Development initiatives
I have always been interested in development. When I graduated from university, I was initially planning to start a career as a development professional with the German Development Agency GIZ. I wrote my Master's thesis about GIZ's public private partnership programme (see Themes). For various reasons I ended up becoming an academic, but I have kept a strong interest in engaging in the world of development. Below I give examples of such engagements.
My engagements are all guided by the same basic truth that I learned when I served as a volunteer in Nepal in my final undergraduate year. In Nepal I met locals my age who seemed to be soulmates of some of my long-term friends in Berlin, Germany. Same humor, same curiosities, same desires. The only difference: they happened to be born into a small village in Nepal which made it a lot harder for them to access all the professional opportunities I enjoyed coming from Berlin. I learned that each one of us is thrown into the world randomly. The specific context we are born and raised in is not our choosing, and yet it gives some of us a lot of privileges that others lack. I see my engagements as a way to shift the balance by supporting initiatives that create opportunities for the underprivileged in this world.
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Social Innovation Academy (Uganda)
On my field trip to Uganda in 2018, I had the opportunity to visit the Social Innovation Academy (SINA) and meet Etienne Salborn, a fellow German (see picture, middle), who founded SINA in 2014. SINA's mission is to help marginalized youth become social entrepreneurs who seek to pursue opportunities that generate income while also supporting disadvantaged communities. SINA is unique in having its own village providing living and working spaces. SINA takes an environmentally friendly approach - there is no waste unless you waste it! One of their innovations is upcycling plastic bottles as building material (see pictures). As of 2020, over 35 social enterprises have come out of SINA.
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I took part in one of their new venture pitching events (see picture on the left) where young SINA entrepreneurs told their moving stories about how their difficult experience of poverty and abuse in their childhood inspired them to make a difference as entrepreneurs. Later I decided to become more involved as sponsor and I will continue to support SINA's mission. For more info please check their website.
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To me, SINA is a great example of a creative ecosystem supporting marginalized youth and entrepreneurs. It is also one of many examples of development projects in sub-Saharan Africa that are initiated by social mission-oriented Europeans. I share Etienne's mindset (even though I am more academic than he is), but I also recognize that having Europeans shape Africa's development agenda is problematic. What do you think? Feel free to send me comments under Contact. Being divided in my opinion, I still continue supporting such creative projects.
Maharishi Institute (South Africa)
When I visited South Africa in 2014, I had the opportunity to visit one of the most innovative educational institutions I know - the Maharishi Invincibility Institute (MII) in Johannesburg. The MII specializes in providing business education and training for students from low-income families. It does so by combining education with transcendental meditation and practical work experience, e.g. in business services, which also allows students to pay off their student fees. MII works with various partner schools and business clients. Their placement rate after graduation is very high. More details on their unique approach can be found here. Back in 2014, I got interested in their work mainly through my studies of impact sourcing - hiring and training of disadvantaged youth for business services. See more details under Themes.
In 2020 I decided to get more involved as a sponsor and supporter of MII since I really like their mission. I had a very inspiring conversation with founder and philanthropist Taddy Blecher and the director of marketing and fundraising Annie Blecher. Right now, I am supporting MII and potentially one of their students mainly financially, but we are considering expanding the collaboration, including the conduct of business case studies and some joint research. If you are also interested in learning more about MII and in becoming a sponsor please check out their website.
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SOS Children's Villages
This engagement goes back to a very personal story. When I was living in the US, I once went on a date for which I spent around $80 on drinks and food. Even though I enjoy going out, I realized on that evening that for the same amount of money people in other parts of the world can sustain a living for an entire month or more. So instead of spending so much money on fancy food and cocktails, I should support someone who really needs that money more than I do. The next morning I spontaneously decided to financially support three children through SOS Children's Villages.
SOS Children's Villages is a charity organization that that supports orphaned children by giving them the opportunity to live in a children's village where they also get school education and healthcare. Children share homes together with a trained SOS parent. Children are supported into their mid-20s until they get a college degree. One key element of the charity model is sponsorship. Sponsors can either support the entire village or individual children. In fact, I initially learned about this organization from my mom who has been a sponsor for years.
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I decided to support three individual children from different parts of the world - Ethiopia, Laos and Uruguay. But I did not just want to be a distant sponsor who receives Christmas cards every year. Instead I decided to also meet the children I support in person. So far I have met two of them - the one in Ethiopia (see third from the right in above picture) and the one in Laos (see other picture). I was very nervous when I met them not knowing how they would relate to me as a "sponsor". But children often have their own much less complicated way of dealing with strange encounters. I found both children to be very confident and comfortable with seeing me - one being very forward (Ethiopia) and one a little more shy (Laos). For me it was a very meaningful encounter and I can see the great work of SOS Children's Villages behind that. If you are interested in this kind of support please check out their website.
Jijenge Academy (Kenya)
In 2020 I became seed investor of the social enterprise Jijenge Academy, which is located in Kenya. Jijenge is active in impact sourcing - a new social business model focusing on training and employing disadvantaged youth for business service jobs, such as data labelling. I have studied impact sourcing for many years (see Publications). Jijenge specializes in setting up remote work labs in underserved communities (see pic, from website) where workers pay a fee to access high speed wifi & computers and earn income through online data labeling work. For more information, please visit the Jijenge Academy website.
