Wrestling with Failure
This summer, Jean Baptiste Tooley, Erin Ronald, and I worked for two social enterprises seeking to improve livelihoods for smallholder farmers in Ghana. With the help of my teammates, we designed a 46-page Action Research Plan. While our plans changed some, we mostly adhered to a structure we created. We conducted 139 interviews with various farmers, field agents, and partner organizations. We traveled to six different regions. We stayed in hostels, remote hotels, and in big cities. We navigated Ubers, taxis, TroTros, buses, and long, brush-covered trails to the field. I had accomplished so much in these two months, but since I could not conjure up a definitive answer of what I wanted to do in the future, I thought that I had failed. There was no "ahah" moment where I realized my life's purpose, no morning where I awoke knowing the schema of the "grand plan" that I believed would give me an answer. I thought this fellowship was about reciprocity and value exchange. However, with all that I felt that I was giving to my host enterprises, where was my return on investment? I thought that I had missed a major facet of the fellowship. So, didn't I fail?
Asuogyaman District, Totibu Community, Eastern Region of Ghana
Our large pathfinder grips the winding roads through the mountains of the Eastern Region. We're not exactly sure where we were going, we just pile into the car at 7 in the morning and trust that Mr. Nartey will fill us in when its time. This part of the country boasts large, jagged mountains which emerge in harsh contrast to the weathered roads. We've only been here for two days, so despite my fatigue, I watch, wide-eyed, as the verdant flora unveils itself. I'm certainly not in my native New England. Thickets of bamboo sometimes curve, encircling the car--a nature-made Callahan tunnel with a lot less traffic.
|
The Totibu community within the Asougyaman District in the Eastern Region of Ghana is situated in the middle of a peninsula-like land formation. People within this community are isolated by mountainous terrain, as well as long and bumpy dirt roads.
|
This is the view from the back of the car on our way to Totibu. I tried to get as many pictures and videos as I could, but most came out blurry as I bounced along to the rhythm of the windy, weathered roads.
We arrive in Totibu and Mr. Nartey informs us that this is the location of the only female extension officer in MoringaConnect's network--they just on-boarded her a few weeks before our arrival. Additionally, the entire community is new to moringa. So, instead of visiting various farms, we sit in on an introductory VSLA meeting, another one of MoringaConnect's services. VSLA stands for Village Savings and Loan Association, and serves as a democratic version of informal savings groups, establishing community funds for either personal or group-oriented loans.
In Totibu, women and men each have their separate VSLA groups, so that either group cannot dip into each other’s savings. The program promotes women’s' economic autonomy and affords leadership positions for women within the community. However, since today is the first meeting, men and women will join together in order to save time and resources. Mr. Nartey leads us into a gazebo-like structure furnished with benches and a few plastic chairs. My partners and I are encouraged to take the chairs, as they are reserved for guests. We take our spots as women and their babies flow into the space. Almost every woman has a child with them, swaddled in fabric wraps, which secure them on their mothers' backs.
|
Women gather for the VSLA meeting, bringing their babies with them.
|
The women sit on benches in a square formation enclosed by a table at the front of the room. A young girl stands behind the table with elders sitting to either side of her. The girl does not look older than 14--she sports a pink t-shirt accented with pearls which droop from one shoulder to the next, sequins, and a large black bow. Her outfit stands in contrast to the traditional wraps of the women around her, yet she stands proudly in the front of the room as if she's about to command the meeting. I lean over to Mr. Nartey and ask who she is. He replies, "That's Mavis."
Mavis stands next to her newly planted moringa farm in Totibu.
