By David Sibbald - Founder of the Sumerian Foundation
I spent last week in Kenya, working on some of our programs and talking to new partners and community groups. Definitely a week of contrasts that leaves me simultaneously hopeful and despondent about economic and social progress in Kenya, which I guess just makes me confused.
I’ve said for a long time that the West has a badly distorted view of Africa, as a place of perpetual destitution, poverty, war and oppression. I put the blame firmly at the doorstep of the media (no story runs like a bad one) followed closely by non-governmental and charity organisations that work in Africa who in broad terms haven’t moved public awareness beyond images of eternal despair. Now I’ve spent enough time in Africa during my life to recognise the reality of those images, but it’s only one side of the story. The other side, that doesn’t get told is of bright, engaging and inspirational people working to make things better for their families and communities and there’s plenty of them, not just one or two special individuals.
Last week was a good example of the other side of Africa. I spent time with some of Kenya’s most famous and popular musicians discussing how we could collaborate through Johari (our not-for profit clothing brand) to promote social justice for disadvantaged girls. The ideas, commitment and passion people have for change is humbling and you should see some interesting results and events during the balance of this year. At the other side of the country I met with local farmers and representatives from KIOF (Kenya Institute of Organic Farming) to discuss an idea we have for growing organic botanicals, processing them and developing a range of cosmetic products we’d sell through Johari. Again the model would be to establish a rural social enterprise business that ultimately channelled all profits back into community development programs that were economically sustainable.
These are very distinct groups of people, but the energy and ideas around how we could work together and what we could achieve was greater than anything I experience in my normal business life back in the UK. I always ask people what stops these types of initiatives being created locally and the answer is always lack of money from an investment point of view and lack of expertise for marketing and distribution. This is the other side of Africa, people with ideas, enthusiasm and creativity and it’s the side that needs to get more visibility, because we get enough of the bad side.
This was the first time I’ve been in Africa during a G7/G8 summit and it was interesting to talk to people and look through the newspapers about what was going on in Germany, particularly as it related to Africa. The summary is that people on the ground don’t pay any attention to it nor does the media. Increasingly people question whether the entire aid industry and the games played by donors and recipient governments isn’t in fact holding back progress by other means. I’m increasingly coming round to this view. We’ve been working this model for 50 years and certainly haven’t made 50 years worth of progress. What we have done is build a global industry around poverty and I think it’s time we started to seriously question its value. More on this later…..