The Marketplace Magazine March/April 2018

March April 2018

Where Christian faith gets down to business

Vert’s Jane Maina:

Learnovation at Isaac’s Deli

Moving farmers up market

MEDA and gender Migrants and farming Enterprise for education

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The Marketplace March April 2018

Roadside stand

Musings from East Africa Here are some observations about a recent trip to East Africa to visit MEDA projects in Kenya and Tanzania. Stories about these projects will appear in this issue and the next.

East Africans must, of necessity, be among the most entrepreneurial people in the world. A pleasant shoeshine man encountered in the airport in Addis Ababa has taught ancient history at the postsecondary level for 16 years, but finds it easier to support his spouse and four children by cleaning loafers for travellers at $2.99 US a pop than hoping that his teacher’s salary will arrive.

Women in rural Tanzania spoke proudly of the multiple crops, sometimes more than a dozen, that they manage on small plots. In one case, a business owner talked of running micro-enterprises on the side to encourage workers to do likewise. Jane Maini of Vert, our cover story (pg. 15), is deeply committed to improving the lot of the subsistence farmers who are her suppliers.

Cover photo of Jane Maina

by Mike Strathdee

The Marketplace March April 2018

From some entry points, it seems the entire city of Nairobi, and many rural villages for that matter, are giant flea markets. On a Saturday morning, the ride into the capital from Jomo Kenyatta airport involves having the flea market come to you, with hundreds of vendors weaving in and out of multiple lanes of mostly stalled traffic. Anything you can imagine is on offer in between buses, threewheeled auto rickshaws known as tuk-tuks, motorcycles and the occasional car. This mobile flea market trade is illegal but relentless.

The activity is especially problematic in the city core, where hawkers block sidewalks and entrances to established businesses and services.

See the news column (pg. 22) for a bit more on government efforts to deal with the fallout from peddlers everywhere in Nairobi.

ter suited to pickup trucks, zipping between lanes and passing on either shoulder, were common. At least one hospital has a ward designated for motorcycle accident victims.

Steve Masingila, a Kenya native who has called Oregon home for the past three decades, finds driving ‘stressful” during his Kenyan trips.

Walter, a Kenyan MEDA staffer, was more pointed in his assessment of the traffic challenges. “If you are not patient, you will die,” he said.

Traffic challenges Traffic signals are considered suggestions at best in Nairobi. Lane choices seem to be optional, particularly for the multitude of motorcycle riders.

The city has doubled in population over the past 30 years to almost 5 million, with two million making a difficult commute in and out most days. The streets are ill-equipped to cope.

Despite numerous signs warning people not to have more than two riders on their machines, sightings of bikes with three or more people, most without helmets, or loads bet2

Steve Masingila and Masai trader.

Hire a local to haggle When shopping in Kenya or Tanzania, be prepared to barter, and know that you will do a lot better if you have a local who speaks Swahili to intercede on your behalf, preferably with you out of sight of the vendor. The East African discount allows anyone who appears to be local to make purchases at a small fraction of the prices quoted to off continent pink skins. ◆

In this issue

photo by Laura Alexandra/VEGA

6

Entrepreneur with a mission

Dorothy Dulo’s Lancaster, Pa. food businesses fuel her passion for educating Kenyan children.

By JoAnn Flett

8 13 Kathleen Campbell (centre) chats with Tanzanian businesswomen

Editor: Mike Strathdee Design: Ray Dirks

Change of address should be sent to Mennonite Economic Development Associates, 1891 Santa Barbara Dr., Ste. 201, Lancaster, PA 17601-4106.

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Supporting “essential workers”

Farmer tells US President ag sector needs foreign labor. iStock photo by rightdx

The Marketplace (ISSN 321-330) is published bi-monthly by Mennonite Economic Development Associates at 532 North Oliver Road, Newton, KS 67114. Periodicals postage paid at Newton, KS 67114. Lithographed in U.S.A. Copyright 2018 by MEDA.

Sandwiches and “learnovation”

RESTAURANTS

Roadside stand Soul enterprise Review News Soundbites

Volume 48, Issue 2 March April 2018

MEDA business experts help by listening.

Pa restaurant chain works at rebirth.

By Mike Strathdee

Departments 22 24 21 22 23

Volunteering in Tanzania

To e-mail an address change, subscription request or anything else relating to delivery of the magazine, please contact subscription@meda.org For editorial matters contact the editor at mstrathdee@meda.org or call (800) 665-7026, ext. 705 Subscriptions: $30/year; $55/two years.

Postmaster: Send address changes to The Marketplace 1891 Santa Barbara Dr., Ste. 201 Lancaster, PA 17601-4106

Published by Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), whose dual thrust is to encourage a Christian witness in business and to operate business-oriented programs of assistance to the poor. For more information about MEDA call 1-800-665-7026.

Web site www.meda.org

Visit our online home at www.marketplacemagazine.org, where you can download past issues, read articles and discuss topics with others, all from your desktop or mobile device.

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The Marketplace March April 2018

Soul Enterprise

Profits with purpose Book calls believers to gain wealth for good The Economics of Neighborly LoveInvesting in Your Community’s Compassion and Capacity

By Tom Nelson (IVP Books, 2017, 221 pp, $16 US)

I

n recent years, several authors have suggested that pastors who fail to preach regularly about money, (sermons where the focus is other than giving) are committing clergy malpractice.

Given that more of Jesus’ teachings dealt with material things and work than any other topic, it’s not difficult to agree with the malpractice theory.

Yet many pastors are given precious little, if any, teaching about personal finance or economics during their Bible college or seminary studies. Significant numbers arrive at their first ministry post with crushing student debt. Neither of those life experiences serve them well in meeting the needs and expectations of the people they are called to serve.

Work and economics are themes that run throughout Christian scripture from Genesis, the first book of the Bible, to Revelation, the last, Pastor Tom Nelson says.

In his well-researched and thoughtfully argued book The Economics of Neighborly Love, Nelson makes a compelling case that clergy and congregants alike need to pay more attention to these topics.

No one who wants to serve their neighbor and be found faithful to The Marketplace March April 2018

a Christian calling can ignore the intersection between theology and economics, he argues.

“If we are going to love our neighbor well, we must not only manage our financial resources well; we must also have ample financial resources to manage.’’

Nelson repeatedly drives home the importance of economic capacity accompanying compassion for anyone who wants to care for local and global neighbors.

The book is even-handed in its treatment of the necessity and spiritual complexities of wealth for those who strive to make a difference.