Some men begin to fill into chairs and the remaining benches in the back of the room. Around 20 men are present, when David, a member of the managerial team at MoringaConnect, signals Mavis to begin the meeting. However, we are quickly interrupted by an older gentleman. He seems angry, walking in and yelling at the other men in attendance to follow him. Without question, most men rise, taking their chairs with them. However, multiple women offer a loud rebuttal-- handing off their children to other women as they articulate themselves. The verbal altercation ends, leaving three men sitting in the back of the room. I ask Mr. Nartey what happened. He tells me that the men had scheduled another meeting, but that ultimately there was some strife in the community about men and women attending the same VLSA session. This is the first concrete example of the varying gender dynamics across Ghana. In the city, where we had spent the first five days, women worked, ran for political office, and owned their own businesses. The city offered women more progressive positions within society, a phenomenon that was slowly coming to the rural outskirts of the Eastern Region.
However, the presence of the gender hierarchy does not force these women into submissive roles. Un-phased by the push-back of the men in their community, women launch fiery responses, arguing that if the men wanted to leave, it didn't matter, they just want to learn about village loan services.
David oversees the first VSLA meeting in order to ensure that the women in Totibu follow the precise rules MoringaConnect designed for Village Savings and Loans.
|
David guides this first VSLA meeting, providing Mavis with instruction in English. The young girl quickly translates, ensuring that all of the women present understand. The women create their own rules, voting to affirm or amend the structure pre-determined by MoringaConnect. Soon, a change is made to the routine of weekly deposits. Women state that they will accept late deposits from those who are busy, sick, or tending to family matters. A man from the back of the room interjects, asking if the men could make a similar adjustment in their agreement. Without hesitation, several women respond. One woman stands up and says, "This is our group, this is our meeting!" The men assume silence and remain seated. The women exude confidence as they thrive in a space which focuses upon their needs
|
Mavis, who is actually 23, will serve as an extension officer for both women and men in this community. We ask several women if they think that having a female leader in the community will make a difference in the village's current perceptions of women. Beaming with pride, the women unanimously answer yes. One woman includes that seeing Mavis in this position restores her hope that women, too, will soon assume leadership roles in all aspects of community life in Totibu.
After the meeting, we ask Mavis what she thinks of her new job with MoringaConnect. She's reluctant to say that she is challenging social norms or affecting any change at all. She does the job in hopes to bring more wealth to a community that she says is isolated by bad roads and confined to drinking dirty water. During our interview, Mavis does not reflect inwardly or reflect on any of her myriad of accomplishments. Instead, she evades the questions we ask about her personal successes, shifting the conversation towards the needs of the community: more cutlasses, rain gear, a bike to increase her efficiency.
Mavis is all business. After our interview, she insists that we visit her new moringa plot. As we move further away from the shade of the gathering area, the sun's oppressive heat begins to drain me of any energy or hydration that I have left. I find myself downing several bags of water on the half mile walk to her field. Mavis traverses these roads daily to visit new farms, spending a majority of her time pushing through the heavy, hot air. I can't imagine supplementing this trek with the intensive labor of tending to the moringa. Despite her stature, Mavis is incredibly strong, and I often find myself in disbelief of what she is able to accomplish in this climate.
I lag behind as I follow Mr. Nartey, Mavis, and Giulia, another member of MoringaConnect's managerial team, to the field.
|
Mr. Nartey instructs Mavis on how to care for her newly planted moringa. I drink more water.
|
As we walk back to our car, the tantalizing thought of air-conditioning prompts me to keep up with Mr. Nartey and Mavis who move swiftly along the road. I try to tell Mavis how impressive she is, but my American accent is harder for her to understand. Mr. Nartey answers instead, telling me that Mavis is already the best extension officer her oversees, and adding that he plans to on-board more women as soon as possible.
We had been in Ghana for less than 10 days when we visited Totibu and met Mavis. While early in our seven week stay, this memory stayed with me throughout the entirety of the trip. Whenever I witnessed or experienced gender discrimination, I thought back to the fervor the women displayed on that day in late June.
Home
After returning to Santa Clara, I continued to revisit this memory as a spring of hope, sipping from it when more painful thoughts, either about my field experience or the increasingly tense political climate in the U.S., crossed my mind. When we embarked on our vocational journey, the only fact I could discern was this: I want to work with women.
