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Project Harambee
La Sierra SIFE students collaborated with students from around the world to create economic opportunity for others through the Harambee project. Along with posting the successful Welfare-to-Work business curriculum on the project web site (www.sifelink.com/harambee), additional Harambee lessons have been designed to teach how to understand the market economy, identify a market need, write a business plan, and launch a sustainable entrepreneurial business. Students complete the curriculum, then write and submit business plans for the LSU business panel to review. Now in its second phase, LSU SIFE students are distributing funds for several businesses that are launching this year, thanks to a $12,000 grant from Versacare and $1,000 from the DeLaurier Endowment. Funded projects include:
- Kenya: 21 students at Eastern Africa University, Baraton, are launching a poultry farm business to increase the supply of eggs to their campus and local community, and also packaging and selling chicken manure to sell to local farms. Awarded $3,000.
- China: 18 students at Sun Yat-Sen University hosted their own business plan workshop and will be hosting their own business plan competition. Award to be determined.
- USA: three students received start-up funds for IHaveThatBook.com, an online academic network that allows college students to locate, buy and sell textbooks at reduced prices. Awarded $2,000.
- Zimbabwe: 25 students from the new SIFE team at Solusi University are launching a roadside market stand and campus store, and overseeing a primary school garden. Awarded $3,000.
- Ghana: the Valley View SIFE team opened two computer labs and four internet cafes with 275 computers donated by La Sierra SIFE. They have paid-it-forward by donating six of the computers to Oyibi Primary School.
Solousi Farm
La Sierra University SIFE students, partnering with a group led by Business Advisory Board member Dan Smith, helped revitalize the farm at Solusi University in Zimbabwe. The university, like the rest of the country, has been suffering from food shortages this past year due to astronomical inflation.
Two SIFE team members traveled to Solusi in January to assess the situation and develop solutions. To help the farm management improve their efficiency, we asked the owner of a prosperous nearby farm to consult the campus farm management. To increase farm production, they have planted 185,000 seeds donated by our partners. The La Sierra SIFE team created a cost and break-even analyses for the new crops to help determine appropriate sale price and amount needed to reinvest for each new round of crops.
La Sierra SIFE students also visited the Solusi Primary School, where they discovered the need to improve the school’s small garden, which feeds the children and helps them earn their tuition. Upon returning to the United States, the LSU SIFE team invited La Sierra Academy high school students to host a seed drive for the primary school. In just days, 288 students collected 9,000 packets of seeds.
In Zimbabwe, participants distributed the seeds to a total of 12 elementary schools, helping more than 4,400 children. Solusi University SIFE is overseeing this project. They will travel to the schools, introduce the children to SIFE and help them understand how their own gardens are part of a larger economy. La Sierra SIFE awarded the Solusi SIFE team $3,000 of Harambee grant funds for the market stand (building material, labor), campus store (initial inventory), and the primary garden project (greenhouse, fertilizer, seed boxes and shovels).
Get-a-Clue
Last year the La Sierra SIFE team created Get-a-Clue workshops. These are being used in local high schools and on the LSU campus to help students learn how to establish good credit, properly manage student loans, and understand how credit is tied to future financial needs. For the current year, SIFE members modified the curriculum to include information about obtaining grants and scholarships, how to set up payment plans, how to correctly fill out a FAFSA (a student financial aid application), and how to monitor student loans. These components became the team’s new Get-a-Clue for College curriculum.
The program attracted the interest of the La Sierra University Student Finance office, which incorporated the curriculum into the financial orientation they provide for first-year students at the beginning of the academic year. This project is funded by a $750 grant from AIG.
Turning Silver to Gold
In partnership with several Business Advisory Board members, La Sierra SIFE team members teach a series of three-week seminars designed to help senior citizens avoid fraud and identity theft, maximize Social Security and MediCare, and learn better credit and money management skills. A Community Development Block Grant from the City of Riverside supports the project.
The T.R.U.T.H. About Ethics
A 32-page story-coloring book that targets elementary school age children is the key component to the SIFE project called “The T.R.U.T.H About Ethics.” The book translates the concept of ethics into one simple phrase: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The program shares the principles of the Biblical Golden Rule through one concept for each of the letters of TRUTH - Trust, Respect, Understanding, Thoughtfulness, and Honesty.
Kalaala
Now in its fifth year, Kalaala is a continuing partnership with the International Medical Aid Association (IMAA) designed to improve life for people in Kalaala, Ethiopia. The Kalaala Learning Village employs currently a dozen women who have completed previous sewing skills courses. Several other women have opened their own sewing businesses.
This year, La Sierra SIFE students collaborated with the village to launch the Life-Link project, which encourages women in the community to form “sisterhoods” of 12-20 women, and provides them a cell phone for fast communication in times of crisis or need. Life-Link also gives the women access to health care, basic education and skills training through the Learning Village. LSU SIFE raised $2,000 for 20 cell phones. Additional support in the form of a $25,000 Versacare grant helped construct a library, science lab, and ninth and tenth grade classrooms. Finally, $5,000 from the LSU SIFE Water sales has been designated to provide micro-loans to women in the Life-Link project.
The Learning Village will also receive six more sewing machines thanks to a $3,000 donation from the Church of the Advent Hope. This will allow for the training of up to 12 women every two weeks.
Build-A-Village
Last year, La Sierra SIFE introduced its Build-A-Village project. The American Sudanese Partnerships invited La Sierra students to create agricultural and business models for new villages that will be started in Darfur, Sudan.
Phase I included securing a site for a demonstration village on our campus and building two sample domes. Now in Phase II, students are developing a business model for agriculture, focusing on cash crops such as sorghum and millet, and bees for pollination. The team also launched a demonstration garden with corn, tomatoes and peppers. In addition, a SIFE Business Advisory Board member built a worm-farm eco-system in the greenhouse of LSU’s biology department as part of the demonstration garden. Worm castings are collected and used as fertilizer for seedlings in the demonstration garden.
The model village provides a variety of experimentation tools that can be adapted and applied around the world. We also hosted discussions about the global market economy with students and community members who have visited the village.
SIFE Water
La Sierra University SIFE’s private label water bottle, launched two years ago, provides funds for our outreach projects. Currently, profits are going toward the Kalaala project. The team sold 30,048 bottles to a number of community customers this year (114,000 sold to date). Net profit: $5,324. Profit margin: 52%
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