Thursday April 10,2014

This Is The Social Innovation Safari! (Part 1)

The inaugural Social Innovation Safari kicked off on the evening of Sunday April 6 at Grace House Resort in Nairobi. The participants were treated to an opening dinner that saw them meet colleagues from cultures some of them had never interacted with before. Most notable was the Iraqi, Bestoon who has so far become one of my closest friends in the whole group.

Surprisingly, I also came across Tim here. Tim’s a chap we went to the same high school with but we never talked while there. You see he was in fourth form while I was just a first former. And of course bullying happened. It wasn't him who bullied me but I remember he was friends with some of the notorious bullies in school.

So on Tuesday morning after visiting the premises of the organizations that we were to help innovate solutions to on Monday, we headed to Naivasha for a camping session.

The one hour nature walk that took us from the low lying grassland to the deep forest where Collobus monkeys lived was as it would turn out later on a lesson on reflecting on Mother Nature as the whole source and inspiration for the social innovation process.

The next day (Tuesday) was intensive with a lot of activities that were aimed at imparting certain skills on participants or showing another side of that skill to those who thought they already possessed these skills for example.

Most notable lessons during the two day camping session in Camp Carnelleyes Naivasha was first the acceptance that while trying to innovate solutions we have a lot of assumptions that could  distract us from arriving at the most long lasting and relevant solution.

The session about the deep dive element where social innovators are advised to immerse themselves in the situations and conditions that they wish to change instead of looking at things from outside also changed my initial perception of how I thought social innovation is to be done.

And so this morning just as we were having breakfast before leaving to Nairobi from Camp Carnelleyes something awesome happened to Bestoon who is enjoying his first visit to Africa.

Though it is titled East Africa Social Innovation Safari 2014, it is according to the organizers the first social innovation Safari in Africa. The organizers and the trainers are and have a good team working with them to make this debut venture in Africa a success.

The lessons learnt so far are very eye opening and reveal a totally new perspective of things to you. Meanwhile, check out what Bestoon welcomed to his table while taking breakfast this morning.

The Safari proceeds on till April 17.