One thing I’ve learned over the years is that reflection is an ongoing process. All of us who recently returned from our powerful and transformational learning journeys in Kenya are still processing and reflecting, making meaning of our rich experiences and conversations during our time in Nairobi and rural western Kenya. In the upcoming newsletters and blog posts, we will continue to share little “nuggets” and lessons that stand out for us, as well as broadcast the success stories of our amazing, long-time partners of The 1010 Project.

Global Entrepreneur Academy

One of the highlights of our time in Kenya was attending the inspiring graduation of the second Global Entrepreneur Academy (GEA). What an honor to congratulate ten of our bright, hard-working, innovative, social entrepreneurial partners as I handed them their certificate of graduation! As I listened to the guest speakers, as well as the graduates share what they had learned from the intense business education program, I was struck by the powerful themes of transformational business and leadership skills, self-sustainability and financial freedom – not for selfish reasons, but to serve others. It was richly rewarding to see the graduates encouraged, enriched, empowered and working synergistically to share knowledge and resources as they launch new ideas or expand existing income-generating activities (IGAs) for their community-based organizations (schools, orphanages, women’s empowerment and HIV/AIDS support groups, and microfinance). Please join me in celebrating how each of us has an opportunity to use our unique gifts, talents, passions, and knowledge to do our individual part wherever we are placed, collectively working together to break the cycle of poverty and share abundant life.

Specific outputs of the GEA curriculum include each participant creating a business plan and writing an IGA proposal. These two outputs are coupled with tracking impacts and outcomes of the IGAs.  Stay tuned as we will soon be posting summaries of these proposals so our investors (donors) have an opportunity to understand in more detail what these IGAs entail and how they help accomplish the goal of self-sustainability for the organizations that The 1010 Project’s partners direct and manage.

Commissioning a New Well in Quarry Slum – Redeemed Gospel Church

While in Kenya, we also had the privilege of celebrating some substantial “fruit” of a long-term church relationship. Seven years ago, The 1010 Project connected Redeemed Gospel Church in the Quarry Slum of Nairobi with Northside Christian Church of Houston, TX. Over the years, they have cultivated a beautiful partnership. We all know such a partnership is not without its challenges – indeed it takes work and intentionality to build such a far-reaching friendship. The leaders and active members of these churches have done just that. The Lord has blessed their relationship-building endeavor in a multitude of ways. Not the least of these was the opportunity for a team of dynamic Northside high school students and their two “fearless” leaders to spend two weeks in Kenya learning about breaking the cycle of poverty through income generation and self-sustainability.

In 2009, a different group from Northside visited Redeemed. One of the participants from that learning journey – a 10 year old boy – returned to Texas and shared this idea with his friends and church community: “It’s not right that my friends over in Kenya don’t have safe water to drink.” After lots of awareness raising and fundraising and plenty of hard work on behalf of both church leadership teams, a 240-meter “bore hole” was dug and the running water that flows from that well will now serve over 100,000 people in the Quarry slum! What a huge blessing to join the Redeemed church family in celebrating the opening of this well, which they’ve appropriately dubbed the “King’s Springs!” Those who come for the water can also partake in Redeemed’s other community services, such as Fair Oak School.

One of The 1010 Project’s next endeavors will be to locate the resources needed for a purification system so that this water can be bottled and sold as an income-generating activity for Redeemed Gospel Church and Fair Oak School.

We wanted to share with you just a sample just of the sweet potatoes our widows harvested in the farm. It has amazed even the government agricultural officers and they are coming now to carry out a research [on the sweet potatoes].

This message had pictures attached to it that do a good job of showing the scale of what Joshua was talking about:

St. Luke’s has an abundance of amazing soil and dedicated families working the land. In addition to sweet potatoes, they also harvest maize and rice. There are also a few fish ponds where they grow tilapia to sell and eat. It’s an amazing agricultural success, and might someday be the training site for a version of the Global Entrepreneur Academy focused on rural entrepreneurship and farming.

Planting a tree

The 1010 Project likes being on the cutting edge of news related to our sector, so we actively read international development blogs. One such blog is Owen Abroad: Thoughts from Owen in Africa. Owen Barder, the namesake of the blog, is a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington DC, and the Director of aidinfo – a programme of Development Initiatives which aims to make aid more transparent and accountable. He lives and works in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

3. How urgent is it to act [in order to end poverty and protect human life]?
Twenty five thousand people die each day of preventable and treatable diseases.  If those people were citizens of Europe or America, we would have declared a state of emergency.

A state of emergency, indeed. The same could be said for other public crises as well. Our friends and partners in Kenya face a 70% unemployment rate. Can we even imagine what kinds of resources would be mobilized if we faced such an issue in the United States?

But we’ve always identified issues like these as opportunities, not problems. With close to 60 years of data on aid program efficacy and costs, the international development community is finding solutions that work – and that stay working for the long-term. Bright young (and older) minds in the social entrepreneurship and community business development fields are testing new and exciting theories that will save lives and change our world for the better.

We exist in a state of opportunity. Our partners in Kenya constantly reward us with news about the methods and tools that are working, and with their help, The 1010 Project is committed to identifying the best ways and means of ending poverty.