Nelson, senior pastor at a Kansas church for close to three decades and now the president of the Made to Flourish teaching network, has a lot to say about closing the SundayMonday gap that will resonate with MEDA supporters. He also recognizes the essential role capital plays in providing jobs, restoring human dignity, and lifting people out of poverty more effectively than aid alone can ever do.

“When we learn and apply economic wisdom, we can be hopeful that economic injustice can be confronted, economic opportunity can be offered, and economic flourishing can be a reality, even for the most vulnerable and marginalized of society,” he writes.

His careful examination of eco4

nomics and Biblical teaching is likely to irk some readers, whether they be liberal or conservative in matters political or theological. Nelson thoughtfully points out the theological errors found both in the prosperity gospel (success is viewed as a measure of God’s blessing) and the poverty gospel (the view that the greater the material poverty, the more spiritual the person).

He recognizes the need for government and regulators to intervene to ensure fair practices, noting that morality and fairness are important parts of flourishing economies that provide opportunity. Profit is not held up as an end to itself, and Nelson cites the value of triple bottom line economics, where profit goes along with promoting the flourishing of people and the planet.

No mere theorist, Nelson is quick to share stories of faith communities that he sees taking steps in the right direction. He gives examples of US churches housing business incubators, leading financial literacy classes, replacing vacation Bible school with a BIZ camp teaching youth to develop business plans, and even providing seed capital for business startups in the same manner as the pitch competitions held at many universities.

“Neighborly love is more than sentimental compassion; it is also a call toward active capacity building,” he concludes.

Buy this book for your pastor.

Most churches should own at least one copy. With any luck it will end up in your church library and possibly form the basis of a small group study.

-MS

What you do next is what counts

By Joe LaRussa

I

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that condition. There is relief in explaining our broken character by the fall of Adam. For me that is a reason, not an excuse, for poor behavior. I am tasked with overcoming that fallen state through understanding my human and divine nature and working toward the person God created me to be.

That change begins with my feeling remorse, accepting or extending forgiveness, ingesting humility, swallowing my pride and doing the next right thing.

It’s a process and takes continual, conscious effort. Thank God, literally, for redemption.

(Joe LaRussa was mentored in the family construction business. He went on to start his own company, growing the business from a specialized subcontracting focus into multiple entities where annual sales topped $30 million.) ◆

photo by Ray Dirks

hesitate to count the times in my life and career that I’ve “messed up” — made a poor decision, said the wrong thing, been wasteful, hurtful or careless. Most of it was (honestly) without malintent, but rather (again, honestly) from a lack of awareness, of presence or consideration.

Fortunately, life is composed of “do-overs”. The other day during my quiet time I heard, “What I do next is what counts.” An apology for a wrongdoing, an admittance of a mistake or a recompense for injury can make the difference between building stronger relationships and trust or a breakdown of both. What usually gets in the way is my pride.

There is something attractive about quarreling and retaliation.

The need to “be right” sometimes outweighs my need to get along. My defensiveness is deep-rooted and often unconscious. I’m working to understand what has me hard-wired that way.

Our world seems quick to judge and condemn as if that makes us feel better about our broken selves.

I can sometimes get infected with

This article originally appeared in the blog convenenow.com Reprinted with permission from Convene Corp. convenenow.com Convene is a California-based association whose mission is to connect, equip, and inspire Christian CEOs and business owners to grow exceptional businesses, become higher-impact leaders and honor God. All rights reserved.

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Worldwide, 130 million girls are out of school.

“I believe we can see every girl in school in my lifetime” -Malala Yousafazi, founder of the Malala fund The Marketplace March April 2018

Food for the future Lancaster entrepreneur uses business profits to educate Kenyan children

By JoAnn Flett

D

orothy Dulo is a social entrepreneur from Kenya who lives in Lancaster, Pa. She is soft spoken, thoughtful and exudes the gifts of the Holy Spirit like kindness and gentleness.

“As a woman entrepreneur, you need to have self-confidence and passion for what you do,” she said.

“You also need to be relentless in doing things that will lead you to your goals.”

Dulo is intentionally giving women and girls opportunities to become social entrepreneurs, and to pursue their passions and interests.

She and her husband, Roger Godfrey, are food entrepreneurs who started Rafiki Shoppe in Lancaster.

(Rafiki means friend in Swahili).

They saw a need to bring authentic African cuisine to Lancaster and surrounding areas as a means of cultural engagement and to support the work of Rafiki Africa Foundation (which Dulo founded) in Kenya. Rafiki Shoppe stores are located at Lancaster Central Market on Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays all year round.

The Shoppe also provides services at Rittenhouse Square Farmers Market in Philadelphia every Saturday, and at other seasonal markets. The couple also runs a catering service yearround. Roger is from Uganda.

Many professionals who work in the international development arena are seeing the value of women entrepreneurship. A report by World Bank in 2015 suggested that increasing the number of women-owned businesses is key to ending extreme poverty. In July 2017, the United Nations magazine, Africa Renewal, The Marketplace March April 2018

Dorothy Dulo photo by Jordan Bush Photography

Dulo hopes to sell Kenyan products in the US to expand her African mission.

produced a special edition noting, “Opportunities for women and girls to thrive in their careers are crucial to the advancement of women and their potential contribution to the 6

African economy.”

Dulo has an Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) degree from Pennsylvania’s Eastern University.

She also leads Rafiki Africa Foun-

dation based in Kosele, Homabay County, in southwest Kenya.

The foundation’s goal is to partner, and to empower local communities to end the cycle of poverty through sustainable and scalable projects. She divides her time between the US and Africa, making four to five trips per year to Kenya. She has worked tirelessly to provide access to early childhood education in Kenya.

For the past 20 years, Rafiki Africa Foundation has supported Kindergarten to Grade 8 childhood education, through their LightHouse Academy program. “Children are the future and change starts with them,” Dulo said.

“Our programs have a holistic approach to empowering families.”

LightHouse Academy in Kenya has graduated over 180 students who proceeded to high school and then college.

One of Dulo’s struggles is being respected as a female social entrepreneur. Kenyan culture is often hostile to women and heavily reliant upon men, who are not obligated to remain faithful to their spouse in an environment where HIV/AIDS and other diseases are prevalent.

Additionally, having many wives is considered a point of pride in many Kenyan communities.

Many entrepreneurs who run small and medium-sized enterprises know about experiencing funding challenges. Unsurprisingly then, another challenge for Dulo is to receive greater funding in order to create more impact for women and girls in her community. Unemployment in Kenya is 40 per cent. She hopes to use entrepreneurship to create jobs and improve the rural economy.

