Mamadee Konneh, Chemo Konneh & Sheik Bongay - Mamadee Konneh United Blacksmith Shop

Name: Mamadee Konneh, Sheik Bongay & Chemo Konneh (from left to right)

Business name: Mamadee Konneh United Blacksmith Shop

Responding to the need for agricultural development in Liberia and the large number of war-affected Liberian youth, Mamadee Konneh and his brother Chemo began taking on apprentices and passing on their combined 90 years of blacksmithing experience by teaching them to produce agricultural implements and appropriate technologies products. Along with their business partner Sheik Bongay, they produce an impressive line of products, including their most famous product, the Freedom Mill palm nut grinder, which sells for around $600. The three sell their products through a network of retailers in the Liberian counties as well as Sierra Leone, Cote d’Ivoire and Guinea.

“We make mostly agricultural tools, any one thing you can think of,” says Sheik Bongay. “Cutlasses, hoes, buckets, rice mills, the Freedom Mill, cassava graters and many many more, too many to name.”

The business’ apprentices either become employees after completing their training, or go on to open their own blacksmith shops.

Business location: Ganta Highway, before the One Plus One intersection, Gbarnga

Number of employees: 3 owners plus 5 employees and currently 3 apprentices

When established: 2003

Startup capital: $300 USD

Opportunity for growth: “We have the plans in action to build a factory with a welding shop, blacksmith shop, office and showroom.”

Contact: Sheik Bongay +231 (0) 6773126

Mamadee Konneh +231 (0) 6201224

freedommillliberia@gmail.com

Theresa Davis - Quality Wear Center

Name: Theresa Davis

Business name: Quality Wear Center

Business location: Preston Street, Class Jewelry Shop, Buchanan

Theresa and her husband Matthew moved to Buchanan after getting married in 1996. She wanted to reopen the frozen fish shop that she had owned outside of Monrovia, but discovered that there was not a market for it in Buchanan, given the availability of fresh fish. Instead, she decided to go into the used clothing business and has been doing it ever since.

Theresa appreciated the business management taught to her when she joined LEAD in 2006 and she has successfully repaid two loans. With the income from her business Theresa is sending her three children to school.

Number of employees: 3

When established: 1999

Startup capital: $500 USD

Opportunity for growth: “I am currently joining with several other used clothes dealers and we are in the process of importing our own container of used clothing to allow for wider profit margins.”

Theresa would like to build a permanent shop and expand to multiple locations.

Contact: +231 (0) 6872757

Princess Kofa - OCEANS Waste Management

Name: Princess Kofa

Business name: Organization for Clean Environment and Neighborhood Services (OCEANS Waste Management)

Princess Kofa came to LEAD as part of a joint project between the Monrovia City Corporation and the International Labour Organization which brought in LEAD to provide business training and to service the loans for waste management companies being set up in Monrovia. OCEANS was provided with some equipment to clear backlogged waste in the MACOBENE Community and was then challenged to become a for-profit business. OCEANS currently serves over 500 residential households.

Kofa joined the mentoring program in January, 2010. She was the first client to be approved for LEAD’s largest loan product, which she hopes to use for the purchase of a pickup truck to more easily move trash to the garbage transfer station.

Service area: Mamba Point, Coconut Plantation, Benson Street and Newport Street (MACOBENE Community), Monrovia

Number of employees: 21

Established: 2007

Startup capital: $600 USD

Opportunity for growth: Further expanding OCEANS’ residential customer base as well as doing more business and government contractual work such as street and lot sweeping, drain cleaning, and regular collection of waste from deposit sites like the yellow drums around town.

What do you want out of your mentoring relationship? “Oh, I’ve even appreciate it a whole lot so far. I want to learn how to establish a larger customer base and how to build up the willingness to pay for the services. Also financial management, how to properly keep my records. I would like to get experience from outside Liberia to learn about how they go about waste management elsewhere.”

Contact: +231 (0) 6401165

keepclean2007@yahoo.com

Mama Sallie - Paulma's Guesthouse

Name: Mama Sallie

Business name: Paulma’s Guesthouse and Entertainment Center

After the war, Mama and her husband Paul returned to their home in Gbarnga. They reopened their provisions shop on Gbarnga’s Broad Street and used that business’ profits to slowly build the guesthouse and entertainment center. The business has grown to be one of the most popular spots in town, and is packed to capacity for the big football games. The two are currently looking into other businesses, including an event hall which is under construction near the police station.

Mama Sallie was the first client to participate in LEAD’s business mentoring program. She is paying off her current loan on time and considers applying for a $5,000 loan.

Business location: Baltimore Boulevard, Administrative Building intersection

Number of employees: 12

Established: 2007

Startup capital: $6000LD for the provisions shop

Opportunity for growth: Currently finishing an addition of 10 new rooms, bringing the capacity to 20 rooms.

