Nicht mehr lange!

Wie ihr euch sicher denken könnt, kann ich es kaum erwarten, dass Kathrin in etwas mehr als zwei Wochen endlich wieder hier in San Francisco landet – aber das bedeutet eben auch, dass Kathrin und ihr Team in Südafrika so langsam alles zu einem erfolgreichen Ende bringen muss. Nach einem Trip in ein Luxusresort hoffentlich gut erholt, steht jetzt nur noch “Endspurt” auf dem Programm. Viel Glück!!!

Das Spannendste aus meiner letzten Woche war übrigens eine schmerzerfüllte Mittwoch-Nacht mit darauf folgender spontaner Wurzelkanal-Behandlung. Es tut sich also nicht wirklich viel hier ;) .. Daher geht’s direkt zu Kathrin’s Bericht:

After our trip to Moholoholo, the students continued to work on their business ideas and tried to find community partners. One team was interested in improving nutrition: the less wealthy people, especially, in Clare struggle to find (and pay for) fresh vegetables, eggs and meat. Most people here eat pap. It looks like mashed potato and is made from maize mielie and cooked with only water. Most people eat large portions of it for lunch and dinner. The students had the idea to improve nutrition by adding a variety of milk products to the diet of the people in Clare. They looked into making cheese, which turns out to be relatively easy. Unfortunately, they couldn’t find enough milk cows and people who were interested in starting a cheese business.

The other half of my group focused on existing small, women-owned businesses. During the immersion phase we got to know many small business owners. Since most of them produce their goods only for neighbors or friends, other people in the village don’t even know about their businesses. Many of them also travel to other villages to sell their goods. In that case they have to pay the taxi fare, and if they don’t sell enough they lose money. Finding ways to help these women and improve their businesses became the focus of this student group. Together with these women they developed the idea of a shop in Clare where the women could sell their items. And instead of traveling to other villages and paying taxi fares, our shop would attract customers from outside areas.

Since we couldn’t find supporters for the cheese idea the whole group decided to continue to work with small businesses. We invited the small business owners to an initial meeting to discuss ideas with them. Our team was very excited by the huge turn out: 19 women followed our invitation. Since then, we have had several meetings with the women and found out that all of them think that they need to sell outside the village since most people in Clare have either not enough money to buy their products or don’t need to buy them as often (e.g. straw mats). We also conducted market research to find out what people in Clare buy regularly.

Next we want to find out the outside demand for the products the women are producing, connect them with resorts (which usually sell locally produced goods to tourists) and set up a management system with the women to successfully run the business.

Most of the women are older and did not have the opportunity to go to school. This makes it not only hard for us to communicate with them (our Xitsonga didn’t develop much further), but we also struggle to find the right balance between empowering and overwhelming them. Thankfully, some great people in Claire have helped us by translating at our meetings and understanding how the women think and work!

Last weekend we went on our second excursion – a safari! Our group stayed at Thornybush Lodge, and we were almost overwhelmed by the comfort and luxury. The lodge is in the middle of the game reserve, and the houses where we stayed faced a waterhole so that we could watch animals while hanging out on the balcony. But the best thing was the outdoor shower: getting clean and seeing giraffes and buffalos at the same time! During our stay we had two game drives and saw almost all the big animals. The afternoon/evening drive ended with drinks and snacks under a sky blanketed with beautiful stars.

We have only a little bit less than three weeks left in Clare. We are all getting a bit nervous when we think about all the work we want to do before we leave.

Und, wie jede Woche, hier ein paar neue Bilder:

Tags: Business, Clare, Pap, Thornybush Lodge