There are several stakeholders involved in our project. Below a brief description of the most important ones.
Isaac Mwangi from Marafiki Community
First of all the organisation, Marafiki Community. This organisation, or more specifically Isaac Mwangi, has indicated a big problem in the urban area of Nairobi and has asked our group to address this problem with an entrepreneurial take on it. It’s in the interest of the organisation that we try to alleviate the problem of unemployment even if it is only for a couple of people. The specifics of this quest has been outlined above.
Youths
Next, there are the youths that will be employed for the making of the belts. Their main interest is to have a secure and stable income. In addition, it is important that there are positive working conditions and that regulations are in line with their (cultural) expectations.
NGOs
Furthermore, if there are NGOs we will be collaborating with, they will have certain expectations from us. First of all, they expect a contribution to their activities in one way or another. This can be through linkages with one of their projects or expecting positive results from the business that we set up that they can use to achieve more. Secondly, if the NGO decides to support us financially, they might expect us to yield certain results within a certain period of time. This because their name is attached to our project and they will have to justify supporting us to their own sponsors.
HABA HABA
HABA HABA is naturally also an important stakeholder. This is the company that will sell the belts in the Netherlands under a partnership with the production company in Kenya. Their main interest is that the production company is functioning well and has a bright future ahead. If the production company decides to end the partnership with HABA HABA because of a better offer, then that is okay for HABA HABA. The main objective is the continuity of the production company, and then the continuity of HABA HABA.
Government
The government could possibly also be a stakeholder, albeit a more distant one. It is in the government’s interest that the problem of unemployed youths is addressed. By having more employed youths, economic growth will be stimulated, crime rates will drop, and indirectly health conditions will improve. There are more indirect positive consequences of larger employment, but these could be described as the key results.
Minor team - us
Then it would be safe to state that we as a team of students from the TU Delft are also stakeholders. In the end it is us who will put a lot of time, effort, and perhaps also money into this project with the hope that it will succeed. It is in our interest to have more people employed and that they are motivated and happy to ensure continuation and improvement of the business.
Project team - how is it organised?
Next to the stakeholders involved in the project, it is also necessary to look at the project team. The core team consists of Zoë Cremers, Caroline Flohr, and Kimberly Schoenmaker. Broadly stated Zoë will be held responsible for the working environment and the local business team in terms of cultural appropriateness and expectations from the business. Caroline Flohr will primarily look into the legal and bureaucratic aspects associated with starting a business in Kenya and Kimberly will mainly take care of the financial aspects both in terms of raising the required capital to start off as well as creating a cash flow overview. Even though we are responsible for different aspects of the project, we will make sure that we will discuss the major findings/outcomes as a team and then make a final decision. Also, there are more tasks to be divided, but these are the main ones. The rest of the tasks and their responsibilities have been briefly described above. The external project team consists of Isaac Mwangi who supervises our project, the person who will be leading the local company, the employees, and possible employees from NGOs.