In May 2011, Sierra Leone opened First Step, Africa’s first American owned and operated Special Economic Zone (SEZ). The opening was of such importance that Tony Blair showed up the following month to tour the facilities. The zone is a fortunate addition to the resource-rich West African country that has almost no manufacturing base to speak of. For instance, even though mangos thrive in Sierra Leone, the country was importing mango juice from Lebanon and Dubai to fulfill local demand. That was until Africa Felix Juice, an Italian-based juice manufacturer, became a tenant of First Step.  Africa Felix Juice now produces mango and pineapple juice concentrates that are sold in European and domestic markets. More importantly, Africa Felix Juice has brought jobs—which pay above market wages—to Sierra Leone by hiring local labor to pick the fruit grown by local mango farmers.

As a Special Economic Zone, First Step acts as a beachhead for export-oriented businesses wanting to set up shop in Sierra Leone. The 54-acre site offers factory shells, stable infrastructure, utilities, expedited government services, arbitration and tax incentives that may not be guaranteed throughout the rest of Sierra Leone. In doing so, First Step hopes to lure foreign direct investment (FDI) to Sierra Leone that brings with it jobs, capital, knowledge and skills. First Step looks for tenants like Africa Felix Juice that can process and add value to Sierra Leone’s raw materials.

The zone is the brainchild of First Step’s CEO Richard Schroeder, who, after working with NGOs for 15 years in microfinance, set out to implement a more muscular way of fighting poverty. Drawing on his extensive experience in development work, Schroeder conceived an NGO/for-profit business model that could bring jobs, skills and growth to countries that had not yet developed a manufacturing base. With unanimous support from the government of Sierra Leone, the country was a perfect fit to implement the first model.

ISOKO Institute sat down with Richard Schroeder (RS) to learn more about legal structures, FDI, faith, and the development and future of the First Step model in Africa.

ISOKO: Would you mind introducing yourself?

RS: My name is Richard Schroeder and I am the CEO of First Step. We established First Step as a subsidiary of a faith-based NGO called World Hope International. The concept of First Step emerged in my mind maybe 15 years ago or more. I was working for an NGO (a good NGO that I like very much), but I ran into the typical frustration that we in the NGO sector run into in the context of job creation, wealth creation and income creation for the poor.

ISOKO: Can you talk a little bit more about those frustrations?

RS: It’s a similar problem that governments have. There is something very valuable in that entrepreneurial fire that you see in certain people and that desire to earn money.  You know, call it what you want: Adam Smith’s invisible hand or whatever. I think that entrepreneurs and business people just have a different kind of discipline than people with a NGO or those in the public sector. They make things happen much more efficiently. NGOs do some things extremely well, especially in certain contexts where private businesses fear to tread or where capital just won’t go because of uncertainty or a number of other things.

So in my mind I saw First Step as a kind of hybrid of those two things, recognizing that NGOs are willing to take certain social risks with capital, but that the ideal way for income and job creation to happen in a disadvantaged country or corner of the world is by making it possible for private enterprise and private capital to function.

ISOKO: Special Economic Zones or Free Trade Zones haven’t been particularly successful in sub-Saharan Africa, why is First Step different from those that might have failed in the past?

RS: When we first started negotiating with the government of Sierra Leone about this, that was brought up several times. They’d say, “It has really only worked in Mauritius. How is this gonna be different?” And we didn’t have a very good response for that. The only thing that we could say was: “We want to be a bridge between North America and international businesses; we want be able to speak the language of international businesses and also of Sierra Leone. And we have a footprint in Sierra Leone because of our work with World Hope International. It’s highly respected for its humanitarian compassion through the ministry that they do. We want to harness that and also our presence internationally to provide a bridge for business.” That, I think, is one of the key ingredients to making First Step successful.

And it already has been successful. You probably already know about the fruit juice concentrate producer Africa Felix Juice that came into the SEZ. And we have 3 or 4 other firms in the pipeline. Everything is looking very good.

Also the fact that we are the only American owned and operated SEZ in Africa. Not that there is anything particularly important about being American other than that there is a lot of American enterprises that are looking for a familiar contact, and Europeans also recognize that. I think that is another key to our success.

I should back up a couple steps:  So we built infrastructure, right? Factories and roads and wells and all of those things. When I envisioned this project 15 years ago, I had no idea how critically important the legal infrastructure would be. The physical infrastructure is one thing with buildings and everything, but the relationship we have with WilmerHale (a world-class American law firm) has provided literally millions of dollars of pro-bono support and has been absolutely critical and foundational to our success.

