Step 1: We know that the case takes place in Lesotho, a small and very poor country completely surrounded by South Africa. The purpose of the study is to understand and track a disease causing pathogen that is known to be present in fresh water sources. The 11 researchers and I want look at how locals store water as well and test the water for this pathogen. The test is quick and easy to do.

Step 2: Some important stakeholders are the community members, researchers, healthcare providers, the government of Lesotho, and the funding sources (like a university or other donors).

Step 3: Motivations

community members: In this specific context, their largest motivations would be their own well being/health and the opportunity to make money.

Researchers: They are likely motivated by their work both in terms of potential societal benefits and social and professional recognition that comes with a project such as this.

Government: They certainly care about the well being of their citizens, but maybe more important to them might be leveraging an impactful project they facilitated into votes and portraying to the outside world a sense of self determination while still seeking necessary help.

Grant funders: They hopefully share the same motivations as the researchers. They should be aligned and in this case I think they likely are.

Healthcare Workers: As professionals, the health of the community is the primary concern.

Step 4: Solutions

Solution 1: Pay anyone who helps you a fair wage for the amount of time they dedicated to your work. This seems like something Kant would approve of (duty based). This would improve relationships with the community and maybe you will get better info. There of course could be complications if people are being payed differently or are unhappy with what you pay them. It could also be costly.

Solution 2: Compensate in means other than money such as meal(s). We called this virtue based. I think this mostly has the same pros as solution 1. The only foreseeable issues are how much people get and any unhappiness they get from not receiving money.

Solution 3: Don’t pay them anything. This is consequence based thinking. In the end this research will likely benefit them and their help is completely voluntary. This will be great in terms of cost. The most problematic consequence of this is that the most helpful people may be unwilling to help for free.

Step 5: In my personal experience, people in these kinds of settings expect to be payed for this kind of work, especially when white people are involved. It always worked well for us to pay them.

Step 6: Based on prior solutions and the facts of the case, solution 1 seems like it would work the best. This is because our data will be better if we ensure that we have the most helpful people working with us. The quality of the data is directly reliant on the quality of the help we get. Our first step would be to determine who we want to work for us wand what a fair wage is.

Step 7: Community members will now likely seek money in the future for any similar work. This could be problematic for other researchers in the future.

 

1: I learned how to grow oyster mushrooms in Sierra Leone!

I learned that everyone we work has their own unique stories and divulging in them can help improve cross cultural understanding and build lasting relationships.

I learned to be more optimistic. I will never succeed in anything if I think I’ll fail before I even start. That comes from my own project but also from observing the other projects and their team members interactions with each other.

2: I learned a lot about the skill of negotiating by practicing such often in the market. It was often easier to negotiate if I made my attempts at a lower price in a less serious manner. In laughing with the vendors about how absurd their overcharge of me was I got lower prices than last year despite the overall rise in prices

My decision making had always been pretty indecisive, but in taking a leadership role this year I realized that I had to make a decision and actually enforce it. Even with Jawara, I think it was helpful to often take the approach of being friends, but when I needed him to do something, I changed my tone so that he knew I was talking as his boss.

If there is one main difference between Krio and English it is the length and specificity of sentences. I often found that the longer I spoke the less people seemed to understand or want to listen. I think giving shorter instructions lead to greater success in communication. Having to think about communication this carefully definitely helped me to improve my communication skills.

3: While I am usually open to trying new things, I have never really been an initiator of it. Even though I had already been to Sierra Leone, many of the things we still had to do were new and uncomfortable. I think I got much better at initiating something that I might not be in fact fully comfortable with. It is the only way to keep growing as a person.

Over the semester we talked a lot about improvisation and expecting things to go wrong. Our project especially is very materials oriented, which can be a huge problem considering few if any of the resources we had is the USA are available in Sierra Leone. At mountaintop we also talked to a Matt Sicher about his mushroom farm and how you can adapt a wide variety of materials to suit your needs. We applied this exactly in every aspect of the project

I learned a lot about putting trust in other people and yourself/what you know. In the last week I was pessimistic about us getting mushrooms even though I knew we did exactly what we were trying to do in terms of processes and that enough time had not passed. Belle however was optimistic that we would be successful.

