access to information, which will most likely come in the form of an internet café for the village.
Group 2: Mobile Food Cart
Background: Based on immersion fieldwork, this group realized there was no place to socialize or have meetings in the village. The only place was the shabeen, which is a drinking tavern and unsafe. They also noticed a group of women selling small snacks to schoolchildren at recess. These women were working separately and so this team wanted to use the entrepreneurial skills of these women.
Design Challenge: How might we create a social space for community members to gather outside of the shabeen?
Prototype: Mobile food cart — sell coffee, tea, and sweets, with a table, umbrella, and six chairs on pension day (the day elders and children receive a check from the government and farmers and sellers come to the village and set up their shops).
Pilot: Because the initial mobile food cart was successful, the pilot program will continue the mobile food cart at other events within the community where large crowds gather, such as football games. Also, the community members are testing out different recipes to try to find other things to sell.
Business Development: The long-term goal is to create a restaurant in the village that will employ women, who are only able to commit a few hours every day due to their chores at home. This restaurant will provide a safe and social space for men and women, young and old, to gather.
Group 3: Community Greenhouse and Composting
Background: Based on immersion fieldwork, this group realized that the school had a plot of land that community members were allowed to farm on, but many were not using it. This was because of the large amount of work and the failure rate of growing saplings from seeds. Thus, the group had the idea of using a greenhouse as a way to grow saplings with a higher success rate.
Design Challenge: How might we teach better environmental practices within the community?
Prototype: Build a makeshift greenhouse in the school community garden with donated seeds of five different varietals and use compost made from the community.
Pilot: The pilot phase will consist of trying to sell the saplings to the community in order to make a small profit. It will also consist of developing a curriculum for the school children, using the greenhouse and the composting system as real-life examples.
Business Development: If the pilot is successful, there are many ways in which this business could develop. For example, the South African government is very interested in agriculture programs and thus might be willing to help set up greenhouse programs in schools throughout the province as a way to teach children about this aspect of agriculture.
