Category: Rwanda

Our partner in Rwanda, Gardens for Health, reports that it’s using Barefoot MBA lessons to teach families in its malnutrition program. Many mothers have started their own savings groups as a result.

Gardens for Health, our partner in Rwanda, reports that the Barefoot MBA has reached more than 500 individuals in its 13 cooperatives. GHI is growing in Rwanda, and we look forward to the Barefoot MBA’s growth with it.

Gardens for Health International has introduced two Barefoot MBA lessons to new cooperatives. Feedback has been “excellent” so far, Julie writes.

GHI’s Barefoot MBA adaptation is now posted on the curriculum page.

ATOP A HILL NEAR NDERA, Rwanda — The members of the Komara cooperative arrived at today’s Barefoot MBA workshop by foot, some walking more than three hours to arrive at the health center we used as a classroom. They’d been asking for basic business training for a long time.

After Sunday’s brief introduction, the field officers took turns teaching the lessons they’d been practicing at Gardens for Health (GHI) headquarters. Each field officer was more energetic than the one before, electrifying the room like dynamic preachers. In the back of the room, wishing I understood Kinyarwanda, I wondered to myself whether they were teaching something else entirely.

No, said those who understand both languages. The field officers taught profit, saving and investing using our stories and local examples. They facilitated the interactive investing activity. The cooperative members participated politely. They wanted more.

Once again the activity was the highlight. They learned from the stories, they said, but putting theory into practice right away prompted them to commit to doing things differently: One said he would focus on profit, not just revenue. Another said she would save at least some of his earnings instead of spending it all. A third said she would spend at least some of her income on something that predictably increases in value.

And once again I found myself pleasantly surprised at how broadly applicable our tool is. Scott and I hadn’t heard of GHI when we created the Barefoot MBA, yet with relatively minor preparation the two became excellent fits for each other.

My biggest regret today is that we didn’t make time for more. As we left (or, more accurately, tried to leave), cooperative members articulated more lessons they’d like to learn, each of which the Barefoot MBA addresses. Over time GHI plans to teach in the field the 10 lessons the field officers learned. GHI also has committed to translating all 16 lessons, which we’ll post so others can pick and choose those most appropriate to their audiences.

I leave Rwanda confident in GHI’s ability to follow through on its commitments and then some. I look forward to strengthening our partnership.

We’ve already been invited back.

NDERA, Rwanda – The field officers spent a full day training today to prepare for their pilot sessions at the cooperative tomorrow.

Today we used two trainers. Evas, who helped Sunday translate the Barefoot MBA and has experience running other trainings locally, this morning taught the remaining four lessons that will become part of Gardens for Health’s adaptation. Sunday rejoined the group after lunch to guide the field officers through practice teaching the three lessons they’ll teach to the cooperative tomorrow.

The field officers worked together to make the profit, saving and investing lessons as relevant as possible and then practiced teaching to each other.

We started with the stories. They understood. They engaged.

Then we moved onto the interactive exercise that reinforced the lessons, especially investing. That wasn’t quite as smooth. Instead of encouraging interaction by leading the group through the activity, the field officer re-explained the concept of investing using a table that showed increases in value over time. We used the opportunity to underscore the importance of involving participants: The activity engaged the field officers and reinforced the lesson, and we hope it serves a similar purpose for the cooperative members.

IN A VALLEY NEAR NDERA, Rwanda – The cooperatives we visited today exemplify the situations we envisioned when creating the Barefoot MBA.

More than three years ago, in the comfort of the Stanford campus, we had visions of meeting with groups so far off the beaten path we had no option but to use nature as furniture and shade.

Today, we twice hiked into the valley to meet cooperatives whose most substantive structure is a rabbit hutch. At the first, we walked through an extensive cabbage farm while Modeste, GHI’s first local employee, talked to cooperative leaders about a succession plan for their recently deceased president. At the second, we sat beneath banana trees as Modeste interviewed members of a cooperative applying to formalize its relationship with GHI. At one point, Modeste asked cooperative members what they wanted to learn. Their first response? Business.

On Thursday we’ll return to the first cooperative, where the field officers we’ve been training at GHI headquarters will practice what they’ve been learning.

NDERA, Rwanda – We dived straight into lessons here at Gardens for Health International (GHI): six Barefoot MBA topics for GHI’s field officers and a little Kinyarwanda for me. Sunday, GHI’s program associate, facilitated both.

Today was the first day on the job for the five field officers, whose energy brought to life their afternoon of lessons. GHI selected the field officers from a pool of 160 through process that, based on field officers’ questions and insights today, was much more rigorous than the Barefoot MBA.

Sunday spent the summer adapting and translating the Barefoot MBA, so after a brief run through this morning, he was ready as scheduled to teach the field officers. We’re teaching ten Barefoot MBA lessons to the field officers, who later this week will teach three to cooperative members.

The field officers listened intently as Sunday taught profit, saving and investing, the three lessons they’ll teach in the field this week. They actively participated in the investing activity, which showed month-by-month growth of the dodo vegetable (sprouts can be sold for up to double the cost of seeds), hens (produce 30 eggs a month, which can be sold for 80 Rfw apiece) and rabbits (multiply like rabbits!). They understood that saving cash can be safe, especially in the short term, but does not generate value over time. They picked up on the seasonality of a dodo investment. And they pointed out that rabbits multiply so quickly that their seller might not be able to find enough willing buyers.

Reassured that they’d practice teaching profit, saving and investing to each other before heading to the cooperatives, the field officers were ready for more. Sunday taught them spending, planning and records, and production, which they picked up just as quickly as they did the first three lessons. He gave a quick overview of the lessons we’ll teach next and then asked the field officers if they had questions.

“What is MBA?” they asked. Sunday explained. The group was amused as it tried to translate ‘Barefoot MBA’ into Kinyarwanda, not a simple task here, where brevity and MBAs are rare. Their solution was my first lesson in the local language: rwiyemeza mikimo w’ikirenga utagira n’inkweto, which literally means a master good entrepreneur with no shoes on. I told them I’d rather start by learning the word for ‘thank you’: murakoze.

We’re thrilled to announce a partnership with Gardens for Health International, an organization in Rwanda that helps people living with HIV / AIDS improve their nutrition and health through low-cost sustainable agriculture practices. GHI, which counts an Echoing Green fellowship among its accolades, enables its constituents to form small business cooperatives and access arable land. It also provides microloans and identifies and provides initial business investments. GHI delivers training, but to date that has been limited to nutritional training. We are working with GHI to adapt and implement the Barefoot MBA to add basic business to the training GHI constituents receive.