 

An ideal design process for me would involve significant idea generation with a subsequent detailed comparison of the merits of each idea. I am idea oriented but not always focused enough on the details to be a decisive decision maker in a design process. Thus, a process more fitting to me would involve extra focus on the details and a more careful and drawn out consideration than I am used to.

My view of the design is really not very relevant I would need some way to find out if the end user of the design actually likes it. The business model can only be validated once you know if the assumptions of the model are valid, which comes from actual data. But significant work can be done to ensure that they are at least close. This likely involves some time of market analysis and some surveying of end users and any other key partners

While I cannot truly experience what members of a community vastly different from my own do on a daily basis, I can at least try to build the most informed understanding possible. It’s not enough to know what they think, but how. Understanding how a community functions makes engaging with that community a much easier task. It’s also important for the community to have some sense of ownership or empowerment from what you are doing. If the community does not feel this way than you likely need to reevaluate either the project or you engagement strategy.

https://www.usaid.gov/div/

The USAID Development Innovation Ventures Stage 1 Proof of Concept grant is a good grant for us to apply to because its open for applications at any time and awards up to $200,000 for up to 3 years for testing a creative solution to a global development challenge. Our proposal would focus on our current research and projections of how much money the mushroom farm could make and how many people it can offer jobs to along with plans for scaling up.

https://www.epa.gov/P3/learn-about-p3-program

EPA P3 Program which stands for People, Prosperity and the Planet promotes teams of college students to better the planet and future for doing research in topics related to their P3 goals, including sustainable healthy communities, which relates to our project. We would first be applying for Phase 1 of the grant which is a one year grant of $25,000 to test, research, and develop innovative scientific projects or engineering designs that promote development, and serves as a proof of concept for research ideas. Completing Phase 1 would allow us to apply for the Phase 2 grant which is 100,000 to further the project from Phase 1. Our funding proposal would emphasize the sustainability of growing mushrooms and how it will create a healthier community by creating jobs along with delivering a nutritious product. Though we applied to it before and were rejected, we would hone in on what we’ve accomplished and relate it to sustainable healthy communities more.

Dissemination Grants

 

https://www.usaid.gov/div/

The USAID Development Innovation Ventures Stage 3 Scaling would be for the scaling of our mushroom production factories. It provides between $1,500,000 to $5,000,000 for up to 3 years. With success, this grant fits the goals of our venture to spread its success. For applying, we would use data from the success of the single mushroom production factory in Sierra Leone for the proof of concept and scalability as well as demand to show success possibilities with scaling with the grant.

https://laidlawfdn.org/funding-opportunities/scaling-impact/

The Laidlaw Scaling Impact grants range from $25,000 to $100,000 a year for up to 3 years. They support youth projects that impact communities and that overall better the lives of young people and community driven. With our venture hoping to better the youth unemployment rate in Sierra Leone, that is what we would be targeting in the application. The application is a 2 step process that starts with an Expression of Interest. With proof of concept with one factory, we will show the need and anticipated success with scaling which would also give more job opportunities to the unemployed youth.

One Acre Fund

Key Partners:  Small time Farmers, Micro-finance/loan institutions, Fertilizer and seed suppliers, NGO donors/funds, and donors

Key Activities: Training farmers, Financing, distribution to markets, market facilitation, fundraising, impact assessment, finding and vetting farmers, outreach

Key Resources: Training/on the ground staff, donations, impact statistics,

Value Proposition: Farmers- Sustainable increases in yields and income. Donors: Money used to create positive impact through a sustainable and effective proven strategy.

Customer Relationships: Convenience of delivery, impactful and useful training, trust between One Acre and farmers, Flexible loans, transparency with donors and potential donors.

Customer Segments: Small Farmers, donors

Channels: Website, delivery vans, word of mouth by farmers, donors tell each other about One Acre

Revenue Stream: Grants, donations, farmers (loans)

Cost Structure: Salaries for training staff/transportation, delivery of fertilizer and seeds, low overheads, market facilitation, advertising, finding new farmers