REPORTS

September 2007

PROGRESS REPORT ON PA BUSINESS INCUBATOR
This month at the Incubator we:

• Completed the expansion of the incubator with additional 3 young entrepreneurs joining as incubatees. They have settled in and there business ideas are very promising. With the lessons we learned from the first incubatees we are being careful to ensure that these three new incubatees work hard at these initial stages to lift off in the shortest time possible.
• Three of the businesses (identity Media, Benart Marketing and Oval publicity) have been experiencing some great opportunities for businesses and have realized initial returns. With hard work, these are businesses that can turn over to profitability before the end of their one year incubation. However, they need constant encouragement and sometimes close supervision. You can see more details in their reports attached.

B2M (Benard Osapiri)	IDENTITY (Dan Omondi)

OVAL PUBLICITY (Titus Mwangi)	INNOVATIVE DESIGN (Seth Busolo)

• One business that seemed most promising to us (Innovative designs) has been lagging behind in most of its goals. We have noticed a lack of seriousness in the proprietor, many times setting targets that he does not follow through. We have done a lot to encourage him but still seriousness lacks and we are now considering asking him to leave the incubator if he does not show drastic improvement.

We thank the CBMC team for establishing a message board designed to provide virtual mentorship for our young entrepreneurs. We are in the initial stage of making this tool workable with young people. We are facing two major challenges on implementing this tool:

• This is a new technological idea that most of our young people have not used before. It is hard to know exactly how to make sense of what should transpire on the board
• The whole principle of relationships – where our young people have no idea who is on the other side and what exactly to say to the people you have never met before.
• There is a general feeling differing environments of doing business where most of the issues affecting the young people now might have to do more with what they need to do here on the ground. As such a struggle of how to make relevant the relationship with the people in the USA.

A system of peer education was also introduced. We assign topics to different incubatees and encourage them to research and make a presentation to the rest for further group discussion. This is aimed at keeping our incubatees challenged and seeking for ways to solve the problems they are facing among themselves.
Every second Wednesday of the month we bring in a local resource person talk on an area of common interest among the incubatees. This month an advocate practicing in Nairobi called Edith generously made time and expounded on the issue of partnerships and partnership agreements.
The weekly bible study has proven to be a good time to get instructed in biblical principles of doing business. With topics of discussion ranging from balance, co-operation, confrontation, manipulation and negotiation etc.
We met a new contact with Antonina whose parents are working with poor youth in one of the largest slums of Nairobi to explore how PA’s business incubator can partner with them to help empower the youth to become entrepreneurs. These youth would otherwise become street youth because of the challenges of getting employment with their level of education. We will explore this further in the coming months to develop a way forward.
We were also privileged to have Pastor Joe Davis from the free Evangelical fellowship of Orange Country California pay us a visit. This was a great time of impartation to our incubatees from the wealth of wisdom from an individual who has experience in both business and ministry.
In September we also initiated the payback plan. The plan encourages the incubatees to start repaying for the costs incurred not later than the 6th month of their incubation. The plan provides opportunity for them to either pay in cash or kind. In kind they can provide services and products needed by PA and the cost debited on their account.
We have also been making deliberate effort to involve our incubatees in community service. In September 2 incubatees joined us for our community work in Mbeere area, 3 hours drive from Nairobi where they participated in student mentorship programs.

The above efforts have helped us create the incubator as a holistic place for development spiritually, intellectually and in business. Specific business progress is as highlighted below:

Challenges being experienced in running the business incubator:

• Lack of an outgoing, aggressive spirit and passion to grow the business among the incubatees. They want to see the business grow but still they need to understand and appreciate that growing a business is hard work and passion.
• Great lack of understanding of the art of marketing and selling among the incubatees
• Capital constraints. PA is only providing basic office facilitation. Beyond that the incubatees need capital to develop and market their goods and services. Low capital places great constraints on most of them to be competitive in advancing their businesses.
• Lack of the capacity to adequately train the young entrepreneurs and lack of a formal curriculum and resources to use in training the entrepreneurs, hence have been sourcing as we progress.
• Programme is not yet sustainable.