Chris Coghlan, Grow Movement's founder, TED talk at TEDx London Business School in April 2012
Friday 21 December 2012
Sunday 16 December 2012
Grow Movement advises Ugandan Stroke Rehabilitation Centre
Uganda's average life expectancy is just 53 years, 18 years below the global average, and considerably less than that of the African continent (58 years)*. The number of doctors in proportion to the population is astoundingly low, with only one doctor for every 10,000 people. Strokes are one of the top 5 causes of death in Uganda, largely due to the prevalence of risk factors. Approximately 7.3% of the population are affected by HIV and 25% by sickle cell anaemia. This, in addition to insufficient quantities of fruit and vegetables in typical diets and the abuse of alcohol, drugs and cigarettes, means that the Ugandan population are particularly vulnerable to strokes.
When local resident Ibrahim Bukenya graduated from the Mulago School of physiotherapy, he realized that he wanted to help stroke survivors. After attending a Grow Movement empowerment programme, he was assigned a consultant, Mr. Nichola Bianchi. Mr. Bianchi used his experience in finance to advise Ibrahim by email or telephone on a weekly basis, working with him from Italy to formulate business plans and learn about how to manage the financial side of a business by monitoring cash flow and creating a balance sheet. With this advice, in 2010 Ibrahim established the Stroke Rehabilitation Centre in Wampewo.
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| Ibrahim Bukenya helps a patient get back on his feet |
From singlehandedly running a home physiotherapy service from a rented room in Kampala, Ibrahim is now the founder and principal physiotherapist of The Stroke Rehabilitation Centre, a non-governmental organisation which treats about 15 patients, recovering from strokes or spinal problems, each month, as well as offering employment to local people.
His work is crucial in treating the severe psychological and physical conditions found in people after a stroke. Stroke survivors commonly experience depression, anxiety, loss of mobility and impaired speech. If left untreated, these conditions may last a lifetime. Before they can resume their daily lives, a long period of rehabilitation is often required. At the Stroke Rehabilitation Centre, to aid patients in their recovery process, each is individually assessed to ensure that they recieve the ideal treatment for their specific situation. The centre also offers support and advice to the family and friends of patients.
After suffering from a stroke, Moses Opolot could not stand, sit or talk. When he was introduced to the Stroke Rehabilitation Centre, 'I started attending therapy and after a few weeks, I started experiencing great improvement. I learnt to walk with a stick, and later was able to walk by myself.' Staff at the centre worked closely with his family, teaching them to the best way to help him recover. Moses is now able to drive again and hopes to resume the life he had before his stroke soon.
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| 2012 World Stroke Day Walk |
Ibrahim hopes that in the future, the centre will grow so that it is able to offer accommodation to over 50 patients. With the support of his second Grow Movement consultant, Nishi Agrawal from India, he is currently working to raise 100 million Ugandan shillings (about $37,000 or £23,000) over the next four years in order to purchase land to see his vision fulfilled, spreading his care network to the rest of Uganda.
The actions of the Stroke Rehabilitation Centre demonstrate the ability and potential of a few individuals to make a significant difference to their community.
Friday 14 December 2012
Violet Busingye's experience at Global Entrepreneurship Week Rwanda with Educat
Our
main role as a partner was to place 10 Grow Movement remote volunteers with
individual entrepreneurs and supporting them throughout the week. It was an
amazing opportunity and a mutual benefit for everybody who participated!
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| Teta pitching her business, Inzuki Designs |
“I didn’t have plan B, this is what
I have to do for a living!” Says Teta
In Africa, for every one single job in the formal
sector, there are over 50 people struggling for it. In each country in
Africa for example Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi thousands of new graduates compete
with peers who completed earlier for few jobs available each year not
mentioning the old age bracket group people in these countries who never want
to retire from their formal jobs due to a
lot of insecurities in their lives.
A young lady Teta Isibo, the
founder of Inzuki Designs, a local Rwandan company specialising in African jewellery, accessories and
interior décor, is an indomitable woman that inspired the jury during the Real Business Accelerator last month. She was Born in Nairobi but raised up in Uganda, the third born in a
family of six returned with her family to Rwanda in 1996 after the genocide where she studied and
managed to complete her Bachelors of Science degree.
While talking to her I learnt she is passionate about designing “I am doing
something that I chose to do, something I am passionate about and naturally
good at. Although the decision to open my own store was radical, I have not
regretted it even a single day. I have a clear vision of what I want to
accomplish especially supporting talented rural women and this is what drives
me every single day and I have found hope”, she says.
Like many of us, she didn’t know exactly what she wanted to do as a child but she was always
interested in anything creative and always had an eye for design and always
waited for opportunities to enhance her dream. Like any other youth in Rwanda, Teta was looking for answers relating to survival after school. However,
she has found hope in her
business and she has been able to create employment to fellow young women as
young as she is. She hopes to be supporting over 90 women in the next one
year.
