the end is near!!

Project is coming to an end! In terms of business deals, we successfully created a partnership between Lupwa and another NGO called SOS villages (it’s an international NGO that provides homes for widows and OVCs). They ordered 9 boxes from us and the order happened Friday! It’s a great start to Lupwa’s self-sustainability.

This past week we went into a large grocery store called SPAR (it’s almost the equivalent of Loeb in Canada). We told them our idea and they loved it. They currently buy all of their vegetables from one supplier and they would like to create some competition to maintain the quality of their products. They also stated that they are looking for a new tomato supplier. That’s us! So we had a meeting with them this today to propose the idea and show them some samples. They’re going to call us back but I really think we have a chance (95% sure) and I’m extremely excited about this partnership. It would be such a nice way to wrap up our project too. We’ve created some M&E sheets to keep track of the family empowerment. Every month a sheet will be submitted to Lupwa by the community stating how many children are now going to school, how many meals are eaten a day, and what the weekly income is for most of these families. I’m not expecting to see much change at first, but I definitely think that once this project grows and a solid partnership is formed throughout the years, then we will be able to really compare the before and after results.

We had a go away party Friday and everybody was invited! It was fun and sad at the same time lol. This week is going to be spent on tying up any loose ends pertaining to the project and maybe starting on the papers that we have to submit once we get back. We’re also going to have to start packing for ZANZIBAR! 52 hour train ride there and 27 hour bus ride back. It’ll be brutal, but we’re a group of 9 so it’ll be fun. I probably won’t have any internet while I’m there so the next time you will hear from me is when I land in Ottawa!! August 17^th! 

Take care!! Thank you for reading my blog!

A local 'art school' in the middle of a community. The man below donated his house for this!

Pretty much sums up what this guy does. He's amazing!! 

Just my week :)

our  campsite!

view from boat

fishing!

the ladies!

Shannon and I

Tuesday market!

the elephant we saw during the night drive!

the typical toy that you see kids playing with. Look closely to see what it's mad e of

This blog is completely unrelated to my project and just explaining what I’ve been doing this past week.

Since the last time I updated, I’ve gone to the Olympic village to play some sitting volleyball (Dad, you’d be proud). Our supervisor’s dad came to visit for 4 days and took us out to eat supper at an Italian restaurant. It was really nice to have home-like food again. I got my hair braided that night by Theresa (I got the extensions for free because the guy running the store was Lebanese and said that us Lebs stick together lol. I have never realized how beneficial Arabic can be when travelling!) and then we celebrated Theresa’s birthday with our ‘NEW BEATZ’ friends (they’re rappers/singers). I went to the Tuesday market which is probably the most multi-cultural gathering in Lusaka. I felt like I was in Canada again – and there were fresh fruits and vegetables everywhere for such cheap prices! The next day I went to the ‘comesa’ market which is a muzungu-free zone (it’s STRICTLY Zambians that go there). We immersed ourselves in this market and bought chatange material (traditional clothes that they wear). We also went to an Indian place (that apparently the Indian president visited…) which had DELICIOUS food. I felt like I was at Amisha’s house. lol.

Just relaxing at Kafue!

AND best part of my week was going camping in Kafue National park!! It is the 2^nd largest national park in all of Africa (it’s the size of Belgium) and the 5^th largest in the world. Get this: we slept in tents next to the water and IN the water were hippos and crocs. We heard them ‘talk’ all night and they’re probably up there on my list of favourite animals. They’re so funny! They sound like pigs and just hide under the water and lift their heads and cute ears every once and a while. Yes, they’re dangerous, but don’t worry! I was safe! I went on a night drive and saw elephants (another super amazing animal), zebras, too many antelope/deer things (I couldn’t keep up with all the species and names), and a whole bunch of other things which the names I can’t remember. Unfortunately we didn’t see any lions or cheetahs… they were hiding. But I still had a really enjoyable experience. The night was really cold but we huddled around the camp fire and had fresh fish that some of our friends caught (the people that didn’t do that night drive went fishing). I’m normally not a fan of seafood but OH MY GOODNESS was this fish ever delicious. I have NEVER had fish this good. And it was SO fresh. Mmmh. I slept soundly that night except for waking up once from hippo noises (they can get loud). The next morning I went fishing in the Kafue River (I didn’t catch anything, but I still learnt the technique) and relaxed on the boat underneath the sun. I felt extremely relaxed and ready to tackle yet another busy week.

