Freedom

Update (May 26): The passing of George Floyd in Minneapolis is another heartbreaking tragedy that follows the formula I addressed in my original article and must be inconceivably difficult for his loved ones so our thoughts and prayers are with them as they grapple with their grief, fear, and anger.

Original Article (May 9)

I was reticent to post anything about the Ahmaud Arbery incident for fear of being like so many virtue signalers who use tragedy to convey their sanctimony.  Those people suck.  But as I wavered on whether or not to write anything, I remembered a conversation I had last year with a Hispanic mentee I have who attends Chicago public high school.  He mentioned he was considering joining the military, but that his mom asked him why he would want to die for a country that doesn’t even want him here.  If that is the sense of belonging afforded to people of color, then something needs to change if we’re going to posit ourselves a free country.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I did not spend much time ruminating on what “freedom” meant to me.  Then week after week of compulsory isolation, I couldn’t help but think back to February when I was able to do whatever the hell I wanted.  In February, I cavorted to New York City with a buddy, then the next weekend I celebrated Carnaval in Colombia.  February was an awesome swan song for the liberties I took for granted.  Before the pandemic, I was truly free.

Ahmaud Arbery was shot in February.  While I was out gallivanting around, he was gunned down while jogging.  There will be people who allege he was “up to no good” (which is an egregiously transparent euphemism) or that they’re going to wait for the facts to come out before they comment on this tragedy.  Before the pandemic, Ahmaud was not truly free.

Ahmaud’s death comes in the wake of so many men like him: black, young, and unarmed.  Now, I think it is worth noting that the perpetrators of these deaths all had varying degrees of vitriol, but the same level of prejudice.  And this is extremely important, because it touches on how racism prevails in 2020 and how it rears its ugly head so insidiously.  If all of the suspects we’ve seen take the stand in recent memory were such bombastic, unequivocal white supremacists like Dylan Roof (the Charleston church shooter), the conversation would oddly be far easier. 

The thing is… most suspects in these cases are not such unabashed, in-your-face white supremacists.  They don’t exude the archetypal villainy of Dicaprio’s character in Django Unchained or Bob Ewell in To Kill a Mockingbird, so emblematic of the Civil War and Jim Crow eras.  And in a way, that’s the scary thing.  Their defense is not “your honor, I hate an entire race of people.”  Rather, it follows a pattern to the tune of “I saw someone I deemed suspicious, I confronted that person, that person reacted incredulously, I was armed and scared, so I shot the suspicious person in self-defense.  Race had nothing to do with it.”  Self-defense is when somebody breaks into your home and you protect yourself.  Self-defense is not, surveilling somebody who is minding his own business or at worst committing a misdemeanor (that I--a 28-year-old white guy—would get at most a fine for), confronting him with a weapon, then shooting him when he does not prostrate himself and apologize for not comporting himself in the way he should.  This “defense” somehow has an absurdly high success rate, appealing to the pathos of a jury that is thinking the same thing, just not saying it.  As for the victim, I cannot fathom the anxiety I would have if every one of my public actions were put under the microscope of omnipresent judges, juries, and executioners who will determine whether what I am doing is acceptable.  If I’m lucky, I’d just be unrightfully harassed, but still alive.  That’s not freedom.

At a time when people are storming capitol buildings lamenting that they can’t go bowling or get a haircut, we’ve somehow overlooked the disparate implicit freedoms we shared when things were ostensibly “normal”.  As citizens, we need to turn inward and think about how we look at and treat others, and whether we are propagating freedom or only affording it to people we deem desirable.  Many of the same people who want to own and carry firearms and “stand their ground” balk at someone else standing his ground when he is confronted with specious accusations.  This double standard is almost comically paradoxical.  If you stand for freedom you need to take a step back and think about what biases you may harbor and those around you and you need to combat those biases, however awkward it may be.  And personally, I don’t think you have to do it in some annoying “white guilt”, soap-boxy kind of way.  Just ask yourself: am I treating people with the same respect?  Am I accounting for what they’ve gone through in their lives?  Am I rushing to judgment on them because I do not share their experiences?  You don’t need to wear a beanie and live in Williamsburg to not be part of the problem.  Just look at yourself, look at those around you, and don’t be quiet and impotent when people are exhibiting prejudice.

