Derrik Kayongo is perhaps the coolest man I've ever met. In walks in this self-proclaimed "flamboyant, ridiculous" man clad in a mustard yellow fitted suit, purple patterned shirt with a paisley patterned fedora. And before I go any further this man is completely heterosexual, there's no doubt, has a wife and 2 kids, but has the style of someone who appreciates fine fashion as well as philanthropy.
Derrick Kayongo was my class' guest speaker for the day, and the amount of personality an enthusiasm he brought into the room more than made up for his tardiness. He's a former Ugandan refugee who used to work at CARE and is now the co-founder of the Global Soap Project, an NGO that recycles the 5 million pounds of soap that US hotels throw away each year and turns them into sanitary and reusable bars for refugees and the poor in over 28 countries worldwide. He spent 60,000 of his own money (after a failed attempt to reboil soap in a crockpot in his basement--who knew you shouldn't add water to soap...) on a special machine that is more legit and efficient than any crockpot; it was a move he says he and his wife may still be arguing over (you know, the whole taking 60k out of your savings account and not telling your spouse about it). But he's so passionate and enthusiastic about the project that you can't stay mad at him for long.
Why not just buy soap from Ugandans to give to Ugandans you may ask? Because, as Derrick explained, over 80% of the soap used in places like Uganda comes from China anyway, and we know a Chinese factory isn't going to just give soap away for free now. A majority of soap is indeed freely given, while the rest is sold to the small percentage of people in the country who can afford it, allowing fot some sustainability to the project. And when you see how rates of transmission for things like typhoid and cholera in refugee camps are cut by essentially 100% you see that there's a method to his madness.
He left us with some final words about NGOs in general: that there are so many of them, sometimes they end up doing more harm then good. When a disaster strikes and every Tom, Dick and Harry (his words not mine) decides to go to Haiti and help, without ever having been there and not really knowing the country or the needs of the people, well essentially there are too many cooks in the kitchen. I think you see this all the time, even when you're in college; there are so many philanthropies and clubs that do good works, that the money gets spread so thin. I was shocked to see that Invisible Children, who raises money to send kids to school, essentially did the same thing as Building Tomorrow, the club I was in (which was to raise money to build schools in Uganda). Imagine how much more of an impact you would have and how much more money you'd raise if those 2 organizations were combined into one; instead there's this philanthropy fatigue and you essentially find yourself competing for donations (which when you think about it really sucks). In addition, NGOs aren't accountable to anyone, so they are often able to push political agendas, to the detriment of places like Haiti.
So I'm going to leave this incredibly long winded post with a request. Click on
this link and read the words of this inspiring man yourself; it's a short article written by Kayongo about how success is most often preceded by failure, simple and inspiring words by a not so simple and inspiring man.
