Economic Empowerment of Marginalized Communities

[Music]

what keeps you up at night

for me it’s the lack of economic

empowerment

for the marginalized communities and the

non-literates

i’m so grateful to be a small part in

elevating the lives of

so many who continue to be on the

sidelines

allow me to take you on my journey in

the quest

of economic empowerment for the

marginalized community

these are the groups that are forgotten

and as we notice the marginalized

communities do not think about economic

empowerment

the yarn for it one afternoon

eight years ago i was seated at the

library

reading for my commercial law exam

i was so eager to grasp each and every

section

of the mammoth law books

and along my journey in the university

of nairobi

i really wanted to help but i didn’t

know how

and when i was seated in this library

received a strange call and before i

received this call

my friends used to make fun of me and

say

the library is your second home

and i would look at them and just smile

giggle but on this specific day

when i got this call i was in the

library and my phone

my phone was on a silent mode

but the caller was terribly insistent

calling after

every five minutes and after about

10 calls i had to walk out of the

library

and pick this call i’m glad that i

picked this call

it was a strange voice

of a man that i’ve never speak to before

and he introduced himself and said my

name is ali

i am the community elder at park road

i was recommended to you by a former

chair lady

and i’ve heard about your community work

over the last five years and today i

would like to invite you

to our community at park road

i want up and i want us to set up a

program

to empower these non-literate women in

our community

to become financially independent

and create sustainable livelihoods

for a moment i froze

i did not understand how this gentleman

will assign such a big task to a 22 year

old

and he noticed the silence on my end

and he asked again will you be able to

take part in this project

and not to disappoint him

i said yes let me see what i can do

about

it but immediately i finished this

call i sat down

on the benches next to the hostels

deeply thinking what did i sign up for

can i transform these women to become

financially independent

and together with the community leaders

at the park road mosque we started our

first pilot project

to empower these non-literate

communities

to learn basic skills

and after starting the project

this was my awakening moment in life

it was the unforgettable journey

that led me to discover for anyone to

attain

economic empowerment they need four

main things firstly

the skills that can be monetized

one needs to understand that they need

to have skills

that can be monetized according to a

world bank report of 2017

of sub-saharan skills development it

stated that africa does not lack

opportunities what it lacks

is enough people with the right skills

to exploit the boundless opportunities

in africa

it further states that a third of the

population

in the low and the middle income areas

lack basic skills such as problem

solving

communication skills behavioral skills

and this unskilled labor limits

the economic investments into our

continent

and it reduces the productivity

of the labor market so when we started

the pilot project

with mr ali’s community our aim was to

transform

the non-literate the marginalized

community

to access basic skills

to ensure that they can be financially

independent

they can monetize their own skills

and so at this moment

one of our beneficiaries of this project

was

a lady called mamasham

she moved from the streets

and today she’s sustainable having her

wholesale

business at park road and despite

learning all these skills she never gave

up

she went back to her community to help

the rest and what does that tell you

about ripple effect

help one person you never know

how many people they’re helping

secondly we need to access the right

information

and knowledge as a young girl growing up

what scared me the most was a thought

a simple but a heavy thought

what if my parents were not educated

to some of you it might sound trivial

but to me it costs so much

pain brought some chills down my spine

and made my blood run cold

in my entire generation my father

and my mother are the only educated ones

and despite the struggles they went

through to access education

they ingrained in us more than just

education from the formal education

to traditional indigenous knowledge

to crucial life skills to survive in

life

and all this they acquired along the way

and there’s something unique about my

upbringing

between the age of 12 and 18

i felt like i was in a police camp

it was the tough drill for me

do this do that don’t do this learn this

and i did not understand why i needed to

learn

all these skills and some of these

skills range from

farming tailoring kneating

selling chicken raring cooking

and the challenge was not to learn all

these skills

the challenge was to monetize them and

create

an income generating activity

which enabled me to develop a producer

mindset

and not a consumer mindset

and thirdly one needs

to understand the value of the resources

around them

do you know the value of the resources

around you as africans

i’ll take you back to my village

where i have a friend by the name leila

leila is a 15 year old girl beautiful

nomadic girl

she yarns to become economically

empowered

and she tells me her stories of how she

has to walk

in the scorching sun in garissa

in search of water and green pasture for

her livestock

she even gets severe headaches and when

she’s walking on these dusty

rocky roads all she can find

is a green magenga tree

and for those of you who don’t know

mavenge mavenga is the poisonous tree

that only grows in semi-arid areas

and what does that mean for leila she

has to walk

long miles so that she can find

water and green posture

that’s how she strives hard to be

empowered

but what is different about leila she

is the breadwinner of her family

and when i ask her do you want to pursue

education

and learn something and she tells me

education is

a privilege you know where we come from

we have few teachers i have over 15

siblings to fend for

what do i do i want to learn but i can’t

and then i thought what can be done for

her

and so leila has the skills but

she lacks the knowledge the information

to understand deeply

the value of the resources she has

for her she sees economic value in her

commerce

and one common costs a thousand u.s

dollars which is

a hundred thousand kenya shillings

and does she understand this value

no finally

we need an enabling environment

this enabling environment that supports

you

social connection is the currency of the

social wealth

and in our african societies we’ve lived

in communal

nature we’ve believed in communal nature

and in the yester years african

societies have

never left anyone hungry

they used to think about their next door

neighbor

when i visited malindi in the

in in 2017 i came to realize

how the neighbors were so caring

they thought about you some of them will

feed you

some of them will go around

and ask anything that you need

and so i came to see how loving our

african

communities are i know you’ve heard the

famous statement

do you have connections do you know your

neighbors

but do we actually in this day and age

check up on our neighbors and to and to

just see

are they okay

so that social connections really

matters

if we are yearning to be economically

empowered

you’ve heard about are you well

connected do you have connection for you

to get

this job but we’ve forgotten that social

connection

comes from family relatives

and the community at large

you need to have someone who is your

godfather up there

they say but how do you invest in that

connection if you don’t have the

connections right now

invest your efforts in creating valuable

connections with

people your network

is your net worth and if we

implement this apprenticeship

model that we used to have as african

communities

african communities economically

empowered

the future generation by passing down

knowledge traditional indigenous

knowledge

information skills

through the apprenticeship model your

grandparents your uncles your aunties

will come in

and teach you something

but we have neglected that culture

so if we come together and implement

these four main things that i discovered

along the way

and it was affirmed in the world bank

reports

of 2017 that you need

skills that you can monetize

you also need an enabling environment

you also need to understand the value of

your resources

and so if you have these four main

things

then we can know that we have a

structural transformation

that will lead to an economic growth

and what we need to understand is

adam grant says that for our society to

be

happy it cannot have

half of its population remain poor

so today’s generation you need to pass

down these skills this information

this traditional indigenous knowledge to

the future generation

to reduce the unskilled labor

and also on the other hand

african organization ngos skills

training companies

and the government need to rethink their

model

of empowering non non-literate and

marginalized communities

and finally to revive our economy

we need a paradigm shift which starts

with you and i thank you

[Music]