Increased funding will help expand business training programs for these women and girls in the hopes of nurturing more social entrepreneurs.

Additional capital will also be used to expand work in Kenya, increasing production of products for sale in US markets. ‘“I hope to scale three social enterprises in the next two years,” she said. “These include a bakery, tailor-

ing services and agribusiness.”

Their current farm in Alendu, Kenya provides jobs for workers, and serves as a platform to teach agriculture while being a source of food for students and the local community.

The farm produces two acres of vegetables and four acres of fruits, teas and herbs. It feeds 200 students for two meals per day, five days a week.

The surplus teas, herbs and fruits are sold in local markets.

Dulo’s Christian faith plays a key role in helping her to navigate making tough decisions, building

“My Christian faith gives me the strength to face these challenges while at the same time keeping my eyes on the big prize—transforming people’s lives.” partnerships with like-minded businesses and managing the challenges of working in two very different cultures.

“God gave me the vision to be a bridge of hope to my community,” she said. “My Christian faith gives me the strength to face these challenges while at the same time keeping my eyes on the big prize—transforming people’s lives.”

Dulo believes that networking with other women entrepreneurs is a great way to learn, to grow and to get support. She recently attended a networking forum put on by ASSETS Lancaster. The ASSETS program was founded in 1993 by MEDA, and is now an independent organization. (ASSETS originally stood for A 7

Service for Self-Employment Training and Support).

This thoughtfully developed networking program offering from ASSETS Lancaster made its debut in August, 2017 at the #SheOwnsIt Forum.

(Read more at https://assetspa. org/programs/womens-businesscenter/sheownsit-forum/.)

The forum was attended by over 150 female entrepreneurs. The program featured sessions for women in various stages of developing their business plan: idea phase, start-up phase, and growth phase. Participants were encouraged to network and build relationships to support each other.

There is an African proverb that says, “If you educate a man, you educate one person. If you educate a woman, you educate a nation.” This is because one of the salient features of women entrepreneurship is that women will use funds to feed their family, pay school fees, and to meet the basic needs of their families and community members.

Dulo has used entrepreneurship to meet needs both in the US and in Kenya. Through the medium of business in Lancaster and at various Central Market sites she can generate funds that are repatriated to Kenya to help young children in the early years of their lives. These are children who would not have ordinarily had a chance for an education, or to pursue their interests in all areas, including science and the arts.

Dulo is an entrepreneur in the truest sense of the word. She is working to shift economic resources out of areas of under-performance and into areas that yield greater productivity.

She is a fine example of what it means to empower female entrepreneurs. By her commitment to social entrepreneurship, she characterizes how female entrepreneurs become powerful change agents in their communities. ◆ JoAnn Flett directs the MBA program at Eastern University, a Christian university near Philadelphia, Pa.

The Marketplace March April 2018

Helping by listening MEDA volunteer business experts ask questions to help develop answers

H

elping small businesses in Africa is like any new relationship in one important respect — listening carefully is a crucial first step.

“As outsiders, we never bring the answers,” Kathleen Campbell says.

“But if we can bring the right questions, then it helps these small businesses. They can make leaps forward in how they start to think about their businesses.”

Campbell, who lives in California, volunteered in Tanzania for MEDA’s ENGINE (Enabling Growth through Investment and Enterprise) program for six weeks this past fall.

During that trip, she delivered technical assistance and business training to 67 service providers (28% women) in the southern agricultural regions of Mbeya, Morogoro, and Iringa, and on Zanzibar.

Campbell collaborated with field staff in four locations to tailor training for ENGINE, a USAID-funded program.

Listening to ENGINE staff, understanding their insight, then sitting down with small business owners and trying to hear their biggest concerns is important before walking with them in a process of discovery, she said.

Campbell, whose career has included a nine-year stint with the Ten Thousand Villages fair trade organization, knew about MEDA through her Villages work. She agreed to take on the assignment because she was attracted to the idea of working with small businesses, particularly firms in the juncture between agriculture and the service sector.

Previously she lived in the The Marketplace March April 2018

Philippines for two years, working with women operated businesses in fishing villages. Her work at Villages also gave her the opportunity to interact with many small businesses.

“It’s always inspiring, because these are quite frequently people who are certainly changing the futures of their families, but many times they’re changing the futures of their communities as well.”

Change is happening in these communities because the businesses are doing something innovative, providing job opportunities for people who wouldn’t otherwise be included in the economy very well. “It’s always an amazing learning opportunity, and an incredible set of people you get to work with.”

Many of the groups Campbell worked with were engaged in sunflower oil processing, rice and coffee.

Asking questions about operat-

ing and material costs, how prices are set and who is the customer can change some of the entrepreneur’s approach to their work, she said. “It can help a lot.”

Campbell asked businesses how they define their service, how they talk to potential customers in a way that changes the conversation to one of how business’s experience can help customer solve some of their issues.

Marketing issues and defining the customer relationship were among the main challenges businesses needed to face, she said. “It was more moving past the idea that my job is to sell you something, moving to: my job as a service provider is to help you solve your problems.”

For some of the clients, it was their first venture in becoming a service provider. “That does change how you think about your role in a business relationship. It does change photo by Laura Alexandra/VEGA

Getting businesspeople to think of themselves as service providers was helpful, says Kathleen Campbell (right) 8

John Oudyk (left) had to improvise to help clients he met in Tanzania

certainly how you communicate about yourself.”

The trip was an amazing experience for Campbell. She remembers Tanzania as a stunningly beautiful country, and everyone she met was gracious and hospitable.

She came away from the trip with a strong appreciation of the resources we have in North America to start and operate businesses in an economy that is functioning. By contrast, Tanzanian small business owners face enormous hurdles, including national government policy hurdles, an economic slowdown and very little cash in the economy. “At every turn, there is something that makes this a really tough environment to be a small business. These people have such courage” Campbell worked with 62 businesses during her time in Tanzania.

Well over 90 per cent of the entrepreneurs she met were operating more than one business, some as many as three or four, just to survive. She came away impressed by people’s fortitude, tenacity and resilience.

Campbell hopes others will choose to share their skills on behalf of MEDA, and go to visit projects for as long as they can. “To find how you can really be most effective, it

takes a little time.”

“I would recommend it in a heartbeat, enthusiastically.”

Campbell’s visit overlapped with that of Ontario resident John Oudyk and other volunteers. While they were not in the field together, she enjoyed the camaraderie of debriefs at the ENGINE office, hearing what other people experienced.

For Oudyk, who sold his Power Vac duct cleaning business in late 2016, the Tanzania outing was his second MEDA trip. He did a Nicaragua learning tour in January 2017.

