No 146: Coming 4th in the Bean-Bag Race….

When I was 6 the school sports day was an emotional rollercoaster. The fast kids, y’know the ones who actually had an inkling of sporting prowess, would be chosen for the 100 yard sprint. We adored those kids, they were the school heroes. Being a progressive school, it was important to find fulfilling roles for the less able. Children who displayed good balance got to compete in the egg-and-spoon race. Those who were good at team work participated in the three-legged race. There was even a race for those children who could dress themselves really, really quickly (at 6, speed is everything). It involved running 20 yards, putting on some very baggy grown-up trousers and a coat, running another 20 yards, stripping off and then belting it towards the finish line. It got a laugh if nothing else. Those who were natural entertainers tended to compete in that race.

And then there was the race for the children who showed no real talent whatsoever. This was the beanbag race. It involved carrying a beanbag while walking (not running!) as quickly as you could to the other side of the field. I was always in the beanbag race. And I never won.

Last night I found my memories drawn back 40 years to my bean-bag racing days. My wife and I had been invited to a special high-status Awards Dinner. Dressed in our best bib-and-tucker we headed into central London and entered the prestigious and historic Institute of Directors building off Pall Mall. We allowed ourselves a brief moment where we dared to believe that tonight our little business, Isle, would finally be recognised. This was, after all, a proper Institute of Directors event and we had been invited along as a potential ‘winner’. We were not sure what category we had been entered for, but it felt pretty good just to be there, in the room, surrounded by the elite.

As we entered the pwc-sponsored dining hall and picked up our event brochure we learnt three important things. Firstly we, along with the other 30 or so companies attending, had been shortlisted from over 300 entrants. I confess that this made me feel a little special. Secondly that we had been entered for the ‘Chairman’s Award for Corporate Social Responsibility’. Again, I felt a little surge of pride. We set up a foundation in Isle a few years ago that supports water entrepreneurs in developing countries. Thirdly, that we had been shortlisted against three other companies. A £100m+ turnover hotel chain (the Arora Group), a £500m turnover IT support business (Softcat) and a tiny catering firm called Ella’s Kitchen. Reading the bumpf it was clear that Ella’s Kitchen was the rightful winner for their work to ‘improve children’s lives by developing a healthy relationship with food’.

As Jeremy Vine took to the stage to entertain us, I sat back and pretended I didn’t care if I lost. It was a lie of course, but I am only human. Our table cheered loudly and vociferously when Isle’s name was mentioned in the shortlist (which was jolly nice of them as 2 hours earlier we had not known each other) but it was not to be our night. The award went to the hotel chain Arora Group. Slightly worryingly when asked to comment on what his CSR contribution was the CEO responded with ‘At Arora we look after our staff like they are family and our clients like they are royalty’, which felt like he had not quite understood the question.

I am not bitter. I am sure the judges knew what they were doing. It was good just to be there. Sometimes just holding the beanbag is enough.

No 145: Arabic House Parties

I have been in Abu Dhabi this week. One of my meetings was with a very senior local who has recently been promoted into a position of significant power and influence. Whilst it would make the following anecdote substantially more newsworthy to include his name I have decided to keep him anonymous. This is partly to protect him from any embarrassment, but mostly it is to ensure that I can return without fear of an unpleasant search at customs.

Our meeting was billed a ‘get-to-know-you’ session and was somewhat akin to speed-dating. I babbled away furiously for 5 minutes hoping that something from the verbal diatribe spilling from my mouth might strike a chord with my new Arabic friend. For reasons that still are not clear to me, the British Royal Family became a key topic. My host recounted how he had once met Prince Philip with a local Head of State. The Prince, displaying an audacity that has become his trademark, enquired of the Head of State ‘So why do you wear that funny white thing on your head?’.

Makes one proud to be British.

Fortunately it was laughed off. The Middle East has a deep respect for elders and at 94 one is pretty much allowed to say whatever one likes. Or at least you are if you are a Prince.

Our conversation moved on from the social ineptitude of British royals (Whooosh - there goes my knighthood) to a story about a house party that the wife of my new Arabic chum had recently thrown. It was a Bedouin themed party and, to create a realistic desert-Nomad vibe they had moved all their carpets into the garden and set up a big tent with burning incense and elaborately coloured cushions. The food and music was designed to faithfully celebrate the ancient Bedouin traditions. I suspect there was even the odd camel and goat adding authenticity.

As the guests arrived my host welcomed them one by one. One lady, displaying a lack of social grace that beggar belief, turned to the host and said ‘Is this really how you still live?’. All credit to my new friend. He looked her squarely in the eyes and replied ‘Why yes. This is exactly how we live’.

Prince Philip would have been so proud.

No 144: How much would you pay to have your own toilet: One days salary? One week? One month?

In Vietnam the price to have a simple, basic sanitation system installed in your home is around $300. For much of the rural population the average salary is less than $1/day. The maths just doesn’t work. Who would spend a years’ salary on a toilet? The health and hygiene benefits associated with good sanitation are well documented, but aid programmes that have given latrines away have tended to fail spectacularly. Aside from being prohibitively expense, the latrines fall into disrepair or are not used. For a sanitation programme to be effective it needs local buy-in.

The US charity Thrive Networks (formerly East Meets West) is working closely with the Gates Foundation to address this problem. Over the past 3 years they have installed over 170,000 latrines in the homes of some of the poorest people in SE Asia. Their model is awesome. They don’t give away latrines, but instead they create the demand and then supply the need. Drug dealers follow a similar model but are not nearly as nice.

By working with the local Women’s Union they provide engaging education programmes in the local villages. Having created broad general interest, they then visit individual homes to better articulate the precise personal benefits. Where necessary they direct the villager to a source of soft micro-loans that have been established specifically for this programme. The latrine itself is built by trained craftsmen using approved designs. Once the latrine is built there is a $28 rebate, funded by Gates, that the villager can claim. By this time they have a toilet that they ‘own’ in every sense of the word. They also have an aspirational item that their neighbours want to copy.

Today I visited some of the above projects with the Head of Water and Sanitation at Thrive Networks, Jeff Albert. I was there to see first-hand what they have done, and to help them think through their next challenge: how to make this scheme completely self-financing. Due to a last minute change in plans we were joined by Le Ly Hayslip, a 66 year old Vietnamese lady who was the founder of the East Meets West charity some 30+ years ago.

Le Ly is a truly astonishing lady. Small, dynamic and incredibly feisty. She started life as a child soldier for the Vietcong and yet went on to become one of the most influential women in the world. A film was made about her life in 1990, directed by Oliver Stone, called Heaven and Earth and staring Tommy Lee Jones. We had a bizarre conversation about how she prefers how she is depicted in the French advertising poster than the US one. Apparently it is more ‘Gone with the Wind’ (see below). We spent 4 hours trapped in a minivan travelling south from Hanoi and, aside from numerous film anecdotes, she told one of the dirtiest jokes I have ever heard. I also learnt that Jeff, my host from Thrive, has a 5 second scene as an extra in American Sniper. The 4 hours simply flew by

.

The work that the Gates Foundation and Thrive are doing in Vietnam and Cambodia is genuinely  ground-breaking. The key has been tapping into the power and influence of the Vietnamese Women’s Union. The ladies we met today were dedicated and persuasive. Nothing was going to get in their way. Like a mother hen protecting her chicks these women were determined to lift their country out of the gutter. They were each younger versions of Le Ly, ready to take on the challenge and take no excuses. Making this important scheme economically viable won’t be easy, but something tells me that if anyone can do it, it will be these Vietnamese women. I am in awe.