Interview with Taddy Blecher, CIDA City Campus, South Africa’s first virtually free university, Johannesburg, http://www.cida.co.za/ http://www.cidafoundation.org/
by Sofia Bustamante,
sofia@turnupthecourage.com
What would be your big wish for a
whole lot of people to collaborate around (projecting into the future), in relation to CIDA or education?
We have this very big wish of replicating university and vocational education across Africa and we’d need a huge amount of multi-disciplinary
skills. We would want to use, for example, sustainable technologies: if there are people who are experts in solar, biodiesel
- that’s a huge help. The information technology side is very important. We need help from People who are wizards at
IT skills -creating for example satellite-based broadband or implementing open source software solutions.
We would love to find people who are very interested
in capturing African mythology -things like storytelling, drama and crafts. We are looking for people so that all of our campuses
would have businesses associated with them. So people who have had expertise in construction using wood and local materials,
people who have expertise in tourism, and bringing in tourists, and people who have expertise in organic agriculture. Those
are all things that we’d need a lot of help with.
.
So the vision is testing replicable sustainable technologies and using IT technologies that can connect it all up?
That’s it. And entrepreneurship to make these campuses self-sufficient - making them African
and interesting culturally –as well as uniting sustainable aspects of tourism, construction, architecture and technology.
And who are the people/institutions that you see as driving this and that you would love to connect
with more to make this happen
Bunker Roy’s Barefoot College http://barefootcollege.org/ in India,
he’s a world class social entrepreneur. And then there is the solar electric light foundation http://self.org/. We know both of them and they have got
the solar technology and they could train us. It’s expensive for the panels and bringing them out to train people or
sending people to them to get trained. So currently in this area of solar technology, we have to deal with export organisations.
However with Information Technology, any big or grid IT technology company could help us, as well
as any company that does things like satellite and IT implementations. Any technology company could help.
In terms of agriculture, we’ve got two of our graduate students trained in a wonderful technology,
called Grow-Bio Intensive but if there are any people who have worked with this method around the world it would be enormously
helpful if they could come and help. And right now we have acres of ground that we would love to plant. If somebody had knowledge
of that they could work with our students, and our graduates.
What is Grow-Bio Intensive?
Grow Bio Intensive http://growbiointensive.org/ -
It’s a type of perma-culture. So people who have got knowledge in perma-culture or Grow-Bio Intensive would be fantastic.
On the construction side, people who have experience in project management,
in construction, or have had experience in whole log building or working with wood and carpentry and allied trades. Any of
those people could be of unbelievable value.
We are
interested in connecting people across disciplines. How do you see more of that happening in relationship to education CIDA
and South Africa? And pin-pointing the Branson School of Entrepreneurship
Yes that
is an area, for people who would like to come and help mentor young entrepreneurs and help them build businesses. That is
a great opportunity.
We have also started something called innovation town http://innovationtown.co.za/ , which promotes innovation – because people think of Africa as so backward. We want people to know how much innovation is happening,
at grassroots levels - so we need people who are fascinated about the field of innovation. Researching and finding ideas that
people have come up with, showcasing those – we can have annual innovation awards helping disseminate practical innovation
into South African schools as part of the curriculum. This is desperately needed because people learn boring dry theory and
come out of schools unable to create anything. That is another very big wish of ours: to get entrepreneurial education into
all of our schools. Right across Africa and certainly
in South Africa it is very much needed.
And then around the world…
We need people who are interested in sponsoring students either through CIDA or across schools. There are so many kids
who could be in university or vocational schools who aren/t because there is no money.
Other things that you would like help with?
Any curriculum that any of your members are writing - we’d
absolutely love to have access to it. And there is a stunning open –source curriculum that we have been cataloguing
as well. So if you have members that are looking for curricula in different areas we could also make that available. Because
curricula is an amazing thing to share, and once you have done development work and if everyone is in the same space trying
to do good for the world, I mean they should just be sharing it
On your personal journey Taddy, are there any turning points that made you commit to CIDA?
For me, it’s a deep knowledge that it is possible to change the world. It is completely possible
for people to not live in such poverty and such suffering.
It’s
a knowledge that it can be done. And then having done it, working now for 12 years in non profit work and it just seems that
massive impact can be done in every sector.
Every day is a turning point
and it’s about continually committing to a vision of really creating a beautiful society and knowing that that’s
possible.
So many people get stuck in a life that doesn’t really
make a difference in the lives of others and it always leaves some kind of emptiness. People are sitting with huge dreams
inside but they’re still worried about paying the mortgage and so on. I think there are so many more opportunities than
people could ever imagine to actually do what they love and earn a living and that life is so precious. I always try and share
that message with people: that it doesn’t matter what they believe in but they should get out there and do what they
believe in.