How has being mentored affected your business? “Oh, it’s very fine. The couple mentoring me has been encouraging me in my business. My profits are up about $5000LD per day since I joined the mentoring program.”

Contact: +231 (0) 6420355

*PS: photo cred' to Karen Bulthuis for these first three client photos. Thanks Karen!

Isaiah Teah - Creative Joinery

Name: Isaiah K. Teah

Business name: Creative Joinery Furniture & Block Factory

Isaiah Teah joined LEAD in 2007 and used his first loan to purchase a cement block making machine because he noticed that there was a strong demand for machine made blocks in the Robertsfield highway area. He reinvested in the business and in 2009 was awarded a contract to make the blocks needed for the Central Investment Company’s project to produce low income housing for the Liberian government. He purchased two more machines and moved them to the job site off Marshall Highway in lower Margibi County.

Teah prides himself in being able to provide quality blocks at competitive prices. He is now maintains an inventory of up to 15,000 blocks. He applied for LEAD’s mentoring program, and began biweekly phone calls with his business mentor from Wyoming, Michigan in September of 2009.

Business location: Thinker’s Village, past Kendeja on Robertsfield Highway

Number of employees: 29 (mix of full time and contractual)

Established: 2005 as a furniture manufacturer, 2007 expanded to include a block factory

Startup capital: $3500 LD

Opportunity for growth: A truck to pick up materials and make deliveries. Construction has begun on a larger factory.

How has being mentored affected your business? “I have learned a lot of things when it comes to managing the business. I learned how to actually take care of the workers, how to manage the contracts, and how to talk to customers.”

Contact: +231 (0) 6561101

isaiahkteah@yahoo.com

Anthony Kollie - Determiner Medical Clinic

Hmm, 'Culture, part 3' needs some work before it gets posted, but I'm on a roll today and at a good internet connection so I figure I'll start on this. Over the next few weeks I'll be posting a number of brief profiles on some of LEAD's entrepreneurs, part of another project that I'm working on. Many of them are in LEAD's mentoring program, which is how I've gotten to know them, but not all of them are. In any case, these are all business entrepreneurs who have really impressed me and it is Liberian business owners like these that give me such hope for the country's future.

Name: Anthony Kollie

Business name: Determiner Medical Clinic

“We started, I would say, from scratch, meaning that we had to put our own energy to work to get started. After the war we returned to Gbarnga, our original home, and my wife and I, both nurses by profession, had a dream to establish our own business.”

Anthony and his wife Rose began by opening a pharmacy, but soon found themselves giving medical advice to their customers. They applied for government accreditation and used loan capital to build a clinic around their pharmacy, complete with a screening room, two admission rooms, an obstetrics room, a laboratory, and an office.

In January of 2009, Anthony joined LEAD’s newly launched domestic business mentoring program and was matched with Dr. Emmanuel Ekyinabah from Monrovia.

Business location: Far East Junction, Gbarbea Street, Gbarnga

Mission: “To serve the community of Gbarnga with good quality medicine, sound medical advice and clinical services.”

Number of employees: 7

Established: April 27, 2007 as a pharmacy; expanded to medical clinic August 24, 2009

Services offered: Screening and treatments, obstetrics, pharmaceutics, vaccinations and laboratory services

Startup capital: $2500 USD

Opportunity for growth: A motorcycle to make deliveries and home visits

How has being mentored affected your business? “Dr. Ekyinabah has taught me how to encourage my employees. He has also taught me about customer service and we are looking into way of providing more vaccinations in my clinic.

He relates to me like we are family. He just called me last week to wish me a good day and he is planning on coming up soon to visit me in person and see what I am doing for himself.”

Contact: +231 (0) 6477033

determinerar@yahoo.com

The past three weeks, a few photos.

Hey everyone!

I realize that the blog has been fairly void of pictures lately. For that I apologize but, frankly, its not always easy uploading photos. Here's few to get us going.

James Nowell holding up the power point presentation for Rentia Reed

when our generator (and therefore projector) cut out.

For more photos of what I've been up to recently check out my Picasa page atpicasaweb.google.com/Derek.Hoogland.

Charlesetta Fneah (Charlie) ((Chah-lay)) signing in guest for LEAD's Montserrado County conference.

However, here's a few shots from the last three weeks or so when LEAD hosted a number of international guests who were coming to tap into various aspects of what we are doing here. It was also when LEAD hosted four micro-conferences in four of our six counties. The theme of the conferences was 'Gaining the Edge with Customer Satisfaction' and we also covered Business As Mission (BAM). Anywho, it was great fun tromping around Liberia for a bit, getting to know our international visitors, and discussing with over 450 Liberian businessowners the importance of customer service for business growth.

Mamadee Konneh, myself, his brother Chemo, their business partner Sheik Bongay and Dick Ammons at Mamadee Konneh United Blacksmith Shop.