Oudyk spent the month of November in Tanzania. He originally thought he didn’t have the skills to be useful, as he thinks his skills are more in coaching than in doing presentations.

Recognizing the needs of some of the businesspeople he met, he had to refresh himself on principles learned in school decades earlier — the SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats); and thinking about marketing in terms of four Ps — place, purchase, price and promotion.

Despite the language issue of translating from English to Swahili, “It went quite well actually,” he said.

Most people who he worked with 9

had a good understanding of business and some had a lot of formal education as well.

“Once I discovered that I didn’t have to come with all the answers per se, I was there primarily as a facilitator, it went a lot easier.”

Oudyk found the meetings forced him to improvise, something the clients must do all their lives.

For Oudyk, the trip confirmed something he had read earlier in a book: “the world over, people want the same things.”

Food in their bodies, shelter over their heads and education for their children are universal goals, he said.

“You don’t hear about that often about developing countries in the western media.”

“We have more commonality

“To find how you can really be most effective, it takes a little time.” than differences.”

Oudyk was impressed with the way MEDA works with partners and other organizations. Sometimes MEDA’s work is the continuation of another project, and other times its work becomes the basis of another group’s project, he said.

Oudyk would like to volunteer again, but found the experience stretched him. “It was darn hard to be that flexible.”

To learn more about MEDA’s volunteer program and opportunities, visit http://www.meda.org/volunteer or contact Jodi Martin, MEDA’s volunteer program manager, jmartin@ meda.org ◆ The Marketplace March April 2018

The economics of equality MEDA gender pilot helps firms do well by doing the right thing

W

hen businesses in developing countries think about social responsibility, consideration of gender equality doesn’t always make it on the list.

MEDA is working to change this situation by helping businesses consider gender issues as part of their investment decision-making.

“The private sector is interested in gender mainstreaming,” says MEDA’s Devon Krainer, who served as project manager for MEDA’s Gender Equality Mainstreaming (GEM) pilot.

“They do understand that it has a business benefit.”

MEDA’s concerted effort to put gender issues in the forefront came out of its Impact Investing in Frontier Markets (INFRONT) project, which ended in December.

INFRONT, which was viewed overall as a successful initiative, focussed on supporting companies in Latin America, Africa and Asia to access investment capital while improving their environment, social and governance (ESG) practices.

MEDA uses ESG as a lens for creating value at the company level.

That goes farther than the approach taken by some firms who use ESG as a risk mitigation tool to ensure compliance with environmental regulations at a local level, for instance.

Only two or three of the 31 firms involved with INFRONT applied for support specifically around gender equality when they sought sustainability innovation grants, said KrainThe Marketplace March April 2018

er, who served as monitoring and evaluation manager for that project.

“The company manager’s perception was that environment, or supply chain management without a gender lens would create financial value and be something that they could sustainably take forward after the grant program ended.”

Recognizing a lack of awareness of gender from both a social and financial perspective, MEDA developed the GEM Framework as an opportunity to bring gender into all ESG conversations.

The GEM pilot focused on two Asian countries. Those choices were helped by the fact that funding from the pilot came from the USAID Asia and Middle East Economic Growth Best Practices Project. Additionally, Sarona Asset Management, the private equity firm which grew out of MEDA, had significant investments in India and Indonesia.

Both India and Indonesia rank relatively poorly on the gender gap

index published annually by the World Economic Forum. Indonesia ranks 84th of 144 countries, India 108th. “Relatively speaking, there’s a lot of room to improve,” Krainer said.

Happily, both private equity firms and the companies they held investments in expressed interest in participating in the GEM pilot.

Portea, a leading health care provider in India, was one of the beneficiaries, and subsequently a champion, of the gender mainstreaming focus. Portea is a rapidlygrowing, four-year-old firm with 4,000 employees. The company delivers healthcare services, including eldercare, prenatal and post-natal care, specialized services such as counseling, physio and other forms of support in people’s homes. These services relieve some of the burden on the public hospital system.

“Women in India carry a heavy burden of work, and a cultural expectation that they will be the ones

The GEM pilot helped workers master soft skills.

10

Many Portea workers are women or youth from rural areas

to look after not only the children, but the parent and their spouses’ parents, which can limit them from entering the working economy.”

Over half of Portea’s employees are low-income women or youth who come from rural areas and face a lot of prejudice.

Portea is recruiting nursing attendants from rural areas, bringing them to an urban context, and giving them decent, well-paying, full-time work.

MEDA helped develop training in soft skills for these nursing attendants. Portea had done well in technical training, but less in areas such as self-care, confidence, how to negotiate and communicate well, or managing personal finances. “All of these are pieces or building blocks to empowerment.”

Through the Happiness training initiative, 2,252 nursing aides and nurses, about two-thirds of them women, were trained in these areas in a four-week period.

“The results we found from this pilot were immensely heart warming and clearly demonstrated short term how the nursing attendants benefited from it.”

The business case for the effort is that “if staff are happier in their job, they will stay longer and deliver better patient care, leading to better patient satisfaction scores, higher client referrals, and ultimately impact their top-line growth because their revenue is going to be boosted.”

Portea has continued to deliver the training after MEDA’s support ended.

The success of the Portea project

“framing gender as a business opportunity is still a novel idea” raises the question of why more of this work hasn’t been done more widely already. There still is a lack of data around the business case for gender mainstreaming in emerging and frontier markets, Krainer said.

“Data drives decision making in this world.

“Even just framing gender as a 11

business opportunity is still a novel idea, and it’s not easy.”

MEDA is facilitating a behavior change process, challenging a lot of gender norms in the process.

Krainer hopes MEDA’s learnings and successes will be shared broadly within the industry.

To that end, MEDA is launching an open source, self-assessment tool on the web to help companies see how they are doing. This tool includes a score and suggestions on how to improve.

Efforts also continue to ensure gender considerations are part of other programs. MEDA is now using the GEM framework in five projects, including its new Trading Up program.

Trading Up, a collaboration between MEDA, funding partner Global Affairs Canada, Sarona Asset Management and the University of Waterloo School of Environment, Enterprise and Development (UW-SEED), seeks to provide trade finance, technical assistance and measurement of the impact that investment in small and medium-sized businesses has on individuals.

