So like, what do you actually, like, do?
on Colm in Kenya (Kenya), 24/Apr/2009 15:00, 34 days ago
This blog is dedicated to the brave men and women who are anyway interested in what work I’m pursuing out yonder. Bless yere cotton socks.There are two projects in the recently created Business Development Services program of SCOPE both aimed at overcoming three of the main obstacles in helping people achieve a secure livelihood. These are:1. Access to markets2. Poor business management skills3. No access to capital.One of these projects is aimed at 2 and 3 in the above list– that is the SCOPE Micro Finance scheme. While when I arrived this was only at idea stage, but it had already been roled out to the local community so we are currently facing issues of selling an incomplete product.The second primarily focuses on number 1 above. That project is creating a SCOPE Virtual Marketplace for farmers and businesses. Again, this is only an idea at the moment but it is rapidly being fleshed out.The virtual marketplace aims to illiminate the middleman in markets who dictate the terms of trade, which are always weighted unfairly in the favour of the middleman. This system provides farmers with unequal access to market and revenue and charges traders high prices for stock . By removing the middleman, we aim to create value chains directly between farmers and mico business (traders/grocers/ shopkeepers) with benefits for both.It is an innovative and exciting project (not my idea I add) which if it gets up and running could have a positive impact for trade across the Coast region of Kenya and maybe beyond. However, we are a long way from getting it up and running.My role is to help build, implement, monitor and evaluate these two projects.So basically I fill my weeks working with a local womens groups on Business Skills training (basically at the moment that is book keeping) with an aim sustainably developing their businesses and to getting them access to capital and also to the virtual marketplace. This project has been of mixed success so far. Some of the women are illiterate so they find record keeping a frustrating challenge that is simply expoiting their weekness. Tailoring training going forward for an illiterate audience and creating a bookkeeping style that suits there needs is something we will be looking at over the coming weeks. Otherwise, some women have for the first time, analysed their business in terms of profit and loss and are enthusiatic about continuing their own skills development. When I’m not at that, I’m in the office working on the Business Plan and creating templates and procedures for both projects - and writing my blog!Ok that’s work. Next week will be a picture special – a keeper! Now to pop this into a virtual bottle, throw into the virtual sea that is blogspot and see if anybody uncorks it.So whoever uncorks this message, I hope you are well.