[Dialogue] Miracle Villages in Kenya

Tue Mar 9 16:07:48 CST 2010

Lee and Randy

Two years ago I chaired an International Committee on behalf of the Board of
the Project Management Institute (PMI) to decide what the Board should do in
response to disasters. Part of what was decided was to train NGO personnel
in Project Management appropriate to disaster response and recovery and to
place responsibility in the hands of the PMI Foundation which is pretty
robust. The other significant outcome was the decision that our largest
contribution vis a vis project management acumen was in the long haul
recovery efforts including making volunteers available from local chapters.
I do not know if this is helpful particularly to Randy. Please feel free to
contact me. (Due to my chronic pulmonary condition I have not kept up with
the results but I can get you in touch with the people involved with this.)

Carlos R. Zervigon, PMP
Zervigon International, Ltd.
817 Antonine St.
New Orleans, LA  70115  USA
504 894-9868 Mobile: 504 908-0762
carlos at zervigon.com
http://www.zervigon.com

-----Original Message-----
From: dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net
[mailto:dialogue-bounces at wedgeblade.net] On Behalf Of Lee Early
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 9:13 AM
To: Colleague Dialogue
Subject: Re: [Dialogue] Miracle Villages in Kenya

Leah and I are doing great.  We have three daughters and three grandsons,
all live on Queen Anne hill in Seattle.  I will pass this on to Randy
Williams who is a new board member of the ICA.  His passion is pulling the
NGOs together.  Randy and I did a think tank for the Pentagon in which they
wanted to use open source to predict human and natural disasters and
coordinate NGO in response instead of letting the situation get out of hand
and calling for military intervention.  

Keep in touch.

Lee

On Mar 8, 2010, at 11:55 PM, Don Hinkelman wrote:

> Hi Evelyn and Lee,       [just got a bounced message that my attached file
was too big--so here is the message again without a file]
> 
> Nice to hear from you all.  I am on sabbatical at the University of
Melbourne finishing a thesis on "blending technologies in school
classrooms".  It focuses on open source software, face-to-face technologies
(read: ToP), and global sharing of teaching materials among teachers.  Our
family is returning to Hokkaido, Japan in a few weeks.  My two boys (5 and
7) will miss the Catholic school they attend and participate in the 'Make
Jesus Real' program.  Never thought this Methodist would be learning to be
both Catholic and Buddhist at the same time.  :-)
> 
> Back to the Grameen Bank.http://www.grameen-info.org/  Yes, they are the
world's largest NGO, and could become one of the world's largest
organizations/groups if they keep growing. Their secret is that every social
program has an economic model. Every program (health, education, banking,
fishing) has micro-payments built into it. Grameen is not-for-profit, but
they do build in "profit" structurally into every venture, so that it has
long term economic sustainability. They are not-for-profit in the sense that
there are no stockholders who own the company and must be paid dividends.
An example is the "Telephone Lady" venture of the 1990s.  In order to give
women jobs, they built a loan scheme for each village to have one "Telephone
Lady" buy a mobile phone.  She would rent the phone to anyone in the village
on a per minute basis and repay the loan. It worked so well economically for
the lady and for Grameen which got a percentage. It also fostered economic
development as fishermen and farmers got more timely information on markets
and weather.  Saved lives in emergencies as well.  See page 26-27 on the
attached file (the powerpoint of the ICAI conference speech back 1998). Now
the Telephone Lady venture is over, because the village economies grew so
much that 90% of all families now own mobile phones (most via loans from the
Grameen Bank). They have started new ventures such as "Fisherman's Phone"
(page 78-79) and the "Literacy Mamas" which generates income for both the
villagers receiving the loan and the bank as well. Critics complain
Grameen's rates are too high (up to 30%). But that is what it takes to make
sustainable development, not here-today-gone-tomorrow donations or
dependency-building handouts.
> 
> The key principle is BoP (page 17). This means Bottom of the Pyramid, or
the "poorest of the poor".  The BoP are so numerous that in aggregate, they
have the greatest wealth in the world. They can finance their own personal,
family and community development with micro-payments and they *do* finance
it. It would not surprise me if the Grameen Group receives grants and
donations to seed their research, but I am fairly sure none of that goes to
subsidize the poor.  The poor can finance themselves anyway.
> 
> Cheers,
> Don
> 
>> Don Hinkelman, hummm - that name sounds familiar.  Don't I know you?  Ha!
How have you been?  Where are you?  What are you doing these days?  A bunch
of folks dropped out of sight when we left Majuro in 1976.  Good to see you
survived.  Holler - fill us in.
>> 
>> Lee
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Mar 8, 2010, at 5:22 PM, Don Hinkelman wrote:
>> 
>>> Yawn, another story of the miracles of aid, "done right", in Africa. You
would expect the NYT to do better.
>>>
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/world/africa/09kenya.html?ref=global-home
>>> 
>>> How long does it take to list the mistakes of unsustainability and
inappropriateness in this project?
>>> - outside money and distant investors  (Haven't we learned anything from
micro-financing and funding from within?)
>>> - macro-economic statistics (mortality, yields, test scores)   How do
you measure initiative?
>>> - technology-based (how American can you get?)    Even after Vietnam and
Iraq, we still throw technology at every problem.
>>> 
>>> Nonetheless, we have to admit that the ICA's history of comprehensive,
bottom-up development (which produced pockets of miracles) was also
unsustainable, but for different reasons.
>>> - committed, educated, passionate staff (that time and energy was worth
millions of dollars, but we forgot to account for that, and the energy runs
out after 5-20 years in the field)
>>> 
>>> What gets me excited?  The Grameen Group: http://www.grameen-info.org/
>>> At the last ICA International Conference in Japan, the young Grameen
speaker was the best of the whole conference.  A fire-ry light in his eyes.
He swears that Grameen never accepts charity. All development is funded by
the bottom of pyramid, for the bottom of the pyramid.
>>> 
>>> Don Hinkelman
>>> 
>>> In Melbourne and Sapporo, working on sustainable technology practices
for classrooms and schools around the world.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Dialogue mailing list
>>> Dialogue at wedgeblade.net
>>> http://wedgeblade.net/mailman/listinfo/dialogue_wedgeblade.net
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Lee Early
>> 4107 236th Street SW, M-106
>> Mountlake Terrace, WA 98043
>> 
>> Home Phone:  (425) 967-5987
>> Lee's Cell:     (425) 212-7997  
>> 
>> Email:  lees.mail at comcast.net
>> 
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