-MS The Marketplace March April 2018

A Mother and Son discuss early marriage in Jordan Young boy thinks practice is a bad joke

By Yasmin Tab’a

O

n a Saturday night, as I was reading the National Report on Early Marriage Status in Jordan, going through all the surprising statistics made me so sad. Just like other kids, my 10-year-old son Obada tends to rush through dinner as he usually can’t wait to get back to Hot Wheels cars. But looking at my sad face this time he stuck around to know what makes me feel depressed. When he asked, I thought to listen to his opinion, his perspective and thinking about early marriage. So, we had the following conversation.

Me: Obada, what do you think about early marriage?

Obada: What do you mean by early marriage?

Me: Getting married before finishing school Obada: NO way mama, that’s a joke!!!

Me: No, Obada, unfortunately this is the case of many young girls in Jordan and other places in the world.

Obada: You mean the same age of Aisha? (Aisha is my niece and she is 16) Me: Exactly.

Obada: Mama, Aisha couldn’t take care of our new baby, she can’t cook, she still eats unhealthy food, she still plays with us hide and seek and she didn’t finish her studying!

She can’t be a mother; mothers know everything because they finish school and university.

Me: Yes, I know.

Obada: Mama, do the families of The Marketplace March April 2018

Yasmin Tab’a and her son Obada

those girls agree on this?

Me: Yes, most of the times.

Obada: They should go to prison!

Obada: What about work, how those girls will earn money if they don’t learn how to do so?

Me: You are right, most of those girls can’t work.

Obada: And the government, does it agree on that?

Me: Yes, unfortunately, some12

times it does.

Obada: The government should go to prison too!!!

Me: Mmmm. ◆ Yasmin Tab’a is a gender and youth specialist for MEDA’s Jordan Valley Links program.

What do you think? See pages 10-11 for MEDA’s approach to promoting gender equality.

A new flight path Isaac’s president works at rebirthing Pa. restaurant chain

by Mike Strathdee

M

ike Weaver works hard at getting people to “learnovate.”

Weaver, president and CEO of the Lancaster, Pa.-based Isaac’s restaurant chain, coined the term, which means learning through innovation.

Learnovation is an idea he wants to permeate the restaurant’s 19 locations. Permission to fail on the small stuff is granted so the organization can learn and move forward.

“We know we have to reinvent ourself,” he says of a company he joined in early 2014.

Weaver succeeded company founder Philip R. Wenger, Isaac’s president and CEO Mike Weaver who started Isaac’s in 1983 and grew it to sales of $20 million. scrappy, and isn’t that well-suited for Wenger remains majority owner, and a guy who just loves to learn?” now works as executive director of Weaver’s previous careers inLancaster Conservancy, an environcluded 11 years running Tabor Commental charity. munity Services, a Lancaster County An outsider might see more opcounselling organization that helps portunities than threats facing Weav- people find solutions to their housing and financial challenges. He later er. Isaac’s is an established name in the Lancaster area. People are spend- held management roles in construction, manufacturing and retail. ing ever-increasing amounts of their That eclectic resume may seem food budget eating out.

But competition is fierce. The need a long way from the world of grilled sandwiches. The common thread in to adapt to changing tastes is ongohis various careers is an attraction ing. Isaac’s updates its menu twice a to an organization on the cusp of year, and refreshes restaurant décor change. every five to seven years. “Really, When he accepted Wenger’s there has been an oversaturation of invitation to take the helm at Isaac’s, restaurants, and a variety of choices Weaver was looking for a company that people have,” Weaver said. with healthy governance, shared val“Convenience stores that are actuues, complex enough to keep learnally restaurants, gas stations that ing, with equitable treatment of staff are restaurants, grocery stores that offer prepared food. We have some and customers. real challenges, but I guess we are Quoting Kevin Rowe of the Dirty 13

Jobs TV program (Discovery Channel), Weaver says success lies in finding a job you are interested in and taking your passion to it. He is energized by the task of creating the Isaac’s of the future. “We make incredible food, we give incredible service, we engage our employees and we connect to our community.”

The chain values its culture, including transparency.

“We have an open book for all of our finances with our general managers,” Weaver said.

Restaurants typically have the same food, labor and facility costs, so he doesn’t see the need for secrecy.

“Most employees think that an owner is making more money than he is, that’s what I’ve learned. Until you’re done with depreciation and everything else that must be done, you might as well take the mystery out of it. There ought to be a fair return for the risk incurred.

I get my kicks more out of a great company.”

Between 95 and 100 per cent of Isaac’s 550 employees participate in United Way giving, “unheard of in the restaurant industry.”

Commitment to giving includes the way workers are treated. Isaac’s pays employees a stipend to volunteer, and contributes financially to the organizations they volunteer with.

Isaac’s holds a monthly meeting of a team looking for community needs, and volunteer events every few months.

Other employee teams include a chef committee that focuses on The Marketplace March April 2018

Isaac’s senior management team (L to R) Johnny Roberts, David Leaman, Mike Weaver, Jessica Snyder, Debra Miller, Dorrie Courogen, Alan Jacobs

employee happiness, sponsoring ventures such as a trip to New York, a fall kickball tournament and little prizes given to staff during the year.

Isaac’s provides health insurance coverage for employees who work 30 hours a week, a practice since the restaurant’s early days.

Management “preaches quite a bit about workers having a healthy lifestyle. We believe that if you are a salaried person, you should have a work-life balance.”

Every year, Isaac’s hires 11th grade students who work there for a few years, in some cases returning for summers while they attend college.

For many, it will be their first job.

Weaver views workers who come, leave and then return as being a success, given the context of his industry, where 100 per cent turnover is not uncommon. Isaac’s has a number of long-term employees, some of them 20 to 30-year veterans.

How does a mid-sized chain deal with the need for reinvention, faced with national competitors? Isaac’s head office has only a handful of staff. They are up against national chains that have huge marketing departments and funding to match.

“On the one hand, you could just say, it’s sandwiches, how hard could that be? But you know, a halfounce of meat (repeatedly wasted) is $60,000 a year.”

He credits McDonalds as one of the best “at simplifying the product, so you can have a diverse menu so that an 11th grader doesn’t give The Marketplace March April 2018

somebody food poisoning, and you can make it consistently every time.

There’s a lot of complexity in figuring that out.”

Isaac’s is “in the process of beginning a rebirth,” he says.

Rebirth involves increased emphasis on dinner and breakfast offerings, providing more proteinbased bowls, and new salads including ingredients such as exotic grains.

Currently, Isaac’s sees 60 per cent of its business at lunch, 40 per cent over dinner.

“...we give incredible service, we engage our employees and we connect to our community.”

Close to 35 per cent of sales come from catering and takeout, so the chain needs to increase its online presence.