As a country with laws, we need to embody Martin Luther King’s axiom that “an unjust law is no law at all.”  Now I interned at a law firm in college before coming to the realization that I would be a pretty abysmal barrister, so I am no authority on how to enact legal changes, but I do know that a system that allows people to precipitate an argument, murder the person they’re arguing with, and walk away scot-free is an inherently unjust system.  We need to address these laws the same way we address ourselves.  Suspects in these crimes have carte blanche to play judge, jury and executioner, while suspects of color go to prison for non-violent crimes for decades.  That’s not freedom.

 

Rwanda Day 3 and 4 - 1000 Hills and Women's Bakery

There’s a common misnomer that doing the right thing and profiting are mutually exclusive; this could not be less true, and 1000 Hills Distillery and the Women’s Bakery are two organizations that clearly dispel this misinformed notion. 

On Wednesday, I went on a tour of 1000 Hills Distillery led by Andrew, one of their directors, who has experience in impact investing and microfinancing.  He proudly led us through the distillery, which admittedly combines two of my favorite things: social impact… and libations.  While the whole process and experience was awesome, there were several takeaways from this tour that stuck out:

  • They recycle rainwater that they use to help in the fermentation process, which is resourceful and great for the environment

  • They source their ingredients from Rwandan farmers, which not only provides them oversight of quality control, but also helps local business

  • They do not use any ingredients that are part of the “food chain” (i.e., what people in Rwanda could eat), which gives some of the liquors unique flavors.  For instance, for their vodka, they use molasses in lieu of potatoes.  Not only did the vodka taste better than the usual vodka I begrudgingly throw back to maintain a semblance of a figure, but it’s good to know it’s not being created at the expense of local malnourishment

  • It is the only distillery along the equator, and has hushed many naysayers who posited that the Rwandan climate could not accommodate distilling

All of the drinks were unique and tasty and the views of the city were incredible.  The last piece that really resonated with me was when Andrew informed me that respecting the community was not just the right thing to do, but good business.  1000 Hills is positioned for some great success in the future and I’m pretty excited to tap into the Macademia Nut Liquor that I brought back with me (responsibly of course 😉).  

Thursday morning, I went to the Women’s Bakery, a bakery and café located in Kigali, with three other locations in Rwanda and one in Uganda.  I had an hour-long discussion with Hilary Hilsabeck, the Director of Operations at the Bakery and indulged in a delicious cinnamon sugar pretzel and iced coffee. 

One of the things about Women’s Bakery that really impressed me was their commitment to measuring social impact and profit concurrently.  They do not make business decisions that compromise one of those goals.  At their flagship locations, they pragmatically seek feedback from their female employees, and have adapted from a training/hands-off model, to providing more oversight into their operations, to ensure that the bakery remains profitable. 

In an effort to expand, The Women’s Bakery allows reputable NGOs to franchise its business model and name (while taking on the financial risk of operating the new location), and Women’s Bakery management provides training, consultancy, and report monitoring to help these locations get off the ground.  This has posed certain challenges, like the lack of comparative regulations in Uganda compared to Rwanda, or that baristas were offering products in exchange for IOUs, which had a temporary negative effect on profits.  However, the Women’s Bakery continues to refine its process and model and educate its employees on the importance of sticking to its core plan to maximize benefits for all involved.  Its ability to scale is contingent on perfecting its process and practices, and I have no doubt that they are on the precipice of achieving that.

