We started the day having breakfast with the founder of AdPack, a plastics manufacturing company. He shared with us his journey of starting a manufacturing business in Kenya, celebrating his first year in operation. Fascinating to understand where reality and theory clash and support each other when studying business. It was also interesting to learn about the dynamics and benefits of operating a family business.
After breakfast, we made our way to the United States International University, a beautiful campus in Kenya. We visited the business school, where Goldman Sach's program 10,000 Women holds business courses for women who are running SME's.
We were a few minutes early and had a moment to walk around the beautiful campus (and visit the bustling cafe)!
In class, we were warmly welcomed with introductions, tea, and enthusiastic conversation. There was no shyness in that classroom!!
After class, we were blessed by the class with a song and dance before we headed down to eat lunch with the women and continue to discuss what it has been like for them to grow their businesses. The women ran a variety of businesses, from hospitality, to food, to education, to advtertising.
We then rushed over to the office of Living Goods, situated in a particularly poor area of the city (so they can be accessible to their customers. This tall builiding was situated along a row of microfinance institutions, but amidst Kariobangi North, one of the poorest areas in the city. (I don't really like taking pictures of poverty unless there is a productive reason, but wanted to note that this building quality is an anomaly for the area).
Living Goods operates in Uganda and Kenya. In Uganda, Living Goods trains agents to market life-saving health products and medicines, and are carefully trained to use specific protocol to actually diognose and track (using mobile technology) the illnesses and conditions of their patients (and use SMS messages to remind them to take their medicine/treatment as prescribed). Due to regulatory restrictions in Kenya, the model is quite different and focuses on selling products beyond medical treatment included cookstoves, solar lanterns, sanitary napkins, etc. The Kenya office is new, and they are still experimenting with what the model should look like to maximize impact (though they are finding significant success already).
I was thrilled to be re-united with cookstoves. They sell the Ecozoom cookstove among other types, and I was excited to hear that the Ecozoom stove is selling successfully and is highly popular despite the price (this was not our experience in Ghana). The stove on the left is the Jiko stove, upon which is what the Gyapa cookstove was modeled (where I used to work). Visit www.Gyapa.com if you are curious!
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