Yes I can think of so many people
that are in that situation
The vast majority of people
I meet are not fulfilled when you really talk to them about what’s really going on in their lives and they just so desperately
want a life of more meaning but they are just too scared
Was
it a journey for you or how did you find fulfilment. Did you search for it?
I think it’s finding what you are really deeply passionate about
and good at. It just creates overwhelming fulfilment in your life. With CIDA our whole initial impetus was about human development
and we were using things like transcendental meditation to help students
in developing their potential. It’s a very important experiment of what a human being could be. It is so untenable
– it is so ignored by the education system - the infinite potential of a person.
One has to try ideas. We had an idea of starting a free university. You know we could never have imagined. You know
CIDA was just an idea! [laugh] We were completely innocent and naïve!
People have
to try things and you don’t necessarily find it on day one but you walk a journey and things light up.
It’s very important to experiment with things.
Have you
seen the Michael Jackson video? He is walking and then the little blocks in the road light up. I am not saying this for a
Michael Jackson promotion. But I think when you talk to a lot of social entrepreneurs, it is exactly what happens to them.
There is no certainty other than an inner compass and a gut feeling inside you.
You have been quoted as having said that awards are
not why you do this and that you have done as many things wrong as well as right! Failure is important as well as success
don’t you think, and that it must not be a taboo especially as a social entrepreneur. What is one failure that you are proud of?
[laugh] Well I think we have hundreds. I think that there are things that are failures and then others that one deeply
believes in that are maybe not yet mainstream.
A very big failure that we
made in the beginning – well we had absolutely no money and we ended up hiring more staff and paying them very low salaries
- cos we thought that if someone is unemployed it would be more meaningful
to them - and we thought that hiring 5 staff instead of 3 and then pay them each less and then
spread the money but it just ends up creating dissatisfaction in people. Then you end up paying more for the kind of people
that don’t actually add the kind of value that you want.
We are really
now trying to get really good people and we have brought in a whole lot of managers in CIDA and we have put fantastic people
in. We are paying them a lot more but that’s been a big learning.
Yes thank you for sharing the failure. It is helpful to show people that you are real!
Yes – one thing is absolutely for sure. It is as real as real can be. It is living on the edge.
It’s so different to working in a big corporate. You don’t have anything. You are creating everything out of nothing.
People don’t necessarily believe in the vision and you just have to have incredible faith in what you do.
HUBS http://hubsworld.tv/ - we see as centres where anyone is welcome: empowering community,
social entrepreneurs .openness, clarity of purpose (ie this is for all the community, or this
is for social entrepreneurs or this is for people with certain values). Do you see a need for Hubs as real places for interconnection?
I’m a great believer in that and two great examples of
Hubs that I think are unbelievable: One is the Skoll forum for social entrepreneurship http://www.skollfoundation.org/skollcentre/skoll_forum.asp http://www.ashoka.org/node/979 . It is just a complete an utter thrill, sharing with others social entrepreneurs, hearing
their life stories, hearing what they are grappling with on a day to day basis, their unbelievable courage and the things
they are doing. The Skoll hub is world class. It makes a big difference.
Another
kind of hub – an entrepreneurial hub - that a very dear friend has created is in South
Africa. It’s called The Business Place http://www.thebusinessplace.co.za/ Lisa Kropman came up with the idea, that entrepreneurs who
start a business maybe have to get advice from different places – here from an accountant, there from a lawyer, and
then from somewhere else perhaps get help with drawing up a business plan. And she thought what if we could co-locate and
create a hub with all these services under one roof. And each service provider can pay their rent. It’s
extraordinary. She has already created 7. Soon she will soon have 10 of these hubs all over South Africa and then into other countries over Africa as well. They run on virtually no money. One to two million rand a year
is needed for the main helpdesk when people come in. The rest are the service providers that pay their own rent.
It’s an example of a Hub concept that is fantastic and I think we could do that in many different
areas of social enterprise. We can create hubs in different fields. You can think of mothers who need help
with all aspects of having a baby and you could get a hub around that. And people that are farmers that want to know all different
aspects of knowing foods, marketing their crops, managing a farm.
There are
so many types of Hubs. I think Hubs are an amazing concept. SoMoHo (Soweto Mountain of Hope) http://somoho.org/ :
that is unbelievable – an amazing space. That is where they making handbags out of plastic and so on - an extraordinary
concept.
Do you see CIDA as a kind of Meta-Hub?
There is no question about it. It’s interesting - When
I used to walk out each night in the early days I used to know everything that was going on and all the people around. Now
[laugh] there are streams of people coming in and out. You walk out and there are all kind of youth groups, all kinds
of cultural activities and who knows what! It’s incredible. It has become a platform for so many hub activities.
We see Meta-Hubs as connecting the grassroots- the micro
with the macro – empowering systems that can scale hi-trust?