Rebirth also requires death for some older, underperforming products. Many of the items on the menu are named after birds, “so any time you cancel a sandwich, you’ve killed a bird.”

Isaac’s has 50 off-menu items that people still ask for, eight years after they were cancelled. Requests for those old birds will be honored if 14

the location has the ingredients.

Learnovate, lean and leadership are words Weaver thinks about most as he implements change, finding ways to eliminate waste, making processes as mistake-proof as possible.

He has no aggressive plans to add stores, focusing instead at getting more out of each 3,700-squarefoot location. “We’ve got to watch everything within this industry.’’

The tension between the need to micro-focus on details and a desire not to lose the joy of running the operation is a tightrope Weaver must walk.

He caught five staff stealing from the company over the past two years.

All were fired, but he chose not to press charges. Instead, he wrote a letter to each of the former employees, explaining how their actions hurt the firm’s efforts to be fair to everyone, and encouraging them to make reparations.

Three of the five paid back what was owed. “We don’t let that stuff go.”

Married with three children, Weaver tries to take time for his daughter’s soccer games, exercising and playing piano at the Presbyterian church his family attends.

He describes his management posture as being one of continuous learning. “It’s a journey that I take with the people that I’m working with.”

“We do it not to live a grand life of opulence, we do it to re-invest in our business and our community.” ◆

Mango time Kenya vegetable packer helps small farmers expand into fruit production

By Mike Strathdee NAIROBI, KENYA - Jane Maina has a plan to increase the incomes of thousands of Kenyan farmers, and diversify her own business in the process.

Maina, managing director and co-owner of Vert, aims to reduce her vegetable processing firm’s dependence on European markets, and replace some of her nation’s imports of one of its favorite juices.

Through a partnership with MEDA’s M-SAWA project, (M-SAWA stands for Maendeleo- Sawa, or Equitable Prosperity) –Vert aims to train subsistence farmers how to grow mangos and passion fruit that meet international standards.

Vert has focused on shipping and packaging green vegetables since it started 18 years ago. French (green) beans and peas are picked at farms one day, packaged at Vert’s plant the next afternoon, then put on a plane to Amsterdam that evening.

It started small with one or two shipments a week of one tonne at a time. In 2017, Vert shipped 1,300 metric tonnes of beans and peas.

The firm currently has 71 staff.

Its entire production is exported to the UK, Netherlands, Denmark, Germany and Belgium.

In 2013, the European Union brought in new regulations regarding the import of vegetables from Kenya to increase tests for pesticide residues.

Because Kenya doesn’t have national regulations on this matter, 10 per cent of all of Vert’s shipments had to be pulled out for physical testing.

The testing adds 24 hours to the time from farm field to store shelf, undermining Vert’s goal of having products on shelves within three

photos by Mike Strathdee

Many Kenyan mangos don’t make it to market.

days of receiving them.

Maina saw an opportunity to pivot her firm in the face of these rules, and the uncertainty about future access to the UK due to that country’s Brexit plan to leave the European Union.

Farmers producing fruits and vegetables see up to 41 per cent of their mangos being wasted “year in and year out,” because they don’t make their way to market. Of Kenyan mangos that do make it to market, alVert co-owner Jane Maina 15

The Marketplace March April 2018

most all are consumed domestically.

The country imports most of its pulp for mango juice, and there are only six pulping plants in the country.

“The need for pulp was very clear,” she said, noting that as consumption of carbonated drinks dips, demand for fresh juices is on the rise.

Fruit pulping, primarily for the domestic market, is the value-added goal of the next phase of Vert’s evolution. “It’s mostly guided by the realization that we are over-relying on the European markets.”

Mango pulp is taken from second-rate fruit that cannot be sold fresh. Unlike the highly perishable raw fruit, mango pulp has a shelf life of up to 18 months.

In April, Vert will move to a new plant in Machakos, about an hour southeast of Nairobi, that is four times the size of the current 10,000-square-foot (932-square-metre) operation. One side of the plant will replicate its existing vegetable

Vert practices gender equity throughout its factory

Vert shipped 1,300 metric tonnes of snow peas and beans in 2017.

The Marketplace March April 2018

16

“The fact the grants take care of this training cost for us is invaluable.” packing operation. A larger building will be dedicated to pulping mangos and passion fruit, as well as drying a variety of fruits, including mangos, pineapple and banana. Some of that dried fruit may make its way to North America later this year, once direct flights start from New York City to Nairobi. Vert has landed a private label contract for dried fruit with a major US retailer.

The biggest challenges for mango growers is the middlemen, who want to take the fruit before it reaches maturity, she said “If the farmers take on and sell the fruit (then), it means they will have less than optimal production.”

Middlemen often purchase mangos for five Kenyan shillings, (about five cents US), then turn around and sell them for 15-20 shillings, she said.

“We seek to cut out the middleman.”

Doing this will allow Vert to control quality and improve margins both for Vert and its growers.

Matching grants offered by MEDA are very important to this project, as they close gaps that Vert could not do on its own, she said.

Training of farmers to attain organic certification and maintain good agricultural practices that allow for full traceability of produce can be an expensive task. Without MEDA’s help, attaining annual renewable certification would cost more than either Vert or the farmers could initially afford.

“The fact the grants take care of this training cost for us is invaluable. We are then able to go in and provide the training with the support of MEDA, and make sure the farmers are using good quality produce, and we are then able to use

these products, either for our drying line or our pulping line.”

Over the next three years, Vert hopes to work with 5,000 new farmers in addition to the 1,726 vegetable farmers that they currently have contracts with. They will also hire another 88 workers for their processing plant.

Vert has consistently strived to engage women, both by requiring that groups at the farmer level select one female leader and practicing gender equality at all levels in its factory.

Many of the farmers that supply Vert have plots of land of only one to two acres, including their home and the area where their animals graze. A mango farmers co-op that a group of

MEDA supporters visited in January claims almost 470 members, a slight majority of whom are women.

Members of the group admitted that they need help with marketing, caring for trees and financing inputs for production.

Vert has had its own struggles when it came to financing growth.

Local banks were not receptive to lending for Vert’s new expansion project, which cost $2.75 million US. “It isn’t a very easy thing,” Maina said.

The firm needed patient investors for the expansion. Because Vert has earnings in hard currency, it could get equity investments from Belgian and French social investment firms.

Equipment for the new plant is being debt-financed from a third European social impact investor. The company hopes to repay those lenders within seven years.

Maina’s life and business partner in Vert is her husband Maina Inderito.

