WAVE and Generation Rwanda, Meet Cristo Rey and Dwight Howard

Posted: July 14th, 2013 | Author: | | No Comments »

1. Met Bryan on Thursday at Harvard i-Lab.  He and Misan are co-founding WAVE:

What is WAVE?

WAVE (West Africa Vocational Education) is a social venture organization working with unemployed youth (15-30 year olds) in West Africa (starting in Lagos, Nigeria).  WAVE Hospitality Academy is in a pilot phase of screening, training, and placing local West Africans in retail, hotel, and hospitality jobs in West Africa.

By 2018, WAVE will empower 25,000 ambitious young West Africans annually with the know-how and expertise to pursue careers in hospitality and retail and beyond.

Why now?

West Africa is at a crossroads. In major West African economies, youth unemployment rates range from 40 to 85 percent and continues to worsen as the population increases. Education in the region is severely failing to provide young people with the skills needed to participate and compete in the job marketplace.

2. I also chatted with my friend Dai, a former charter school leader in Boston, who with Oliver, Jamie, and old friend Emma, has launched Generation Rwanda and an affiliated company called Spire.
Generation Rwanda is working to build a model that could transform higher education across the developing world. We find Rwanda’s brightest students that can’t afford university, fund their education, and train them to become leaders in Africa’s emerging information economy. By opening a path to university for brilliant students from vulnerable backgrounds, we believe that our work has the potential to revolutionize an entire society—making it smarter, more agile, and truly meritocratic.
3. They each have a need.
Who is good at training teenagers for the “soft skills” needed to do successful internships?
Well that’s easy.
Years ago, I was asked to write a case study for Harvard about Cristo Rey.  It’s an unusual school model, developed by a Jesuit priest in the South Side of Chicago.  There are now 25 schools nationwide.

The signature component of Cristo Rey Boston High School is the Corporate Work Study Program – a national educational model that leverages the resources of local business communities to make private, college preparatory education affordable and to give students an extraordinary experience that will shape the rest of their lives.  This unique program separates Cristo Rey from other schools in the Boston area.

This academic year each Cristo Rey Boston student will work five full days per month at one of more than 120 local companies. To equip students with the skills they need to succeed at their work-study positions, all incoming freshmen and transfer students attend our innovative Foundations Program to prepare for the professional world.

4. Dwight Howard

How does this basketball star fit in?

The sports commentariat has been in a highly excited state as Dwight Howard chose to change teams.  There were many human themes.  Could Dwight be deferential to another star (Kobe)? Could Dwight handle the spotlight of Los Angeles, or wilt under pressure?  Would Dwight choose the highest offer or the best fit?

What’s entirely normal about this: sports media exclusively reports on these types of things — stuff that is easy to debate and requires nothing more than opinions about human nature; never digs into the nitty gritty details of, for example, small-but-important tweaks a team may be making to how they actually play basketball.  That nerdy stuff is left for coaches.  It matters, of course.  But nobody really cares about it.

I mention this because the education reform conversation runs in parallel to the sports media conversation.  Critical “how to” — like the tiniest details of how to defend the pick and roll, or how to prepare a 16-year-old for his first day of an internship at a bank — is not part of the media conversation.  But this stuff is the lifeblood of coaches, and of practitioners.

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