August 15th, interesting day

Today was quite interesting and not what I had expected.

In the morning I met with up with Seydou, who is the director of a private business and technology school in Bamako and who is trying to restructure and dynamize his school and curriculum. Initially I had met him and gone to talk about an Ashoka funded project from Dakar who was trying to extend to Bamako and I was going to try and help out brain storm on this. But we ended up not even touching on this topic and rather chat only Aout the school. I got so excited about the endless opportunities to develop a school in a place like Mali. Obviously my focus was to implement an additional curriculum around social entrepreneurship, and improve the different axes of weaknesses in the country: Tourism, arts, and agriculture. A few very good ideas came up to my mind, especially the exploitation of the Niger river area with rice culture.

Anyhow, we got talking at a 100 miles per hour because of how many ideas came up and how excited we got. Unfortunately the meet cut short because Seydou had to travel to Segou for WOR. But at least, we got the fire started and Seydou realized the importance and the potential of social entrepreneurship. To be continued...

In the afternoon, I met up with Bibi, the founder of the orphanage I visited right before going to the Pays Dogon. The plan was to seat down with Bibi and rework her mission statement and business model to improve the situation of the orphanage and find ways to not be so dependent on the generosity of donors.

Lost cause. Bibi is impossible to talk to. All as does is talk talk talk, but without really listening to you. Very frustrating. And yet she kept on saying that things were not easy and that she needed help. But no, impossible to have am actual conversation. I got so frustrated. But it made me realize how disorganized and unplanned her enterprise/organization is. In many ways it fully reflects the hole in which most of Africa is today. Thinking a day at the time without trying to look at the long term picture and plan accordingly. Very frustrating.

I also got very shocked at one point. The orphanage receives a lot of donations of a sorts. Mostly in kind though. And so it has a big closet with lots of donated clothes that are then redistributed to community kids in desperate needs. But towards the end of the afternoon, I see Bibi go in the closet and pick up some of the most colorful pieces of clothing, match up some nice full outfits, and give them to her five nieces who didnt seem at all to be in desperate needs but rather to be spoiled kids. The cherry on the cake of this frustrating afternoon.

So it was time for me to go, as I wasn't being of much use and the situation was not changing.

Apparently some of the community people tend to believe that Bibi is slightly wealthy. When I saw how her and her kids are, and how she is in some sort leading a mini empire rather than a from the heart social organization (the only kids she seemed to have affection and attention for were her own), I started to have my doughts as well.

Interesting information, according to her historical list of donors, one of her biggest donors was the Kadafi foundation, back when Kadafi was still in power/alive. I am not familiar at all with the Kadadi foundation, but I found the fact very interesting.

When everyone left the orphanage without even giving the kids a hug or a kiss, Bibi and her entourage dropped me in my neighborhood.

Ufff...what a day! But an exciting day.

It did make me want to be part of the creation of a school focused on social entrepreneurship to address the different issues in countries. Or perhaps create an incubating center where projects are crafted and in charge of pairing potential students with foreign universities to build a huge network of social entrepreneurs looking for opportunities to do something good and impactful using their school and studies as the main frame of action.

It also made me want to create a private orphanage built around the model of a limited amount of children raised more like a family than an adoption center.

Ideas, ideas, ideas...life is so exciting!!!