Grow Movement is committed to supporting the
Rwandan entrepreneurs like the 10 real business accelerator to realize their
dreams and help create a great social impact in Rwanda a help form our partners
like Educat. Among others, Teta is working with Mimi Ng her Grow consultant
based in Canada focused on supporting her develop Logistics of selling
internationally, Marketing, branding the business to stand out from its
competitors and strategically planning for her business…
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| The 10 RBA candidates supported by Grow Movement |
It was amazing to have 10 Grow Movement international volunteer
consultants willing to work remotely supporting 10 candidates on Global Entrepreneurship week (4 based in UK and 5 from Kenyan, Tanzania, Afghanistan,
Canada and India.) They held a few sessions during the
week to support the candidates throughout their endeavors. They have
continued working with their clients for about 3-5 months to help contribute to
and promote entrepreneurship development in Rwanda by supporting Rwandan committed
entrepreneurs in equipping them with proper business practises and accelerating
their businesses.
A lot of talented young people are willing and have the capacity
to make a change in their lives and to support their communities if given a
chance. The 10 candidates I worked with during the GEW week are very ambitious,
motivated and willing to venture into private enterprise and walk the road of successful
people. Grow Movement together with its partners, volunteer business
consultants and sponsors are committed to support the start-up and existing businesses to Grow with the ultimate aim of making more money, create
more jobs and keep their businesses sustainable. It is a low cost,
collaborative approach to development where both clients and consultants learn
from one another.
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| Working out at a piggery and chicken farm |
Entrepreneurs in Africa depend largely on household
resources, individual efforts and grants from well-wishers to get started in
business. However, despite achievements, the challenges faced by the entrepreneurs
range from mindsets to enterprise to
lack of business skills to efficiently run successful businesses.
Traditional
script has always been that to succeed in business, you must get a lot of
capital and it has to come from outside. All the greatest business stories have
always started with what one had with humble beginnings for example of
a chicken project, piggery, a garage as a factory or a road kiosk as a shop
location.
Grow Movement teams both locally in our countries of
operation, volunteers and its directors combine efforts meant to cause prominence
and visibility of entrepreneurship as a MOVEMENT
in addressing today’s challenges poverty, unemployment and sustainable
development.
Sunday 25 November 2012
Catharsis in Sierra Leone
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| North Bombali district EU election observer team: Chris, Abdoulaye, Barbara, Issac |
As the third elections since the end of the war, many commentators considered peaceful elections would mark Sierra Leone’s transition from a post conflict to more normal developing country, albeit the eighth poorest in the world.
Elections have a raw emotional significance for Sierra Leonians: the RUF cut off people’s arms as punishment for voting. We met some of these amputees while investigating electoral access for vulnerable groups. There was something unbelievably shocking about it: That these people were missing arms not from injuries sustained in battle, but a deliberate act of torture from one human being to another. It is almost impossible to imagine the horror they went through, but I believe one should make the attempt so as to understand that people face this injustice and it must be stopped.
Conflict occurs so often in
least developed countries because it is both one cause and a symptom of extreme
poverty: 73% of least developed countries have recently experienced civil war or are currently in one.1
International law recognises our collective responsibility to intervene where a
state is unable to protect its people from genocide, war crimes, crimes against
humanity and ethnic cleansing in the Responsibility to Protect, with military
force as a last resort. While too often the international community has ignored
this responsibility, in Sierra Leone UN peacekeepers, backed by the British
Army, did intervene and stop the war.
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| Barbara and Issac interviewing a voter |
Issac’s hip never healed
correctly and he is unlikely to ever be able to afford the surgery to reset it.
His mother died when he was much younger and as an only child it is easy to
imagine him succumbing or becoming one more brutalised child soldier.
Instead, his father’s best
friend took care of him and he went to secondary school. Issac’s father was a
subsistence farmer and the family had no history of education but somehow Issac
dreamt of becoming a human rights lawyer.
He passed the exam to get into university and started cold calling
senior members of his community, telling them his story, his dream and asking
for donations for his fees. A year later he had enough money for his first
year.
Today Issac is a 24 year old
top student with a linguistics degree and is half way through law school. He
still depends on his community for support and is currently fundraising the
$4,000 he needs for the final two years. He told me he wants to be a human
rights lawyer to ensure no one suffers as he did and stand up against injustice
in Sierra Leone. Perhaps he seeks release from his own anger in healing the
hurt of others.
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| The count |
But if there is one reason
why I’m optimistic about least developed countries escaping poverty it’s
because their communities have extraordinary people like Issac who do
not accept their situation, expand their sense of the possible, and lead.
1: Paul Collier "The Bottom Billion",Oxford University Press 2008, p17
Saturday 10 November 2012
Grow Movement partner for Global Entrepreneurship Week Rwanda
Grow Movement is proud to be a partner of Global Entrepreneurship week Rwanda 2012. Our team, led by Violet Busingye, will be in Rwanda for the next week working with our Rwandan partner Educat with the Real Business Accelerator (RBA).