I also finally watched the last Harry Potter movie!! IT WAS AMAZING. I was extremely satisfied and pleased with it. And like I mentioned before, movies are so fun to watch here. The audience gets so engaged and laughs and claps the entire time. It’s so much fun! 

I have 2.5 weeks left! Time has flown by. I still have so much to do so the next blog might not be for another while but I promise to update!

Love you all!

xo

Project update!

I got braids!! And I LOVE them. So a quick update on what I’ve been up to:

- we visited the rural communities and 10 individual families to get their story and their picture. We wanted this information to put into the business proposal so that whoever partners up with Lupwa would know exactly who they were helping out. Meeting all these families was such a nice experience because we got to see the conditions that the women lived in. Their mud-houses and straw huts are all they have and you have to walk at least 15 minutes to get to a neighbour or a garden for food. It was also a shock to me to see how many children they take care of. So many orphans rely on their relatives for shelter and food because they have no where else to go. They live so far away from the city that there are no orphanages, health clinics or schools nearby.

A fraction of how many tomatoes they produce

One of the communities is a 40 minute walk away from the roadside, and it just so happened that the morning of, it had rained here in Zambia. And it NEVER rains here during the winter. It was SO cold that day – everyone busted out their winter jackets and sweaters to wear. It was really unusual. But the weather is better now!

After our meetings we worked really hard on getting our proposal together, as well as a visual presentation of our proposal and a cover letter. We were preparing for our meeting with one of the richest men in Zambia, Dr. Rossi! Just a reminder: he owns 6 hotels and was the head of the business network association here. We printed everything out the day before and practiced for our presentation (it cost us 1.10 for ONE coloured page. Bah super expensive. And it cost $0.40 for a black and white page. It’s definitely $0.09 at UOttawa).
Here is the link to our visual presentation: http://prezi.com/lx7d83jcdj4z/​shared-world-initiative-and-lu​pwa-lwabumi-trust-social-enter​prise-partnership/

Our meeting went extremely well and Dr. Rossi gave us many tips for a successful business plan. He encouraged us to go big and target the supermarkets, however he couldn’t offer us contact information for his purchasing officers at his hotels because the restaurant portion doesn’t belong to him (anymore). We can still contact these restaurants but we don’t know if it’ll be reasonable because they order from a company on demand (since they don’t always require 10 boxes of tomatoes/week). Following the meeting, we went to an Indian restaurant which was SUCH a nice treat. We wanted to take the weekend off because we had worked so hard, but just as we’re about to eat dinner that night, the head of Bwafwano came to pick up Jason (our prof) to go out that night. We then joined their conversation and made a few connections.

As I mentioned in past blogs, Bwafwano is a community based organization (CBO) that kind of got ‘screwed’ over from the elections. They used to be funded by the UN’s food programme but the UN pulled out when the party that wants to be re-elected stated that Zambia is doing really well in terms of hunger (just to make themselves look good). So Bwafwano was affected and now only relies on Cecily’s Fund – another organization based in Europe which provides them grants for food. To feed the kids, Bwafwano goes to the markets every week and buys vegetables to make the kids some healthy meals. They go to the same market that our women sell their vegetables at. So, OUR new market can potentially be Bwafwano and the empowerment can be 3-fold. We’d be empowering the women in the rural communities by providing them with a constant income, we’d be empowering Lupwa by helping it become self-sustainable and no longer tied down by donor restrictions, and lastly, we’d be empowering Bwafwano because we would help continue feeding its children with healthy vegetables.