The Women’s Bakery also provides a nursery, mental health counseling, and teaches gender and reproductive health to its employees.  When new Women’s Bakery employees are onboarded (and then 6 months, 12 months, and annually thereafter), they respond to an 80 question survey about their financial and personal well-being.  Questions include whether their house has cement floors, whether they can afford a cow or school fees all the way to more qualitative questions about mental health, confidence, and a variety of other metrics.  The Women’s Bakery management also does home visits to ensure that the women’s lives have improved and that their survey responses reflect the actual improvement in their day-to-day lives.  The Bakery even has an “Impact Wall” that touts the tangible impacts the Women’s Bakery provides (employees on average quadrupled their pre-Bakery income), they’ve sold over 115K pieces of bread, and have employed over 11 women at their main location thus far. 

Both 1000 Hills and the Women’s Bakery were inspiring places that strengthened my belief that responsible business can be profitable and improve the lives of all stakeholders, especially when management is diligent, purposeful, and calculated.  Thank you again to both organizations for welcoming me and entertaining my plethora of questions.  

Rwanda Day 3 and 4 - White Dove Global Prep

With the help of Bee Nirundonpruk, Catherine Dai, and Arkira Tanglertsumpun, REV has become close partners with White Dove Global Prep, an all-girls STEM and athletics-focused Christian high school in Kigali, Rwanda.  To satiate the demand of bright young students in Kigali who couldn’t afford the exorbitant costs of local standardized test tutors, we offered SAT prep over Zoom videoconference, calling it the SATellite program, beginning in March of this year.  Our work also includes maintaining their website and providing them internet (we conducted our first handful of classes in the Kigali Marriott conference room).

In May we reported that two months’ prep improved the diagnostic test by > 100 points per student (and September results indicate another 90-point incremental improvement), and it is fantastic to know, empirically, that our endeavors are working. 

While the course has become part of the curriculum for the S5 and S6 (Juniors and Seniors) students and all students are boasting competitive scores, I realized when I visited this week that the students are so much more than smart and committed to performing well on a Scantron test.  These are future pilots, computer scientists, economists, engineers and poets, with unrivaled ambition and resiliency to the adversity they face on a daily basis.  Put simply, these students are leaders.  

On Wednesday, I conducted one-on-sessions with the S6 girls who are sitting for the test on October 5, and annotated their specific struggles, but also inquired what their post-secondary ambitions were, what size school they were interested in (liberal arts vs. large state school and everything in between), preferred climate (unsurprisingly there was some aversion to the blustering Midwest and Northeastern winters), intended majors, and any other concerns they might have in the process.  It was a fantastic opportunity to get to know the students on a personal basis, and we intend to mentor the students one-on-one throughout their college application process according to our own personalities, insight, and experiences (put another way: I will not be advising the future engineers). 

One of the most rewarding experiences was talking through their personality essays.  One of the students, Kelly, told me her passion about poetry, and I suggested she work poems into her essay.  Another told me about her dream of becoming a pilot, and I suggested referencing her flight to New York in the summer as a concrete example of her interest.

I was lucky enough to have attended a college preparatory high school that did all the stressful college application administrative stuff for us, so I took for granted how complicated the process is, particularly for international students of very limited means.  Many of the tasks we had to do (updating College Board profiles, applying for CSS) are ones that I would have considered obvious components of the process, but for many of the students this is so new, exciting, and stressful.  However, I know that with their willpower, intellectual curiosity, and diverse/interesting stories, they are setting themselves up for unbridled success in all of their pursuits and the world will be a better place for it.

On Thursday, the S6 class took another SAT practice test, while I met with the S5 students to discuss some tricks and tips to the SAT and got to know all twelve of them better (interests, funny stories, whether they had been outside of Rwanda).  It was a lot of fun and allowed me to get a better idea of the people behind the pencils.

After this, I met with Paula and Ornella, two smart, driven S5 students, who had just gotten back from 3+ weeks in Nepal with the Global Girl Project (another partner of mine).  The Founder of Global Girl Project, Julia Lynch, met girls from Nepal, Pakistan, and Rwanda, in Kathmandu, Nepal.  While there, the girls had leadership classes, learned about their common struggles and cultural differences, and even trekked through the Nepali forest and mountains.  After the project, the girls are tasked with implementing a project that has a positive impact in their communities.  They reflected on their incredible experiences and what they learned.

