Posted 2 years, 11 months ago late at night by oso
So, our last visit was with Abramz Tekya in Kampala. The next day I met with Kayiwa Fred and discovered the Kayiwa Fred Computer Club. I was humbled and embarrassed to learn that Kayiwa traveled 30 kilometers to meet with me and that he was “feeling a bit weak from a ’bout’ of Malaria.” I couldn’t believe he was standing at all. But then, Kayiwa Fred is the epitome of East African ambition.
His hope, his dream, is to start a cyber-cafe. Nothing elaborate – no world domination – just a business he can call his own. A place where he can both make money as an entrepreneur, but more importantly, make change as a social activist.
Secondary school is not public in Kenya. If you want a high school education, you pay for it. (In fact, even primary school was not freely available to all until this current administration.) Of course, this strengthens class divisions as only the wealthy can afford education and only the educated can secure high-paying jobs.
So what did Kayiwa do? He walked straight up to the director of a high school and said he would like to perform janitorial work at the school to pay for his tuition and book costs. He was nervous, he says, but had nothing to lose and four years later he was a high school graduate, this time facing college tuition costs, but again with no money to pay for them. He secured a scholarship at a local trade college run by the YMCA. This is where he is now studying accounting. He admits that accounting is the most compelling of degrees, but it ensures a job and, right now, that’s all he’s looking for.
He described the pressure he feels from his large family. Kayiwa is the first in his family to attend college and so while his siblings are able to contribute portions of their paychecks to family expenses, Kayiwa devotes all of his meagre income to his study and living costs. He says his family thinks that college study is a fast-track to a high-paying job, but according to Kayiwa, employment in Kampala is still more about who you know that what you know.
After tea and bread we walked down to a nearby cyber-cafe. I would show him how to start a blog using WordPress. The internet café was huge – at least 60 computers – and nearly completely full. I looked over a few shoulders and saw lots of gmail accounts, a few news websites, and just as many blogs. From the monitors alone, it could have been any capital city in the world. Internet access in Kampala isn’t affordable by Ugandan standards – over a dollar in hour. When you take into consideration how long it takes to load just one page, the real cost is around $5 an hour. Plus, sites that depend heavily on JavaScript like Gmail and Facebook frequently crash the old school browsers. In the corner of the cyber-cafe was a smiling young Chinese businessman in stylish glasses – clearly the owner. I did some quick math: $1.50 x 60 computers x 16 hours x 30. He was bringing in around $43,000 a month before rent, taxes, utilities, and the spare change to employ the staff. After all that, probably around $180,000 a year. Not a bad gig, especially when you’re living in Uganda.
The Chinese business community has an incredible level of support for its up and coming entrepreneurs. After talking with Kayiwa for a few hours, I was sure that he is just as shrewd a businessman as the young Chinese owner of the cyber-cafe, but he has no one to lean on for startup capital. So instead, revealing his resourcefulness, he’s taken to Facebook, Razoo, and a number of other social networking sites to try and convince people from the developing world to donate their used computer gear to him. His hope is that eventually he can gather enough equipment so that his only startup cost is renting out a locale. “Then I want to use the profits to do outreach work. To teach the people of my community how to use the internet to do good.” A burst of excitement started to show, despite his exhaustion from enduring malaria.
Throughout my travels this trip, one thing has been hammered home over and over again – and that’s now much harder people from the developing world must work to participate in the global economy. Access to documentation, the time and financial costs of translation, access to reliable communication and electricity – all these things that we take for granted in the US. A 9-5 Western workday translates into a 6 – 9 workday elsewhere because of all these added obstacles. If you have computer equipment – especially used laptops – that you are willing to donate to Kayiwa, you can reach him via Facebook.
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What a wonderful post about Fred. I will add that he is active at our Minciu Sodas laboratory http://www.ms.lt/?thinker=Fred_Kayiwa where he is drawing our attention to how we might help Ugandans suffering from the floods. He definitely needs a computer of his own. We’re inviting him to Italy in January, 2008 to the second meeting of the European Union’s thematic network COMMUNIA for the Public Domain. He will stay for a month or so to learn about assembling computers and help with our work to create a USB Flash drive editor http://www.worknets.org/wiki.cgi?FlashDriveEditor Join his working group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/onereachingother/ P.S. it would be great if your blog was in the Public Domain or at least allow for “commercial” use because that’s essential for Fred and our lab to be sustainable. Noncommercial = nonsustainable.
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Am so happy to hear that Andrius
And thanks alot David for this effort
To be honest I have Learnt alot from Andrius Who trained me to be Indipendebnt thinker.
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There are links to a fundraising effort for the Kawiya club on both Razoo and Facebook. So far we’ve raised 95 dollars only. The Chipin campaign associated will probably need to be restarted.
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Kayiwa Fred is all over the map.
Enterprising is an understatement!!
http://beta.razoo.com/groups/kayiwa_freds_computer_club
http://profiles.takingitglobal.org/nockia
http://www.ms.lt/?thinker=Fred_Kayiwa&start=199903&end=200710
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4224414364
http://kayiwa.wordpress.com
http://el-oso.net/blog/archives/2007/10/05/kayiwa-fred-computer-club/#comment-226257
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I believe the present ChipIn campaign has ended with $95.00. Someone will need to start a new one to keep the funds coming in. $95 doesn’t buy a whole lot. Could we impose on Chris to open another campaign?