The Real Business Accelerator is an intense week long
opportunity for 10 high potential Rwandan entrepreneurs to convert a
brilliant idea into action and kick-start their business. Educat and
partners will facilitate a professional framework throughout the week,
offering various training sessions, coaching, legal advice and budget
support, ICT support etc.
Click here to follow Grow Movement's updates on our facebook page.
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| Grow Movement Manager, Violet Busingye |
It will take place during the Global Entrepreneurship Week 12-18
November and culminate at the official GEW closing ceremony where the
“Accelerators” will pitch the businesses to a jury and the winner will
receive a cash price and office space
at the REAL Centre-incubator.
Grow Movement will be providing 3-5 months of remote volunteer consulting to the 10 entrepreneurs.
Watch the video below to learn more about Global Entrepreneurship week:
Click here to follow Grow Movement's updates on our facebook page.
Wednesday 17 October 2012
Cambodia: Overcoming poverty through social business
How do you overcome poverty amongst the billion poorest people on earth, countries with often apocalyptic recent events or at risk of facing them now? Where the injustice of extreme poverty demands external intervention yet so little evidence of its success exists that some people question whether international aid is not just ineffective, but contributes to poverty.
At Grow Movement we enhance the capacity of local entrepreneurs to lead their countries out of poverty and enable people everywhere to act through remote volunteering: Modern communications enable a skilled person anywhere to volunteer their time to overcome poverty and see the results for themselves.
One of those volunteers is Philippe Pauly, a former fund manager in Paris, who volunteered remotely with Allen Alebako, one of our women entrepreneurs in Uganda. Philippe dedicates his life to overcoming poverty amongst the rural poor in Cambodia and followed his passionate belief in the effectiveness of social enterprise by founding Cambolac. I am lucky enough to serve on Cambolac's social board and visited Cambodia to learn about their work.
Cambodia knows apocalypse: up to 2.2 million people of a population of 8 million died in the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1978. The Khmer Rouge killed anyone with an education, speaking a foreign language or even former urban dwellers judged incapable of agricultural work. While this happened before the vast majority of Cambodians today where born, its legacy lingers in a very basic level of education and a virtual absence of professionals.
Cambolac works in Siem Reap where over 50% of families live on less than a dollar a day, 53% of children are malnourished and just 10% of them finish high school. Yet two million tourists visit this area annually to see the stunning Angkor Wat temples. Very little of the tourist revenues reach the local community.
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| A Cambolac black lacquer box |
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| Making Cambolac boxes with a water rubbing pond |
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| Cambolac founder Philippe Pauly (centre) with Cambodian family and a Cambolac rubbing pond |
Philippe is
investigating enhancing the social impact further by outsourcing part
of the production process to the local villages. This would enable people who
cannot travel to the workshop to have work (either by virtue of the cost or women
for example who cannot leave their children to go to work). Cambolac would
supply boxes to the villages for the people to sandpaper and pay a fee for each
box so that people can work at their own pace and around their other
commitments.
Cambolac has constructed one rubbing pond in a local village to pilot
this concept and so far appears very promising at enabling more
people to access work.
I don't know the answer to the international aid dilemma. But I do know from working with Cambolac and Grow Movement that active, positive and effective steps exist to serve the people in these communities.
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| Cambolac social board member and Grow Movement founder Chris Coghlan at Angkor Wat, Cambodia |
Thursday 11 October 2012
BBC news on Grow Movement entrepreneur Thomas Ssemakula
At Grow Movement we believe enhancing the skills of local entrepreneurs to lead their countries out of poverty is the best way to economically empower the people in the poorest countries on earth. We use remote volunteer consultants in over fifty countries to deliver business advice on an ultra low cost base to entrepreneurs in Uganda, Malawi and Rwanda over mobile phone.
We're thrilled that Grow Movement Ugandan entrepreneur Thomas Ssemakula has told the story of his business Brave East Africa to BBC news:
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| Grow Movement's Thomas Ssemakula |
Just over two years ago Thomas qualified as a vet and launched his Brave East Africa consultancy business with no money to his name. In this video he tells how Grow Movement consultant Molly Fulton in Las Vegas gave him the human resource and financial advice he needed scale up to seven employees. Then in a second project, a Grow Movement team of MBA students from London Business School's Impact Consulting club helped Thomas write the business plan to successfully secure the investor mentioned by the BBC.
Its not just Thomas's employees and their families who benefit from his outstanding dynamism: Thomas's business equips Ugandan subsistence farmers with the skills they need to commercialize their produce, creating a ripple effect throughout the local community.
As all of Grow Movement's advice is delivered remotely and our operations are managed by local people, the total cost of Thomas's projects to Grow Movement was $200. We've managed to work with over 200 entrepreneurs like Thomas in the last three years on a cost base of less than $400 a week.
Right now we're scaling up to advise 1,200 Malawian, Ugandan and Rwandan entrepreneurs over the next three years to lead their communities out of poverty and show the effectiveness of talented local entrepreneurs teamed with remote volunteer consultants to end poverty at low cost and scale.
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