Marie-Stella-Maris visits Jacana projects, July 2019

July 2019

Hello subscriber subscriber,

Three very enthusiast team members and one of the founders and CEO from Marie-Stella-Maris from Amsterdam visited our projects in Zambia last mid-July.

Marie-Stella-Maris funded a water project in Chipata district in 2018 and funds a three-year project in Lundazi and Chasefu district. We received a lot of positive and nice feedback, we talked about the need of supporting small-scale entrepreneurs and the Jacana-strategy. It was very educative -also for us- to show the team the projects sites from several angles. Their input will absolutely improve the quality of our work.

A few words from our guests:

"I am impressed by the drive and energy of the Jacana staff to realize sustainable clean drinking water solutions. The philosophy of ownership and creating opportunities for entrepreneurs, as role models in the communities, very much reflects the ideas of Marie-Stella-Maris."

Carel Neuberg, Founder & CEO

"Visiting the project sites was very inspiring and motivating. We’ve got to meet a few of the recently trained welders and drillers in Lundazi. But also visited a few of the beneficiary households of the project we’ve supported in 2018 in and around Chipata.

I certainly hope to visit Lundazi again in a year or two, to be able to witness the developments for all families and entrepreneurs involved."

Josha Jansen (Communications manager and board member Marie-Stella-Maris Foundation)

"First of all I want to thank the Jacana staff for the great work they do for the Zambian entrepreneurs. I was also very impressed by the welders, how they work, how they build their own business, and their good energy. Hope to return someday to see the impact of the projects. Thank you for the great experience."

Karima Abdellatif, Product manager

"Jacana has a great and energetic team and I really enjoyed it to be guided around by them for a couple of days. The way how Jacana has setup the project was really inspirational for me. So many people are benefitting from this and I’m impressed by the value that´s being creating by placing one pump."

Paul Kleinjan (Logistics manager)

Small-scale farmers from Chasefu trained in business skills.

Jacana facilitators Bester and Moses just trained 37 small-scale farmers from Katandala in Chasefu district in business skills. This was done in 4 small groups. Each participant made a Lean Canvas business model and cost price calculations of his or her own business.

Participant Kapuza Muhango said:

“This is different: the input from the facilitator is only 25% and the remaining 75% comes from us participants. Numbers come to life when we derive them from our own small businesses.”

Kapuza Muhango in training