Around the world in 50 days
Simone Lee, WG'05
Issue date: 9/20/04 Section: News
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Now in its nineteenth year, the WIVP is a non-profit, student-run organization whose mission is to utilize its members' business skills to benefit those in need throughout the world. Each summer, WIVP sends MBA students as volunteers to work with small to medium-sized NGOs in developing countries. These projects typically last two to four weeks and involve two to four students each. Past projects have helped local non-profit organizations and small businesses in areas such as fundraising, performance evaluation, financial and strategic planning, and improving productivity.
The projects are funded partially through fundraising activities organized by WIVP members. The Winter Ball, attended by over 800 students each year, is traditionally, the biggest WIVP social and fundraising event. Students will have an opportunity to bid in the Fall Auction for exotic arts and crafts brought back by volunteers. WIVP also seeks donations from corporations and alumni. The Sponsorship Committee recently reached a milestone by signing on Morgan Stanley as the latest sponsor.
If you like the idea of traveling to Cameroon, Bombay, Cambodia, Brazil, or Trinidad, while contributing to the economic development of these countries, join WIVP now. You can learn more about the organization by visiting www.wivp.org or by attend ing the information session at 5pm on September 21st in JMHH 365.
Read on the following selected projects to see the amazing experiences our classmates had!
Cape Town, South Africa
Project Team: Tricia Chiang, Christine & Marko Kivisto, Keith Raper, and Michelle Tejero
NGO: Green Turtle Tours and Safaris
"Who would ever think that Wharton students would work for free? Doesn't the rest of Penn call Huntsman Hall the 'Tower of Greed'?" asks Keith. This summer, a consultant, a marketer, a banker and a "Bain Couple" joined together in Cape Town, South Africa to write a business plan and develop a financial model for Green Turtle Tours and Safaris, a tourism services company that invests 25% of its profits in township empowerment initiatives. Green Turtle is now using the business plan and model to approach commercial lenders and strategic investors for growth capital.
Mumbai, India
Project Team: Diana Diaz-Luong and Simone Lee
NGO: Kherwadi Social Welfare Association
Volunteers developed a fundraising strategy targeting financial services and information technology companies for the Yuva Parivartan ("Youth Transformation") movement at Kherwadi Social Welfare Association, a 75-year old NGO that provides uninterrupted services to the slum dwellers residing between Bandra East and Khar East in Mumbai. Yuva Parivartan focuses on vocational training for school dropouts. The Wharton team visited firms in the financial services, information technology, and insurance sectors to understand their Corporate Social Responsibility practices; and developed a fundraising strategy for KWSA.
Imagine experiencing these things for the first time - living steps away from the poorest slums in the world, taking a shower with a bucket and a cup, witnessing kids defecating in the middle of the streets, rivers that have become open sewages, mosquito bites that swell up to the size of one's palms, monsoons, immense hospitality where strangers invite you to their homes for tea, having beautiful mehndi painted on one's arms, enjoying an Ayurvedic massage, and walking in caves where 5th-century Buddhist monks carved incredible statues and paintings. Such were the incredible frustrations and wonders we experienced during the past three weeks as volunteers in Bombay, India
Varanasi, India
Project Team: Kathy Bergsteinsson, Ami Dalal, and Cynthia Vrendenburgh
NGO: Kherwadi Social Welfare Association
WIVP volunteers traveled to Varanasi, one of the holiest Hindu cities in India, to examine growth opportunities for Mata Anandamayee Hospital (MAH). MAH is a private, charitable hospital focused on providing maximum relief to the poor and needy in the community, serving over 45,000 patients per year through its out patient clinic and 48-bed indoor facility. The WIVP team worked with the doctors and administrators on plans to increase access to essential medicines, build stronger relationships with potential donors and improve operational inefficiencies.
Yaounde / Oshie, Cameroon
Project Team: Farhana Ahmed, Sarah Ryan, and Pramita Saha
NGO: Oshie Cultural and Development Association (OCA)
Volunteers developed a fundraising strategy for the education initiatives of OCA, a non-profit group comprised of concerned citizens of Oshie Village in Cameroon whose mission is to enhance the economic and social well-being of their people and to promote the development of their village. The Wharton Team visited the primary education schools of Oshie and met with various embassies and funding agencies. The volunteers identified new potential funding sources, created a process to prioritize OCA's education-related projects, made recommendations to improve OCA's education process, and helped the client learn how to write grant proposals.