“We tend to stay as far away (from each other) as possible,” she said with a smile when asked about how they divide responsibilities at the company. He focuses on construction and getting increased production from farmers. She does finance, administration, operations and contracts with retail customers.

In the past four years, the number of women-led food processing firms has increased greatly. About 40 per cent of company heads in her industry are women, particularly among mediumsized firms.

She is quick to respond when asked what motivates her desire to work with more farmers. “Being able to put products out that are safe, that I know where they have come from, and by who they Produce is shipped to the international airport were touched,” she said. ◆ and flown to Europe hours after it is packed 17

The Marketplace March April 2018

Farmer advocates for “essential” workers Told President Trump dairy, poultry industries need foreign help

M

any entrepreneurs wish they could have a face-to-face chat with a government leader to explain how that government’s policy is negatively affecting their business.

Pennsylvania farmer Luke Brubaker had that close-up conversation with US president Donald Trump last spring, as one of 14 representatives of the ag industry invited to the White House for a farmers’ roundtable.

Brubaker told Trump that migrant labor, what he calls “essential workers,” are crucial to the success of his state’s agriculture industry, and asked how farmers could keep these workers.

He told the president that when immigration officers took away 13 documented workers, chicken catchers from a local farm, all but one of the replacements hired from a temp agency quit after a few hours.

Whether it be picking produce, milking cows or catching chickens, most farms can’t get by without imported labor, mostly Mexican in the case of Brubaker Farms. “It seems like a lot of us do not want to do that hard work,” Brubaker said.

Brubaker Farms, which is now mostly owned by Luke’s sons, Mike and Tony, milks 1,000 cows a day on two farms in Mount Joy, and raises 300,000 broiler chickens a year for Tyson Foods, the world’s secondlargest processor and marketer of chicken. They also crop 1,800 acres The Marketplace March April 2018

of corn, soybeans, wheat and rye.

To put the Brubaker operation into context, an average Pennsylvania dairy herd is only about 80 cows. Brubaker allows that there are only 20 dairies the size of Brubaker farms in the state, and the family operation is in the top five per cent of farms by size.

Automation to reduce labor costs isn’t cost effective for most of the 5,500 dairy farmers in Pennsylvania. Brubaker estimates that only a dozen use robotic milking machines.

“Financially, we could not afford to change our operation from where we are today to robots.”

The world price for milk is too low to make those changes. Demand for milk has been dropping, in part because people aren’t eating as much cereal.

Brubaker started farming in the 1960s, buying 18 cows from his father. In the 1970s, he began buying the family farm.

“We’ve had many blessings and opportunities that allowed us to develop our farming operation,” said Brubaker, who is active in Mount Joy Mennonite Church.

Brubaker Farms has won numerous awards for innovation, environmental stewardship and energy conservation, including the 2011 Innovative Dairy Farmer of the Year.

Brubaker has made several trips to Russia representing the dairy industry and visited Ukraine and Belarus in that capacity as well. He has chaired the Commonwealth of 18

Pennsylvania Milk Marketing board since 2012, and active on the board for several decades. A Republican supporter, he has been nominated to the milk board by both Republican and Democratic governors.

He became politically active through his work with the milk marketing board. He describes himself as being “very supporting of trying to help guide right decisions in the political world.”

Being chosen to sit across a table from President Trump was something that one of the meeting organizers likened to the chance of being struck by lightning. Brubaker was golfing when he received a phone call from a Brubaker friend and former neighbor who was a past North Carolina leader in the House of Representatives. The friend asked him to call Washington. When he did so, a presidential advisor asked if he could come to the capital for a roundtable five days later.

The group that met included vice president Mike Pence, agriculture secretary Sonny Perdue, a Colorado rancher, a lumber person, a representative of pork processor Smithfield Foods, an Ohio landscaper, a New York produce grower, the Iowa secretary of agriculture and a former California secretary of agriculture.

Vice president Mike Pence was scheduled to visit the farm a week before the November 2016 election.

Security measures and other planning were all in place when the event

LNP Media Group File photo

“... it’s very, very hard to find a good essential worker now from another country” was cancelled on a day’s notice, as the Trump campaign decided it needed Pence in another community.

Brubaker Farms’ business card mentions green energy. The operation has a methane digester, making electricity for the farm and selling enough power to the grid for 150 to 200 homes. In addition to digesting cow manure, they use food waste from a local college and an egg hatchery.

Efforts to draft legislation that would ensure a steady supply of farm labor have not yet come to the floor of the U.S. Congress. “They are trying to get it right, which is a very complicated situation to please everybody.”

While Trump is saying that he wants American workers to have the jobs, “the agriculture community is pleading: we need these workers, or we are going to be buying our food from another nation,” Brubaker said.

Most Pennsylvania farms pay “way above minimum prices,” as well as providing health care and housing. “We feel they should be treated just like anybody else. We believe all employees on our operation be paid like anybody else.”

Luke Brubaker in one of the Brubaker Farms dairy barns

“If we can’t find a Mexican, it’s very, very hard to find a good essential worker now from another country.”

It is getting harder to find essential workers for agriculture, because “they are getting scared of being picked up for no reason at all.”

Agriculture is Pennsylvania’s biggest industry. The state has lost the lowest percentage of dairy farms 19

in the U.S. since 2010, ranking in the top six of national production.

But without foreign help, Brubaker isn’t so optimistic. “If we lose a lot of dairy farms, we lose infrastructure.”

The issue is bigger than the dairy industry, he said. “The chicken and the hog business in Pennsylvania would have a hard time surviving without essential workers.” ◆ The Marketplace March April 2018

Migrants vital to agri-food sector

R

estricting migrant workers to save jobs could have the opposite effect, pushing agri-food work out of North America to other countries.

Migrant labor is vital in the fruit and vegetable industry, says Marianne Unruh, a MEDA board member who operates Fresh Solutions, which does produce inspections in California, Arizona, Texas and Michigan.

“Without migrant labor, the industry wouldn’t function at all,” she said.

Sandy Stauffer, a Dairy Farmers of America director, agrees. “It would devastate the industry if we couldn’t have them (migrants),” he said.

“Anywhere they need to hire labor, there is a high percentage of Hispan-

ics in the dairy farms, milking cows.”

Stauffer’s New York State operations, now run by his sons, are milking 3,000 cows, largely with local help. Their operation employs only one Mexican worker.

That is an exception. Since the late 1990s, as farms got larger, dependence on migrant labor has soared, he said. “People (who live in the US) in general don’t want to milk cows. The Hispanics do, and they want all the hours they can get.”

Others say golf courses, framing crews for houses, drywalling and hand laying of stone walls, jobs that involve hard work and heat, are often dependent on migrant labor.