We had a meeting with the purchasing officer from Bwafwano this week and we’ll be hearing back soon. We were also reminded of Bwafwano’s initiative to be self-sustainable (which is mentioned below in another blog post): growing chickens. We visited the chickens that same day and we are going to try to help them find a market for them.

That’s our project up until now. It’s been a super busy week and time is definitely running out. A definite learning experience is that projects take WAY more than 8 weeks to complete. We probably won’t see any results before we leave but we’re planning on creating documents and files that will help with the continuation of this future partnership. 

Blog #7 – time is going by so quickly!

Our project is finally coming along! We met with Goodson on Thursday and I would say that this meeting was the starting point of the action phase of our project. We sold him the idea of doing a pilot project – starting small. We’ll start with tomatoes and 10 families in 2 communities and we’ll get a small contract going. Once we see the benefit of this project we’ll be able to use the stats obtained as a marketing tool for a larger contract.

We met with the community heads on Friday and they loved the idea. We’re meeting the families this Friday. We’ll be getting their profiles and including them in our business proposal to show how beneficial this new partnership between Lupwa and potentially a hotel will be.

My team and I starting working on our business profile/executive summary; we’re just missing the family profiles.

We’ll soon be ready to submit this idea to a market. How are we going to do this? Well, luckily Jason, our prof, has serious hookups. Jason knows a man named Dr. Rossi who just happens to be the owner of 6 hotels and is one of the richest men in Zambia. What’s even better is that he worked his way up from the bottom. We was backpacking in Zambia when he was younger and started working as a bellboy at one of the hotels until he was rich enough to buy it. From there he bought 6 more hotels and is the head of his own NGO. If anybody understands the value of empowerment and development, it’s this guy. So if everything works out, he’ll like our idea and we’ll hopefully have a market soon!

Now what have I done that’s not project related? Celebrated Canada day with fireworks and a party! Woohoo! Had some workshops from Jason, watched Blood Diamond (which is way more heartbreaking when you’re actually in the African continent), went to a super cool church where they literally have microphones and guitars and sing everything. It was so entertaining. I went to the Sunday market, watched Transformers on Monday ($6 for a ticket and a large popcorn. And the quality was probably better than the south keys movie theater lol), and this Friday I’m going to get my hair braided!! I’m a little nervous because apparently it’s super painful but it’s a totally once in a lifetime opportunity. You’ll see pics soon!!

Bye for now!! xoxo

ps- check out Tarun's blog for more pics: www.oneworldphilosophy.tumblr.com 

just some pics :)

Japanese festival at Bwafwano. One word to describe it: chaos. lol

At the Bwafwano community based organization with some kids 

One of my favourite kids ever. Meet Isaac junior :)

Jess and I at a community meeting

walking back from the community!

Week numero 3!

This past week has been the most productive week in terms of our needs assessment. We had meetings with the heads of the community centres (Bwafwano and Lupwa) and got a better idea of how we can help them be self-sustainable.

Bwafwano:  they’ve already purchased 550 chickens and after they grow up they will be sold for more. They will keep on buying and selling chickens and hope that the profits will help them with their expenses.

Lupwa: Many of their community groups live in rural areas and grow plenty of crops. Instead of having strangers take their crops and sell them for more, Lupwa would be that middle man. And to sell the idea even further, Lupwa would offer to pick up the crops from the homes (because at the moment the women have to pay SO much just to get their vegetables to the markets). And where do we come in? One of the issues brought up by the community was that the market isn’t reliable. So we’ll find one for them. We’re going to call hotels, embassies, and any other big market we can think of. If we can get them to sign a contract with Lupwa (the middle man), then the women who take care of these gardens (and produce kilos of veggies a week) will be guaranteed a sale and would not have to pay as much to take care of the gardens and sell them (because transportation would be covered). Lupwa would make money because they would buy the veggies for a certain price and then sell them for more. Hotels/embassies/large markets would benefit as well because they wouldn’t have to go out and seek vegetables from the regular market. They would just get delicious vegetables delivered to them for the same price.

