Meanwhile At The Other Project

Other project you say?

What other project?

 

As I perused my blog posts over the last few years I noticed a rather interesting gap, a lack of posting related to another project I have been working on in parallel with Theodora Africa. This is the Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking Economic Development Initiative or EDI for short.

 

The story behind EDI is a classic tale of ‘Be Careful What You Ask For. You Might Get It!  😱

 

Let’s start at the beginning.

 

Once upon a time there was a cynical man who wanted to use Rotary for his own half-baked scheme to give back. He successfully got a small local club to not stop him from running off to Africa in the name of the club pursuing a dream which any one of thousands upon thousands of prior social impact Westerners could have told him was grounded in all the wrong assumptions.

 

But as fate would have it, the powers that be had decided to use him instead! And thus the crazy ride that became Theodora Africa was launched. But it was clear that this project didn’t belong in the small club where he had started with. The Rotarian who first had me join Rotary told me of the Rotary Club to End Human Trafficking. I joined and was quickly tagged to be on the board.

 

But, I was frustrated. I saw our founders had a great vision. They saw this club as a force motivating the power of Rotary International behind this one mission. However, there was no clear pathway to action. There was a lot of talk and focus on Awareness. Awareness is certainly important. But awareness by itself will not overcome a problem. There needs to be tangible action.

 

In my mind, based on my Theodora experience, I was convinced that lack of economic opportunity was one of the most significant root problems enabling human trafficking. I had a bunch of ideas how, we as a Rotary club could build a program. Partnering with one of the members I’d recruited who was an entrepreneur facilitation expert, I began doing research and wrote a White Paper to present to the board calling for us to develop our own economic development program.

 

We have very, very few people in our club who are business people. I was pretty darn sure that the board would smile politely and shelf the whole thing. I would have made my attempt and could go back to being a backbench member. It was to my shock and horror that our founding President LOVED IT! She said it was going to be our foundational effort.

 

Damn.

 

Fast forward one year. We held our kick-off meeting last Thursday. We had one of the largest turnouts of any meeting since I’ve been in the club. 37 people from four continents were there. We had 8 non-club members from Africa alone. We have our first pilot project MOU in Tamale Ghana to be signed in August (I will be there in person). We have another Ghana organization, the Kumasi Central Mosque, interested in partnering with us, an NGO in Lusaka Zambia, and another organization in Jos, Nigeria.

 

As I said in the beginning, be careful what you ask for.