One of my activities as a partner of Global Girl Project is to measure and quantify the impacts of their projects, which will not only prove empirically that the projects have a real, tangible impact, but will also help the organization secure funding, as donors increasingly rely on metrics as a barometer for whether they will fund a particular organization. 

Paula will be conducting sessions with girls in the Kigali area who are at risk of becoming pregnant or opting into marriage prematurely (often due to peer pressure).  We wrote up questionnaires targeted at this population to help maximize the impact of her sessions and decrease the percentage of at-risk teens actually getting pregnant or married.

 

Ornella aims to increase female representation in IT, and we also wrote a survey to understand why girls in Rwanda (a country that has progressive gender equality) do not pursue coursework or careers in technology.  Our goal is to identify whether confidence or other qualitative factors are the culprits for this underrepresentation and frame our sessions with girls based on this discovery.

After my sessions with Paula and Ornella, we played a competitive game of kickball and I’m happy to say my team won 20-17.  Overall it was a fantastic experience and I was so glad to meet all the students, as well as the teachers.  Patrice Dorrall and Faithful Abaho are the principal administrators at the school and their vision, passion, and competence is unparalleled.  I am so excited to continue this relationship and provide advisory to them, especially as they add a primary section in 2020.  White Dove Global Prep’s mantra is “Teach. Lead. Dream” and the school does all three of those things splendidly.

Rwanda Day 2 - ASYV

1 million children were left orphaned and displaced in the wake of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which posed one of, if not the most, critical problem facing the rebuilding nation. Many children to this day remain orphaned, and are far less likely to graduate high school and far more likely to be pre-disposed to crime. In 2005, Anne Heyman learned of this crisis and decided to build the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village (ASYV), a residential community for Rwandan orphans, and would model it after the communities the Israelis created for orphans of the holocaust.

ASYV is located about an hour and a half east of Kigali. It opened in 2008 and provides housing and education, as well as a plethora of social, athletic, and community programs for the most vulnerable Rwandan high schoolers across the country. The recruiting process takes six months and ASYV recruiters interview 9th graders who the nation identifies as the most vulnerable (many of victims of malnourishment, sexual and physical abuse, and homelessness). Nevertheless, ASYV attracts prospective students who exude a “spark of resilience”, which is an incredible attribute for young adults who have gone through hell.

Each class at ASYV has 128 students. and the 100 person faculty of teachers, chefs, coaches, IT professionals, and volunteers is committed to providing an immersive program that provides hope, opportunity, and healing for young people who previously had none of that. Over 60% of the students come from the lowest level of poverty in the country.

The campus is extraordinary, encompassing 144 acres, and includes a farm with chickens, cows, goats, and rabbits, a solar power field that powers an incredible 5-8% of the energy in the ENTIRE NATION, basketball courts, a soccer field, recording studios, multiple libraries, a media center to learn AV, and any instrument an aspiring musician would like to play.

An important distinction to note about the ASYV is that it is a “village”, not a boarding school or an orphanage. Each house of ~20 students has a host mom, and functions as a family. The students spend the duration of their four years in the same house, and each house is named after an inspirational historical figure (e.g., Helen Keller, Louie Armstrong). Older students function as mentors for the younger students, which is especially important for the younger students, who are at a precarious stage that is scary enough for teenagers who grow up in functional households, much less students who have to relocate across a country to a new home with new expectations.

To encourage assimilation, the first year of the program is an “Enrichment Year” in which the students learn about the school’s core values, vision, and take up to 1,000 hours in English language courses. The school is extremely litigious in its gathering data points from current students as well as alumni and one of the strongest predictors of a student’s likelihood for success (gainful employment, post-secondary education) is their aptitude in English, particularly those who are interested in pursuing hospitality. Nevertheless, 75+% of students are gainfully employed or attending college after their time at ASYV, which is amazing considering the circumstances that drive them to the village in the first place. It was extremely interesting talking with the staff who is involved with analyzing the data that helps explain the root causes of success and failure for students, and how they use that valuable information to shape their curriculum, pedagogy, and focus points.