By one estimate, the migrant worker

pool in the Lancaster County, Pa. area dropped by 30 per cent last year.

During harvest season in California, workers start their day at 5:30 a.m. and work in 104-degree heat. “Most people don’t want to do it,” Unruh said.

Automation may eventually ease the problem. The strawberry sector is working on robots to pick that lowlying fruit, efforts that may take 15 years to mature.

In Europe some stone fruit picking is already mechanized. Unruh thinks the raisin industry and fruit pruning tasks will become mechanized sooner rather than later.

Ultimately, however, she fears labor shortages will force more of the ag sector offshore. ◆

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Review

Win-win economic development

By Romney Ruder Give Work Reversing Poverty One Job at a Time

By Leila Janah (Portfolio/Penguin, 2017, 272 pp, $27 US)

I

t was not surprising to see recently, a major Christian magazine asking in a cover story whether the gift of cash (instead of material items or programs) would help alleviate poverty issues, as suggested by some experts on the issue. It is not surprising because the matter of poverty has been one that our society has sought to get rid of since man began to populate the earth.

We live in an age where most people enjoy a better standard of living than their ancestors. Much of this has been due to positive developments in technology, communication, production and infrastructure. It would be fair to say that the attention paid to eradicating poverty by both faith-based and secular organizations is higher today than it has ever been. And yet our efforts are often compromised by things that are largely out of our hands. These effects can range from geo-political struggles to natural disasters. What has become apparent through it all, is that to continue to gain ground on this epidemic, organizations need to be innovative with their approaches.

That is exactly what Leila Janah, CEO of Samasource (a non-profit business with the mission to reduce global poverty by outsourcing digital work to unemployed people in the United States and impoverished countries), has done in her efforts to bring a marketplace solution to help alleviate global poverty.

In Give Work, she lays out a creative way to utilize a global workforce

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“She creates opportunities for everyone to benefit…

Workers have a dignified way to rise above poverty levels.” to accomplish many repetitive tasks that organizations and/or corporations would usually do themselves (or outsource closer to home). Her goal is to integrate the business-oriented, profit-maximizing part of our psyche with our socially conscious, compassionate heart. She does this by taking advantage of the disruption of the labor market in many sectors of business, and utilizing technology in communication flow to establish work teams in impoverished areas.

Through these efforts, she creates 21

win-win situations for both company and worker. The company’s cost of labor goes down while the worker, formerly in poverty, is now a stakeholder making a living wage.

Janah should be credited with not only laying out an effective strategy to eliminate poverty, but also for using her own business acumen to put these plans into action. Give Work provides a dynamic storyline about how she grew up in an immigrant family. Her childhood development and what she witnessed helped create the perseverance that would lead to her leadership roles in the business and humanitarian aid communities.

What is refreshing about Janah’s approach is that her solutions are based upon marketplace results. She creates opportunities for everyone to benefit. There are no so-called “handouts” in her method. Workers have a dignified way to rise above poverty levels. Companies in turn have a dedicated and effective workforce. Walmart and Johnson & Johnson are just two of the economic heavyweights that have utilized her methodology. As a Harvard-educated former management consultant, Janah is using real-world scenarios to make her case.

Janah’s book is a must read for all corporate leaders focused on making a difference. She lays the groundwork for what should be an easy way for business to lead the charge in getting rid of extreme poverty.

She makes the case that her ideas are applicable to the world we live in, but do not necessarily represent the “one” fix to end all poverty. As the season of business changes, new ideas for battling this epidemic must change as well. It is her innovative approach to this issue that makes it an effective answer today. ◆ Romney Ruder is an associate professor of business administration at Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kansas.

The Marketplace March April 2018

News

Street hawkers overrun Nairobi As many as 12,000 street vendors are causing major headaches for Nairobi politicians and businesses as they clog roadways, sidewalks, entrances to businesses and even churches.

A profile in Kenya’s The Standard newspaper entitled “Hawking nation” refers to the swarms of mobile hawkers as a street menace. The peddlers show no regard for rules or others, the article states.

The problem is not new. Three years ago, government officials moved to push hawkers out of the business district. But many were not offered alternate spaces to conduct business, so they soon returned.

Politicians promised in last year’s elections not to push out the traders.

Observers note that the sheer num-

ber of hawkers has made them a political force.

In mid-January, a violent clash between sellers and police left six people injured.

Plans to build new markets to house vendors have stalled, leaving formal businesses and governments struggling to cope.

Hawkers regularly wander all major routes into the city as well as the paths followed by matatus, privately owned minibuses that are a major source of transportation between communities.

A city official cited plans to hire 1,000 officers to help control hawkers within the city. Most existing staff are too old to chase peddlers

all day, he said.

Defenders of the hawkers say they pay taxes and have a right to sell on the streets. Many cannot afford market stall fees of up to 20,000 Kenyan shillings (about $200 US dollars). ◆

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Soundbites

What can business do?

A day of my life

This is the beginning of a new day.

God has given me this day to use as I will. I can waste it or use it for good, but what I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my

life for it. When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something that I have traded for it. I want it to be gain and not loss; good and not evil; success and not failure, in order that I shall not regret the price I have paid for it.

— William David Thompson

Lessons from zebras

Zebras are incredibly intelligent creatures. In some situations, humans could learn a lesson or two from them. When Zebras are tired, they circle round and rest their heads on each other’s shoulders or backs, all facing different directions so they can warn each other of any approaching danger (most likely Simba the lion).

They also allow small birds to rest and ride along on their backs. The birds dine on the insects attracted to the zebras, and the zebra is freed of a pest.

23

There is a metaphor there somewhere about the need for community.

Bull market for diapers

Adult diapers are now outselling baby diapers in Japan, The Atlantic magazine reports.

The aging population is giving birth to a new $800 billion market segment, the silver market.

New products that will likely make their way across the ocean sooner rather than later include smart phones that are easier to hear and engay food — products that are easier to swallow due to use of a gelling agent. ◆

Comments?

“What can you do as a business manager in the world? I would say you can give people employment. If you give a thousand people, or even 20 people, or five people employment, meaningful employment, you are making a great contribution to this world. What is more destructive of human personality than forced idleness? I would think that one of the great incentives of being in business is to make it possible for some people to live, and to live decently, and live well.” — The late J. Lawrence Burkholder in a keynote address to the 1986 MEDA convention

Would you like to comment on anything in this magazine, or on any other matters relating to business and faith? Send your thoughts to mstrathdee@meda.org

The Marketplace March April 2018

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