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10 years ago, Dinie Nijssen and Rik Haanen came up with the idea to set up a foundation after many wanderings in Africa. For us, it was important that we reach people who normally do not receive much support, but who do deserve it and can make leaps forward with a little support. These eventually became small scale entrepreneurs who have been working hard for at least two years to keep their business alive.
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Registration "stichting Jacana" 2015
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First a foundation was set up in the Netherlands “Stichting Jacana” and then we traveled to Zambia and set up a foundation in Zambia “Jacana foundation”. We started in Chisamba with one local employee in our living room that we had converted into an office. Our first beneficiaries were a wedding planner, welder, guest house manager and a few shopkeepers. Very exciting of course; our first business training and coaching of small entrepreneurs.
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After a year of training and coaching small scale entrepreneurs, Henk Holtslag asked us if we could also focus on affordable water solutions. We had also done this in Tanzania under Henk's guidance and it would be a nice extension of our services. No sooner said than done. Chisamba, however, was not the most suitable location for that. After thorough research throughout the country, we eventually ended up in Chipata. There too, the three of us started from our living room.
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The formula proved so successful that we soon had to recruit more staff, because one thing led to another. Water for entrepreneurs (mostly farmers), raised questions such as: how can I make my own compost and chicken feed, which other agricultural methods would work well here or how do I keep bees. But also what is the best place to drill. We also wanted to move with time and focus on solar energy products. In short, there were many interesting developments in 10 years. We even opened two extra offices in Lundazi and Petauke and exchanged our living room for a head office in Jacana's Business Centre in Chipata.
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Making of Jacana Business Centre (Chipata, Zambia)
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We would never have succeeded in all of this without well-trained and hard-working staff and management. We realize that we ask a lot of them and we also ask them to help us develop and think strategically. That is not always self-evident in African culture. We are proud to say that, over the years, Jacana has developed into a beautiful organization with room for innovation.
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The people who make it possible day in, day out
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Around New Year we normally ask you to support a specific new type of project, but now we would like to put the staff in the spotlight. We are 21 people in total. Next year we would like to plan a special outing for the staff and Zambian board.
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Most of the staff have never had the chance to visit places that make Zambia so special, simply because it is too expensive.
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We, Dinie and Rik, would like to offer the staff an outing to one of those beautiful places during Jacana's tenth anniversary and for this we ask for a small contribution.
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