The visit was a phenomenal experience and the amount of smiles, pride, and dignity that I saw across the campus was extremely encouraging. I saw future leaders, passion in sports, art, and media, and camaraderie among the entire student body. It was an incredible visit and I was truly inspired by everyone who was generous enough to spend their time teaching me about all the village has to offer.

Rwanda Day 1 - Preface and Akilah Institute

When I came up with the concept of “Cases 4 a Cause” during my first trip to Africa last December, I didn’t realize how quickly I would be forging new partnerships with educational institutions and other NGOs in the Kigali, Rwanda area. My consulting experience has equipped me with a lens for quantifying and measuring things that are seemingly subjective in nature, which is often absent in the social sector, and the opportunity to leverage that skill=set for social good has been challenging, exhausting, and logotherapeutic.

I decided to return to Kigali to fortify my existing relationships/partnerships with organizations here (like White Dove Global Prep, the Nyamirambo Women’s Center, and brainstorm sustainable tourism ideas with the brilliant Josephine Kakasi), but also to pick the brains of entrepreneurs, academics, and volunteers who are involved in sectors I see as integrally related to development (hospitality, education, entrepreneurship).

Rwanda’s explosive growth since 1994 (when one of, if not the most. heartbreaking violations of human rights in human history occurred), is an anomaly. The government stressed the importance of reconciliation (even though the perpetrators were guilty of monstrosities that arguably do not merit forgiveness), promoted technology (they’re one of few African countries with LTE networks), discouraged dependence on foreign aid that fosters dependence, and promoted education. One example of the unification is the “Umaganda” wherein all citizens participate in cleanup on the last Saturday of each month. The confluence of all of these initiatives produced a country that is one of, if not the most, developed countries in Africa.

Today I had the privilege of participating in a tour and meetings with the faculty and students of the Akilah Institute. The Akilah Institute is an all-girls university in Kigali founded in 2010 by American Elizabeth Dearborn-Hughes that provides young women with the opportunity to study business/entrepreneurship, IT, or hospitality. While each track is technically separate, the program offers an abundance of cross-functional extracurricular opportunities for students to learn together in an experiential way.

The students arrive on campus with varying degrees of English fluency, but after a strenuous two month “bridge program” (basically an academic bootcamp), they emerge confident in themselves and public speaking and fluent in English, which is particularly imperative for the 60% of students who specialize in hospitality (fun fact: Americans and alike aren’t known for being multilingual). They then decide in which of the three tracks they would like to specialize.

My tour guide was Divine Uwase, a second-year student who had already started her own tour outfit, “Sharama Tours”, and secured funding from people who believed in her unique approach to tourism, openness to feedback and sheer intellectual horsepower/gumption. She even gives back 10% of her proceeds to the Iramiro House, a respite for children afflicted with HIV and AIDS. She’s already conducted five trips and is entertaining up to 60 people per trip, many of whom are local. Her initial two trips were something of a travesty, but always seeking feedback and looking to improve, she fixed the chinks in her tour company’s armor and has amassed a satisfied and enthusiastic clientele. This program was cofounded with her classmates Latifa Umugwaneza and Ghislaine Munyandoha. Their accomplishments would be impressive regardless of age, but to think they’ve done all of this at an age when I was still trying to sneak into dive bars with poorly laminated identification is amazing. They’ve also combined digital marketing with their correspondence with tourists at the famous Hotel des Mille Collines (aka Hotel Rwanda) to not skip a beat when it comes to attaining prospective Check out @Sharama_etours on Instagram; you won’t be disappointed.

