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JOSHWA TAMBO

My Balcony Experience

Kisumu, Kenya

I’m an award-winning social entrepreneur with over 7+ years of experience in business development, business coaching, immersive leadership development and fundraising. I mentor and support SME’s to develop market penetration strategies, fundraising plan and product development using Design Thinking Model, Lean Canvases and other proven business development tools.

I’m 2018 Acumen Fellow, 2017 Mandela Washington Fellow-Business and Entrepreneurship Track. Currently a Special Advisor to the Kibera Community Empowerment Organization (KCEO)- www.kceo.or.ke , which I founded during 2011 -so far impacted 71,214 lives through Street Literacy, Social Entrepreneurship and Food Security Programs.

In 2017, I co-founded Kshoes www.kiberashoes.com , a social enterprise that partners with skilled artisans age 18-35 years, producing recycled customized shoes sold both in Kenya and the international market, this creates 12 jobs to skilled artisans, 117 youths in garbage collection, generated revenues are reinvested in building circular economy portfolios.

My previous professional experience includes Project officer for both the National Organization of Peer Educators and the Center for Disease Control. I published Understanding Kibera Slum and has BSc in Computer Science, and currently an Economics student at Daystar University.

My Balcony Experience

Jul 10, 2020 4 years ago

Our organization culture brings us together at least twice a week during the weekly debrief on the To-Do-List and during team building either playing chess or Dirt. This has been a sweet and refreshing culture that has seen KCEO team much more connected. Our organization invested heavily in enough work stations for the team, we got more space at the office than what we actually need, our staff actually practiced natural social distancing while in the office way before the outbreak of the global pandemic. The COVID-19 lockdown subjected our organization to a radical experiment, providing many conclusions for the future of KCEO, with important consequences for the future of work as well as the environment we work in. 3 months down the line, we dived on a weekly call with my colleague Violet, and concluded with the BIG Question- do we need all these office spaces we have heavily invested in? KCEO has 3 major Hubs in 3 Major towns in Kenya, with additional Outlet shops and other reserve spaces rented to our entrepreneurs. The big question our experiment has left us with is, do we really need all this much space? When KCEO executives decided that our team will work from home, I cleaned my work station and carried with me the essential files and gadgets I needed to support my work from home- this led me to the balcony experience as my new work station. With all the adjustments that the emergency of the pandemic made on my daily life, the reality of working from home I had to embrace, thank God now I play with my son Amani during all the coffee breaks, and get fresh fruits served right from the kitchen to the balcony by my lovely wife Rhoda. It was so hard to maintain the discipline working from home with endless harassment from my son Amani who want me to watch or play with him- but surprisingly with time, this became more fun. Boom! I had to devise what to do with my extra time, I started preparing my garden, producing my own food, wait a minute! What about this heat on my balcony- must be the hot sun! The devastating effects of climate change dawned in me, what could be my little action on this? I exclaimed! Perhaps plant some trees, since then I have planted over 1000 different species of trees as my little contribution to the planet. Working from home saved my wallet big deal, no need to fuel car, just some gas for the emergency on the tank- I diverted my transport expenses into buying climate resilience seedlings- and I became a gangster gardener- surprisingly my family joined me and collectively we have planted over 5000 seedlings, plowed over 2 acres of maize farm and set up food gardens- Today garden for me represents freedom, I took it upon me to inspire my family and friends to wake up and truly realize what is important- I wanted them to bring creativity in their space, and realize they have the power and what it takes to do this by making our planet a better place for the future generation. And this turned to be my Master Class- Currently, my 1000 paw-paw seedlings are almost ready for transplanting, still on the artificial seedbed that I created on my balcony- this is going to give access to over 5000 families healthy and nutritious paw-paw in the beautiful city of Kisumu. Not again! Sorry, it is Monday Violet and the team are waiting for me to join the staff virtual call! I'm always running late! I have to request my neighbor's kids not to play near my balcony for the next 45 minutes, no one from the houses should come to the balcony either. I connect to weekly team debrief for a quick run on the To-Do-List via Zoom or Google Meets. Normally on Monday I would be physically in a meeting at the office with the team, but the current situation demands that we work from home. Plugging through the virtual tools gave me a great highlight on how my team members are doing- we could hear background noise on Edna's house, since her daughter is equally as curious as to my son Amani and we laugh, sometimes her daughter demands to be on the screen, this truly made us appreciate family values and bonding in our work system. Truly speaking working from my balcony has made me redefine work as space not necessarily a place! No traffic, no unnecessary spending and freshly baked bread from my lovely wife My main job in KCEO is to offer sound leadership to the team apart from fundraising and oversight. Sitting on the balcony and streaming live with my colleagues gave me a feel and look painting of every employee. I established a structured daily check-in. I leveraged daily calls either on normal call or via WhatsApp, and since am not effective with WhatsApp groups- I had to stay active in the KCEO staff WhatsApp group to ensure the communication is sustained and decisions made swiftly. We consistently had a team call, one-one-one calls which were regular and predictable, it was way easy to consult, raise concerns and questions- as we speak today this is KCEO culture of team management and the future is bright.

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