I still don't know exactly how I will leverage my skills to target women and advance their agency. However, as I spend more time with myself, listening to what my soul is calling me to do, the ambiguity is starting to fade, and a sense of self-confidence has begun to take its place.
I still don't know exactly how I will leverage my skills to target women and advance their agency. However, as I spend more time with myself, listening to what my soul is calling me to do, the ambiguity is starting to fade, and a sense of self-confidence has begun to take its place.
Thanks to Keith and Thane, I now know that working for businesses with social impact is a real possibility for me. They've helped me realize that the skills I have garnered through my English and French majors, as well as the unique cross-cultural experience I had in Ghana, are transferable. While my work with Farmerline and MoringaConnect involved an agricultural context, I really spent two months trying to understand the human behaviors and motivations which drive livelihoods. Sure, I learned about agricultural practices, but main takeaways involved the best means for incentivizing and mobilizing agent networks. While I will not graduate Santa Clara with a very employable business degree, my team and I crafted deliverables which target integral parts of MoringaConnect and Farmerline's business models, better positioning both companies to scale. I now know how to leverage these real-life experiences in my favor, as they are applicable to an array of jobs across all sectors. Perhaps the most valuable lesson I learned is that my degree won't speak for me, but I will. I have come away from this fellowship with a deeper knowledge of myself, my capabilities, and the best ways to be my own advocate in job interviews.
In October, Miller Center offered me the opportunity to volunteer at SOCAP, a conference of social entrepreneurs and impact investors dedicated to using market-based solutions to address the world's most pervasive challenges. There, I set my sights on women-founded and women-centered organizations. I met several CEOs running enterprises around the world-- in the Philippines, Kenya, and even San Jose, California. I plan to stay in touch with these women as I continue to discern what I would like to do as a vocation.
|
I arrived early on the first day of SOCAP 2018 and visited Miller Center's booth.
|
Looking Forward
Before I pursue any of these paths, I have responded to another voice inside of me. This voice has gotten louder and louder as I have approached the end of my college career. It is calling me to go abroad once more, to challenge and to improve my French language skills, and try teaching. I am applying for TAPIF, a program through the French Embassy, which enables francophone Americans to ameliorate their conversation skills, while instructing French students in English. If not accepted to the program, I plan to seek other opportunities to improve my language skills before officially entering into the professional world.
This fellowship has bestowed within me a sense of calm about my future. Instead of spending a majority of my senior year panicking about job applications and interviews, I will enjoy following my true interests, and what I have been called to do so far. I have developed a degree of trust within myself, my abilities to learn and to problem solve, and the guiding force which quietly, but intentionally accompanies me through life. When it comes time to apply for jobs, I am confident that I will make the right decisions for myself, in order to accomplish my mission to advance women's agency and eliminate gender inequality.
The Answer
So, the short answer is no. I did not "fail" the fellowship. In fact, I don't think that that is possible. Maybe if someone rejected self-reflection and neglected the often-laborious task of unpacking difficult experiences, they would leave the fellowship without the same amount of assurance that I have. However, this seems unlikely to happen. I am so thankful for these past 9-months, as intense and difficult as they sometimes were. I experienced the extremes of consolation and desolation-- Consolation in the love and support I felt in my teammates, classmates, and instructors; Desolation in the persistent confrontation of my own privileges juxtaposed to the poverty that I witnessed. Thank you, Keith, Thane, Erin, Jean, and the rest of the 2018 GSBF cohort for helping me realize my potential, and providing me the spiritual, mental, and academic tools to reach it. I now look towards the future with a renewed sense of hope and excitement to affect positive change (eventually) on a global scale.
Thane, Spencer, and fellows of the GSBF 2018 cohort pose for a picture upon their return from the field. Despite the adventures fellows had this summer, this marks the beginning of another important journey: An exploration into self-reflection and vocational discernment.