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Project Team: Shana Lee and Alex Lepori
NGO: Urban Sector Group - Expansion of Employment Opportunities for Women Program (EEOWP)
In the bustling city of Phnom Penh, thousands of women support themselves and their families by selling produce, meats, garments, or other goods in one of the city's many markets. The Urban Sector Group's EEOWP program provides business training and micro-loans to these women to increase the profitability of these tiny enterprises. Wharton volunteers worked with EEOWP's fledgling microfinance program to create an efficient and effective system for tracking loans and generating basic accounting statements and developed a sustainability plan to help guide the program's future growth.
Trinidad
Project Team: Brian Gregg, Jennifer Stock, and Charbel Zreik
NGO: Trinidad Micro Credit Organization, Project H.O.P.E. (Helping Ourselves Prosper Economically)
The Wharton team helped improve and automate HOPE's current bookkeeping methods, created training materials for field workers and collections staff, and created a consolidated financial monitoring system
"WIVP was more than a volunteer project - hell, we turned Trinidad upside down. We set up a fitness center in the convent we stayed in. We taught our host nuns the best US curse words. And we persuaded every frog living in our bathroom shower to relocate elsewhere. All this was in addition to providing a new database system to the HOPE microfinance institution!" describes Brian.
Swaziland
Project Team: Jake Susman and Jodi Susman
NGO: Family Life Association of Swaziland
Founded in 1979, FLAS is the largest and leading organization in the provision of innovative sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services. The Wharton team designed a business plan for the long-term viability of projects related to the organization's mission that would build FLAS's self-sufficiency and decrease reliance on external sources of funding.
"The team was able to provide value-added support by offering a complete strategic and financial diagnosis of FLAS at a time when the organization had clearly gone off course. We presented our findings in a simple format that was later described as 'eye-opening' because it had never been done before. In essence, the leaders of the organization had very little idea how what they did affected FLAS as a whole, and the accounting and finance staff had never been empowered to force a focus on sustainability," says Jake.
Ilheus, Brazil
Project Team: Raphael Eskinazi, Gerson Guzman, and Emmanuel Tahar
NGO: Projeto Fazendarte
Projeto Fazendarte, located in a poor region of Bahia, supports the local youth by conducting various educational activities. The Wharton team helped the leader of the organization clarify its development goals and focus on the most meaningful activities. The NGO provides environmental education, artistic classes, and works to prevent common teenage problems such as pregnancies and prostitution. Wharton volunteers developed a financial budget, a web site, and a brochure that will be used in future communication and fundraising efforts. The team also organized meetings with local institutions and companies to raise awareness in the local community.
Ilo, Peru
Project Team: Aditya Ajwani, Konstantin Stoyanov, and Laura Ross
NGO: Centro de Educacion, Organizacion y Promocion del Desarollo (CEOP)
Over the 2003 winter break, volunteers helped CEOP, a micro-credit program that provides residents of Ilo, Peru the opportunity to start or maintain small businesses. The team accomplished three goals during their stay. First, they recommended changes to CEOP's accounting practices that would bring the organization in line with industry standards. Second, they analyzed CEOP's performance using financial ratios and indicators commonly used by financial institutions. Finally, they recommended operational improvements to bring CEOP's high default rates down. In addition, the team built on the mentor program for young borrowers started by the previous Wharton team, Erica Seidel (WG'04) and Mike Riley (WG'04). After interviewing mentors and mentees who had gone through the pilot phase of the program, they proposed improvements for implementing the next phase.
"We grew tremendously through this experience, learning about microfinance, improving our Spanish (no one at the NGO spoke English), and gaining a new perspective. Most importantly, though, we developed strong friendships with each other. We worked well together, offered each other a comforting English speaking sanctuary after a day full of Spanish, and shared a lot of laughs each evening eating watermelons on our apartment's terrace, and enjoying the Peruvian summer," recounts Aditya.