Yes – there are all kinds of endeavours like that and different people working on different things but it’s
exactly your point. It becomes a connector. All these connections get formed and one cannot fathom where they came from and
where they are going. There are amazing initiatives. There are people working with all kind of different community groups
in different places. Then we have people within CIDA helping them connect up with government and connecting with
all types of things and connecting with funders. I often help - (there are some students that are doing amazing projects in
communities) -to link them up with our donors and various companies that can help them and people that can mentor them.
We saw CIDA as a kind of Meta-Hub. One of Africa’s larger hubs: having a strong role in connecting
the micro with the macro?
Right, that definitely does
fit.
And we are trying to connect corporates with our students, as
well students within the university getting parents involved. We try to bring in different sectors and connect them all up.
And there are infinite opportunities where we think every day- we could have done this or should have done
that, and there is not enough time. But what is interesting is that many of these things spontaneously
show up!
Yes – the self-organisation! Then it sounds like it’s the success it could be.
Exactly - often when I walk around I think
‘wow that is incredible.’
On student
engagement with the community: What is your Reflection –what’s been the learning around that, about how the transfer
happens?
It has been fascinating. We have an amazing woman
who heads that up. Nicole Antonie. She has a small staff and works with students directly.
We build training into the curriculum each week in each of our different years, and students learn
about what they are going to end up teaching in their community and then also research skills. They do a lot of market research
back in their communities. Then they get facilitation skills because they are going to impart this knowledge, and so on.
And generally I think some of the big learnings that we have had on the programme are: firstly it’s
just a wonderful thing to do that I think we should be doing in every university around this country and probably around Africa. And that there is an amazing knowledge and passion sitting
in young people at that level. But if only could take this back to schools all over the country! There
is a report that Nicole just sent out which said that more than 50% of students talk about an incredible level of depression
in schools… Where they don’t think it’s even worth going to school… Where they don’t have
hope or vision or future so a lot of kids drop out of school.
So I think
we are about exploring a very powerful method - for our students to change themselves. Because what you teach to others you
learn twice. It develops in them a great sense of honour and value and service and dignity and refinement. It has a wonderful
effect on the students. And you can often see when students come back from their holiday and they’ve all been out teaching,
there is a tremendous excitement and you can see that they feel different, because they have now switched from student to
teacher. From taking to giving and that’s a beautiful change.
In the communities,
I think what we have learnt is it’s very good to work with the same people over again. The programme was wonderful in
the beginning but it was all big numbers. Literally you had a student pulling out 100 people - sitting under a tree and then
teaching them a concept but then half of them can’t even hear and maybe there are not enough materials to go around
and the classes are too big and so we have come down to groups of 30 that they work with, and they even can work with less
if that is going to be meaningful over a 4 year period. And then what the idea is that in their final year with their group
of students, they can now help teach the whole school and that is a very wide intervention. But through time it becomes a
deeper demonstration: by spreading the knowledge of these kind of clubs and what they have learnt and that
they are exciting and showing what role models they have produced.
Peer to
Peer education is vital. It’s so important to put power back into young people’s hands so that they don’t
just feel powerless and they really feel that they can use their own innovation their own creativity back in their own communities
and the things that our students come up with are nothing short of staggering.
So, young
people with no resources- the level with which they dream, the things that they do, the amount of funds they end up raising
– it’s just fantastic.
Do
you have one example? Any one that impressed you?
There are
so many wonderful examples. There is Mkeke who got a million books out around the country and he used CIDA’s bus and
truck and then there is a student who has set up two computer labs in former settlements who got them powered up with internet
and then there is a student who has created his own school for artists which takes place in Orange Farm – a squatter
camp. There is program called “street family” where students go and feed street kids. Every Tuesday night they
cook food in our kitchen. They feed them and sit with them and they also try and help them find homes. They also go work with
crèches and orphanages. Beautiful initiatives. Nicole is keeping track of these. It’s just very inspiring to
see what people are doing of their own initiative.
Thank you
for the examples. It’s the ones that touch people that carry their own story. It’s so powerful.
That’s exactly right. And actually, it’s the whole way we think of education. That every
individual is an unbelievable unique thing: the only one of a kind on the planet, and has their own immense potential, and
if you can help unfold that. It is unfathomable what different people will create - you could never even imagine it. It’s
like gardening- you put the little seed and you water and love it and nurture it and immense things come out of that.
Taddy you are doing incredible work and thank you for your
time.
*****
Links to some further collaborations emerging around CIDA and South Africa
Branson School of Entrepreneurship at CIDA: http://www.virginunite.com/view_content.phtml?id=211
Empowerment Fund http://www.cidafund.co.za/bee3.html
Women
on the Move http://www.sagoodnews.co.za/search/education/327482.htm
Oprah Winfrey, Mandela and friends of CIDA Foundation http://www.cidafoundation.org/acclaim.html
youtube videos of CIDA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMmKM9wAOcc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgwf1HniVT4
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