Culture, part 2: Redlight

Another pair of concepts I found myself going back to is that of the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’, and the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’; two similar but slightly nuanced concepts. The tragedy of the commons implies that when there is a common resource (and a resource could be a multitude of things) it is in each person’s own personal best interest to exploit that common resource as much as possible. You see, if there were a limited number of fish in the sea, and everyone were to limit themselves, the resource would last, and everyone would benefit. However, everyone exploited the resource, it would soon be depleted.

Now if an individual were to look at the situation, it is in that one person’s best interest to defect from the common good and fish as much as possible because if they exploit the fish and everyone else does not, they come out better, and if they exploit it but everyone else does, well then they at least got it while the getting’ was good. If he or she doesn’t exploit the fish, then they either get the same as everyone else (not more) or they don’t exploit it while everyone else does and they get very little.

The prisoner’s dilemma is similar. It’s basically this: if you’re a prisoner and you have a chance to escape, but know that the guards would certainly execute everyone if they discovered someone had escaped, it is in your best interest to try to escape. You see, if there are other prisoner’s, they too will know this, so they will try to escape. If one person tries to escape but no others do, then one gets free but all the others suffer the consequences. If they all escape, then they all go free, but in either case, it’s always better to be trying to escape, whether or not anyone else is.

The best (and personally the most infuriating) example I can give you of this in Liberia is the ‘busy intersection’ example. Traffic laws in Liberia, are the same as or worse than most developing countries: all but non-existent. With poor roads, no stoplights, and too many vehicles on the road, backed up intersections are common. Insert our aforementioned concepts: the intersection, in Redlight for example (an ironic name for the intersection, given that there is no longer a stop (red) light there and that it is the most notorious intersection in the country), was designed to have one lane going in and out in each of the three intersecting roads.

If everyone waits their turn, everyone will progress at a slow, but moderate (and fair) pace. However, one driver decides to drive on the shoulder and pass everyone else (you’ve seen this on the freeways of North America too. They get ahead, while the rest of us suckers stay behind. Unfortunately, when that car ultimately gets to the intersection, they have to merge once again which slows down the entire progression. Eventually, you get thee lanes of traffic entering the intersection from each of the three directions, and less than one lane exiting the intersection because of all of the cars taking over and blocking the outgoing traffic…. so we all sit in our cars, breath in diesel fumes, honk the horn, and mutter impolite words under our breath, or out loud.

[the solution: drive a motorcycle, and avoid the situation entirely]

Coping with Culture

In any semi long-term international/cross-cultural stay, it is common to experience phases where your mood and mindset changes. It’s very much linked to where you are in relation to how long it’s been since you arrived in country, and how long it’ll be before you leave for home. For some people, these phases can be little more than passing moods, for others it can play out to the extremes.

I’ve always found myself experiencing these phases as well. For me, they typically play out in subtle ways, but they are certainly there. On this most recent trip, my initial ‘low phase’ occurred over Christmas break. Not feeling too settled socially, feeling unproductive as a staffmember of LEAD, missing folks back home, and still not understanding so much about Liberian culture, I became edgy and found any daily activity outside of the safety of my gated apartment complex to be a difficult one.

My coping method for this phase has always been to become deeply analytical. I try to address everything that I’m going through, and then rationalize why I was feeling that way. After drafting part of this around that time, I decided to hold off on posting it, at least until I could feel comfortable sending it under a more stable mindset. So when I found a rough version of this post stranded on my desktop a few weeks ago, I figured it was time to give it another shot. Its always a trick situation when you are analyzing an entire population's culture, but I'll try to tread carefully, but honestly and I only hope this will give you some idea of my thought processes.

The very first thing I had to keep reminding myself was this: Liberia is not a ‘developing country’; it, like a number of other African countries like Sierra Leone, Rwanda, DRC, Republic of Congo, Uganda, Sudan, Angola (the list goes on) are ‘post-conflict’ countries. This means that these countries have most or all of the challenges facing developing countries, as well as an entirely different set of issues to be addressed that come as a result of having recently emerged from armed conflict.

My first thoughts went back to 10th grade ‘Challenge and Change in Society’, taught by Mr. Roukema. If I remember anything from the class, it was the time we spent learning about Abraham Maslow and his ‘Hierarchy of Needs’. If you're not familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs, he basically says that humans meet their needs in the order of priority going from greatest to least immediately important. He breaks up humans’ needs into five categories (physiological needs, safety, love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization) and says that while humans need to experience all five levels in order to fully express themselves, they will naturally chose the first fulfill those most important for their continued existence first.

This is an interesting concept once applied to Liberia. Imagine an entire country where, for 25 years during the political instability, the top three (love/belonging, esteem, self-actualization) were largely inaccessible because of the incredible difficulty getting the first two (physiological needs, safety). Keeping this in mind has allowed me to gain a little bit of understanding when it comes to certain Liberian cultural behaviors.

This turned out to be quite a long post once I figured it out. So I’ll let you chew on that for a day or two while I figure out my thoughts for parts 2 and 3.