I got the opportunity to then speak with Jimy and Cosette, two awesome individuals who work in the careers department at Akilah. Jimy is a former captain of the Rwandan national rugby team, so I challenged him to neither a chugging contest nor an arm wrestle. Cosette is a 2018 graduate of Akilah. The two spoke about “Mindsky”, a proprietary program that Akilah uses to simplify the job and internship process for its students. Initially started as a LinkedIn-esque program open to the public, Akilah brought Mindsky in house to function as a job board on steroids, as employers had been using the program initially to seek out executive talent to little avail. Now that the program is used in-house, employers have a central repository to post their jobs, which saves them a ton of time and money in the job search process. Further, Jimy, Cosette, and crew will provide job/internship descriptions when a company hasn’t finalized them, and even perform preliminary screenings and interviews with students to handover a shortlist of 3-5 qualified students. Effectively, they do recruiters’ or headhunters’ jobs for them, and make Akilah a first stop for any company who wants to have the opportunity to market itself to 1000 qualified individuals and then only have to read the CVs of the 5 people who are the best fit for it. The stats speak for themselves: 100% of students secure an internship during their break, 85% are employed within 6 months of graduation, 200+ employers are in the Mindsky database (29 of which are new this year). Their career office also provides mock interview prep, connects students with executives via roundtable discussions, and leverages the alumni network as a support structure. Both Jimmy and Cosette were fascinating individuals with a visible passion for the dreams they create.

Finally, I had the privilege of meeting with two instructors from the business and entrepreneurship track. While the entire curriculum is great, their emphasis on actionable social entrepreneurship was beyond impressive. In addition to offering a course in social entrepreneurship, the students are encouraged to participate in extracurricular competitions in which they prototype and implement solutions to global issues and pitch them to business leaders and other evaluators. Students have to test out their ideas and adapt them to market demand to submit for consideration, which is a testament to the pragmatic approach that Akilah takes to education. While lofty aspirations and dreams are great, when they don’t materialize in tangible societal benefit, they’re merely pipe dreams. There is a misnomer that innovation and invention are synonymous. Innovation is actually the implementation of an idea, not the creation of it. If you’re wondering how seriously the students take these competitions, two teams even traveled to San Diego last year to pitch their concepts. One provided hydroponic systems and lessons on how to operate them to malnourished individuals and the other created an app for young women to ask questions related to reproductive health that they would be too bashful to ask their parents or neighborhood physicians. Despite aforementioned socioeconomic development, communal attitudes towards sexuality are still traditional/conservative. The school also provides an entrepreneurship fund to provide seed capital to concepts that are particularly creative.

While I typically ascribe to the mantra that “brevity is the soul of wit” the people at Akilah who were generous enough with their time to placate me with all my questions merit a writeup that speaks to how special they are. If I had to encapsulate them in two words, it would be “adaptability” and “feedback”. I’m currently enthralled with the book Lean Impact by Ann Mei Chang, a Stanford grad, former Google Exec, Chief Innovation Officer at USAID, and now Chief Innovation Officer on behalf of presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg (I’m sure I missed some other monumental accomplishments). While her work is a treasure trove of analysis into what does and doesn’t work in social impact, two concepts that I saw in action at Akilah were willingness to adapt and openness to feedback. With respect to adaptability, Divine has conformed her trips to the input of her customers, the career office transformed a “Linkedin” replica to an internal program that makes the job search so facile for the student body that it’s become its own recruiting tool. The contestants for the social entrepreneurship competition need to put plan to action in quick enough intervals that there’s no time for reverie. One of the most gratifying moments in my tour was the mutual recognition that just because you care about your solution doesn’t mean it addresses the root causes of the problem at hand. I knew I was in kindred spirits when we mutually acknowledged hat sometimes you need to take a step back, be pliable, and listen to the needs and concerns of your consumer to make the world a better place. Akilah Instittute is truly a bastion of equal opportunity, innovation, and inspiration, and I am beyond thankful for the opportunity to spend my first full weekday in Kigali learning from them. Thank you!

Interested in Interning, Partnering, or seeking our services?

Email Me