Lousy weather again today, but Nomkita brought a space heater which made things much better. We still had only 5 learners today but at least there were only four of us. From the beginning we set up the class like a workshop with all our desks together as one big table. This, and the smaller number of adults, worked wonders – our girls opened up much more today. Apparently boys are more talkative, but we do not have any.
So I led the discussion of reviewing the previous day’s materials and then the chapter on product invention and development. OK I skipped the invention part because … well, lateral thinking? Really? For township kids in Africa?
My homework last night to think of ways to engage the kids worked out really well, we made up a concept for a business and talked through all the key components: who are you going to sell it to, what makes it different such that people will want to buy it, what do you need to do to actually make it happen (e.g. buy materials, make a plan, etc.), how do you market it, etc. Through the discussion we led organically to some other concepts, like we talked about how to make people aware of the business and someone said there should be a sign, and this led to a discussion of comparative advantage – do you make the sign yourself or do you buy it? Ok you buy it, why is that? Really so much of this is intuitive but spelling out why they would do certain things and the lessons behind that are [hopefully] useful. So that was great, and we used that same framework later on to discuss the business ideas of a few of the learners.
The other volunteers taught chapters on opportunity cost and financing strategy (the parts of it that were relevant that is), and then I taught the chapter on cost-benefit analysis. We went through some examples of fixed and variable costs, and explained why variable costs vary as there was some confusion around the difference between input costs changing and the quantity you needed to buy changing. Then we had a workshop where the learners made peanut butter and syrup (!) sandwiches, we calculated the cost of each sandwich, and discussed how pricing would need to take into account any fixed costs also (like the cost of a cart to store the sandwiches). This was pretty amusing because given our estimates (I think our tablespoon to gram estimate was way off!) the variable cost alone was more than the students thought was a fair price but that made for a good example of why keeping track of (and writing down) costs is a good idea. At some point Warric started drawing supply and demand curves and the learners already knew it! I was pretty impressed, and some of them were doing calculations in their heads faster than I was.
For the remainder of the session we worked through the business ideas of the learners: one wants to buy and resell sheets and other bedding, one wants to open a car wash, and one wants to sell jewelry. The jewelry example was a great one because this girl has identified a gap in the market at the low end, and wants to compete on price. So we went through her input costs, how she would market, etc., and all her plans there were also low cost so she probably intuitively understands why this is important but we used this also as an excuse to talk about the importance of a consistent strategy.
No debrief today so I went off to drop off my laundry and picked up a bottle of lychee-flavored sparkling water because I thought it was seltzer but it turns out to have sugar in it so I guess that makes it a soda but it’s really good! Found out later that we have free laundry service in the apartments (would have been nice to know that 32 rand ago, guys, but oh well).
We had a nice dinner at the same restaurant as last night. Tonight I tried kudu, which I guess is like an antelope? Anyway it was good; tasted a lot like buffalo. Tomorrow we are teaching the income statement, return on investment, and starting with marketing. Should be fun!
The picture below is from out the window of the school and I love it because this is just what I pictured a school in Africa would be like, and it is. Some of the schools are in much nicer areas and have better desks and white boards instead of chalkboards and maybe aren’t as drafty (there is a hole in the door to the classroom where the handle used to be!) but I’m glad I’m in a school in a township. Maybe tomorrow I’ll ditch the provided lunch and buy from the lady who sells food – yesterday she had chicken feet but today was rice & beans, which actually looked pretty good. We use her a lot as an example of an entrepreneur.
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