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Oh, sorry. I guess it’s not possible to edit messages here. In the post above, I meant Jeff Mowatt, not Chris. Apologies for the confusion.
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This is wonderfulll seing lots of you here
I appriciate this.
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Meadowlea,
Thanks for the updates of Chip In and am sure we can restart it.
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I send Kayiwa Fred prayers and good humor
for his quick recovery from his current bout of malaria!
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I send Kayiwa Fred prayers and good humor
for his quick recovery from his current bout of malaria,
that pesky little distraction from worldly affairs.
May he be back with us quicker than lightning!
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am now recovering and i would love to thank all who are taking part in this discusion thanks to David who organised it
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Fred,
Here is your ChipIN
http://apps.facebook.com/mychipin/jeff-mowatt/kayiwa-computer-club
Get your ChipIn widget
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Many thanks to Jeff for creating and posting this!!
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It sounds bad to me that David bale sent me the football kits but they look to have been stolen on the way ihave recieved just the bag only and there is no way i can complain they are ingnoring me.
so crazy.
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Fred, were they mailed insured? If so, perhaps you can be reimbursed? I’ll ask David…
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Iguess there is no Insurance just because the packect was not regesitered.
Otherwise as soon as my kids get out of school we are to start the training Iknow they will be so unhappy for this sad news but nothing to do any way.
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[...] their karmic destiny. These are not the people I am meeting. I’ve written about some of them: Kayiwa Fred, Abramz Tekya, Dennis Kimambo. And there are many more drafts of posts that I hope will be [...]
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I just posted this at Razoo:
So there is REALLY GREAT NEWS!! Someone named Ricardo donated just about the full amount to the chip in campaign!!! And Jeff Mowatt topped it off! Kayiwa has met his present goal and is very happy indeed!! Thanks to Ricardo, but also to Jeff Mowatt who really got in there as a friend with some real clear intention to get this Chip In campaign going!! It was clear as anything that his intention was carrying the day!! Thank you Jeff!! And thank you Ricardo for choosing such a great cause! I can’t wait to be part of developing Kayiwa Fred’s Computer Club to the next level, now along with Kayiwa Fred’s soccer team!!
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I would also like to appreciate Jeff Mowatt.
He took on Kayiwa’s Chip In campaign like a bandit!
It simply would not have happened
with the same intention without him.
I was spread way too thin.
Jeff picked up the slack!
Congratulations to Jeff
and Kayiwa for their grand success!!
I want to also appreciate Jeff
for topping off the Chip In!
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Honestly idont know what to say but atleast am so appreciative to all of you.
Hopefull even the dream for Cybercafe will come true.
Small Business Administration…
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting…
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Good idaer
But what is alla bout small bussiness administration
ifailed to understand that link
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Big huge
CONGRATULATIONS
to Kayiwa Fred
for his invitation from Seeds of Hope
to be their member in their new project
of promoting ICT
to the disadvantaged communities
and kids and orphans.!
I am so deeply moved by that!!
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Actually my plan for The cyber cafe is to start it in 2008
Am still looking for the way possible.
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Am sorry for late update had problem with Internet
otherwise was missing here
how are you all friends
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Kayiwa Fred recently experienced a serious theft. His internet phone and setup was stolen, a friend’s DVD player that he had borrowed that he would like to replace, $50 cash, personal documents, among a number of other items that I don’t specifically remember from our conversation were stolen yesterday or the day before. To some of us, $50 is not anything to cry about, but it along with the other items is a significant loss for Kayiwa Fred. I thought it would be fun to surprise him with an offering of donations.
It would be great to see the $50 replaced at minimum, if not enough to cover all the lost items. So I will set the ChipIn goal at $200 as a compromise. Kayiwa Fred works really hard and offers his growing know-how to many. This is a great way to honor him and to show your support for the good-will he has shown to many. Thank you to everyone!
Here’s the ChipIn Link if you’d like to send Kayiwa Fred some good cheer:
http://connectionsforwellbeing.chipin.com/kayiwa-fred
Thank you to everyone for reading and considering this!
Meadowlea
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I received his early this morning:
Hi Meadow Lea, i’m great to hear this from you. Its really sad that my brother Fred lost his many things though he didn’t mention all of them. My name is Simon and I live in Uganda but in Entebbe. I know Kaiwa Fred and we are friends too. I visited him but its so sad that almost everything in the house was taken though i think he didn’t want to tell you this. We are still trying to see if we can recover some but its really hard. Our positive response to this will really mean a lot in his life. I’m yet to find out if his passport was not taken. Thank you so much for your caring and loving heart. May God bless you. … Simon Ssenksayi
After discussing further with Fred and itemizing his losses, we have concluded that his total losses were $345usd. He has itemized this on a list that I am happy to forward individually to anyone interested in contributing. So after this ChipIn is complete, I will create a new one for $145 and leave it on his Computer Club website until he has been fully reimbursed and back to square one and even more encouraged and able to contribute to others again.
The ChipIn amount shows $75 still, but the actual amount collected is $150! Thank you so much to all who have contributed!! Kayiwa Fred is very encouraged!! A relieved and happy Kayiwa Fred is really really fun to communicate with. I recommend it to everyone.
Here is the ChipIn link again for your convenience.
http://connectionsforwellbeing.chipin.com/kayiwa-fred
Love and thanks to all of you!!
Meadowlea