So this is our project. Coordinating this. Talking to the communities, talking to Lupwa, and then finding big markets. It’s a big project but if we can start it and rely on people here to complete it then I’ll be more than satisfied.

How we interviewed the communities: We literally went there and asked them questions. In order to show respect, we had to wear  our chatanges (a skirt) which were given to us. Some communities were 40 minutes away by foot, 20 minutes and up a hill, or a 40 minute coach cart (with bulls pulling) away. These people live FAR but have awesome gardens and such lovely personalities. We were ALWAYS greeted with song and dance and then they bombard you with hugs. And when we sit on the tarp under the mango tree with them (it’ll vary from 8 community members to 40 members) we ask them various questions about their lifestyle.

A question that I asked them was if they had any help around the house or in their large gardens. One woman looks at me with her wide eyes and shakes her head. She puts her palms out for me to see all the calluses on her hand and proceeded to tell us that she does everything on her own. And all the other women nodded in agreement.

 My heart cried this week. I cry for the women who cannot afford to put their children in school because they can’t afford the school uniforms or the school fees. It saddens me to see that these women’s source of income is their gardens – which already cost them a fortune – and their baked goods. They live so, so far away that the only people that can buy their goods are the other women in the community who are in the same position. It hurts me to see that they single-handedly take care of their children, the house and their household income. Out of the 3 communities that we interviewed (about 60 people), only 3 of them were men. These women do EVERYTHING and they still maintain a happy disposition. They still sing, dance and laugh. This past week was an eye opener for me, and I can’t wait to be involved in their empowerment.

This is literally the whole house. Notice the little chalkboard behind her son's head (this 15 year old is teaching the kids). Ida is on the far right in the back.

One woman really inspired me. Her name is Ida and she has 4 kids. Her last born is about 15 years old and she can no longer afford to put him in school because of lack of uniform. This educated woman lives in a mud hut the size of my kitchen and takes the liberty to offer free school every day to the children in her community. Any and every child is welcome; spends her own time and money to buy any supplies necessary and food if needed. This woman understand the value of an education and will do anything under any circumstance to teach these children. Look at the picture and just count how many kids are in her house. She is the definition of amazing.

Weekend #2!!

Hey guys!!

If you want to see pics of the house, check out Tarun's blog at http://oneworldphilosophy.tumblr.com/

All he posts is pictures haha. So I'll just get him to do all the work.

We had a meeting on Saturday morning about what projects we want to do. Since the projects don’t yet exist, it was hard for people to make decisions. But the night before I was talking to Goodson and he really needs help with social enterprise. At the moment, both of the community centres are mainly funded by donors and are not self-sustained. My project would be looking at how we can create ways for the centres to generate their own income. For example, Bwafwano has a tailoring club and they sell some clothes to raise money. So far 20% of Bwafwano’s income is self generated. We want to increase that though. So more to come on that! I get to work with both community centres for now!

That afternoon Jason gave some of us a photography workshop and taught us about ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. My camera isn’t that extensive but it was cool to know what these things do. Then I went over to practice taking pictures and somehow ended up playing with the kids. It was SO much fun.

We went to a concert that night which was fun. The power went out for an hour though haha. Good old Zambia. The woman was amazing though. She was like India Arie – SUPER amazing.

Today is Father's Day! HAPPY FATHER'S DAY DAD! I LOVE YOU! Went to the market which was super awesome. Heavy bargaining going down.. but I didn't buy anything. Mom, did you want some wooden bowls for the house? If there are any requests from anyone, please let me know :) they have lots of stuff here lol

We're going to a crocodile farm this afternoon for Caro's bday :) I'm super stoked.

Have an amazing day everyone!! Love you all!

xoxo