International businesses recognize that we have a rock solid legal agreement with the government of Sierra Leone. We have a law firm in Washington D.C. that is supporting us and evaluating and helping to frame how this is happening. I think that has given a lot of confidence to investors or what we call our “partner firms” or “tenants” of the SEZ.

ISOKO:  First Step kicked off in May 2011 right?

RS: Well that was our first groundbreaking. We did quite a bit of work before then. We registered and did some of the key work like the legal agreement and negotiating. That took a lot of time.

In June 2009 we were established as a corporation. We didn’t have any staff, but we had a working group in World Hope. We were just kind of ironing out the conceptual wrinkles and everything. We had really great people in World Hope. A businessman by the name of Steve Brown was absolutely integral to making this happen. He was the kind of a guy who was also a little frustrated with NGO models toward serving the poor. He had been drawn to microfinance as many people are, but just like what many people end up thinking is, “Wow. This is . . . this is all there is? This is the only tool that NGOs have for serving in this way?”

ISOKO: Beyond optimizing your World Hope International network in the country, why Sierra Leone?

RS: Well ok so: this idea first came to me when I was working in Bangladesh frustrated with the rural development model that I was trying to push. Then I came into Dhaka one evening and saw loads and loads of people from the rural areas migrating to the city, sleeping on the railway station platform and in makeshift housing in the slums, all trying to get jobs. Some of these were pretty miserable places to work, but for whatever reason they were superior to wherever these people were coming from. And who was I to argue with them, right?

This is what sparked the thought in my mind. I figured, “Well this first step has already happened in Bangladesh: There is already the emerging market in textiles and other kind of light industries engaged in the global economy here in Bangladesh.” My thought was that this model would be good for a country that hadn’t really achieved that first step of globally integrated industrial development a la China, East Asia—the Tigers.

So in my mind this would be applicable to a lot of places in Africa or places like Nepal or Burma. My thinking was, and still is, that the objective of this enterprise would be to avoid the negative contexts of the low labor costs associated with industrial development and engaging with the global economy. The object was to avoid the things that are quite common: poor working conditions, potential for abuse because there’s no registration—the workers aren’t officially registered as labor; they don’t have a contract—those kind of things. At the same time, still benefitting from the profound power that comes by offering a mechanism for the poorest people to be engaged in employment and be part of the whole economic engine. So the thought all along was to get some place in Africa, or some place that doesn’t have this kind of industry, that hasn’t achieved its first step yet.

I had been working in the microfinance sector for most of my career in NGOs. I was working in Kosovo for a long time trying to push this idea in many different places but never really got a very good reception. But I ended up getting sick. I had cancer when I was in Kosovo, and they ended up shipping me off to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore to get treated. Afterwards, I started working in microfinance at World Hope International based in Alexandria. And their main country was Sierra Leone in Africa. I thought, “Wow! This will work here.” And it just kind of happened that I ended up doing this in Sierra Leone.

Now a number of things were aligned: World Hope International happens to be an NGO associated with the Wesleyan Church in the U.S., President Koroma in Sierra Leone is Wesleyan, so are a couple of his key ministers. The Wesleyan church is pretty big in Sierra Leone. So there was already a level of trust that we could build on for developing First Step.

ISOKO: Going off of that, how has your faith played into First Step?

RS:  For me, my personal faith journey is integral to everything that I am as a believer. The reason I am in this work is because of my faith. My board at World Hope International and First Step also recognizes First Step as having a faith identity.

I see it as heeding Christ’s command, Christ’s call to serve the poor. This to me feels like my calling. When I was sick and lying in my hospital bed after a couple surgeries I was thinking to myself, “Crap, if I die now that would totally suck because I was dawdling. I had this gift from someone—God—and I blew it. And if I check out now, then I totally blow it.” And that was my kind of my main regret. But I really feel like this is a calling and that my path has been laid in this way. I’m just kind of being asked to walk down it.

That said, we have a commitment that we aren’t going to be programmatically evangelizing. We’re not going to lock people in a factory and sell them Jesus. But the staff is Christian, and we are called to communicate our faith. In Sierra Leone, I think there’s a respect between the faiths and people respect the idea that you can communicate what you believe.

ISOKO: Do you see faith and entrepreneurship interacting with one another?

RS: To me I don’t think that Christians or believers are necessarily better entrepreneurs than non-believers. I mean, for me this just a tool. This is a way for me to serve the poor. I’ve committed my career to serving the poor globally and doing this as part of my faith journey. This is just an instrument for making that happen.

ISOKO: Has there been any talk of the First Step model being replicated anywhere else?

RS: Yah, talk. You know, and a lot of people say, “Do it in Haiti or do it there.” You know, we are working 16-hour days right now. But we want to communicate the concept and the model and would even help people if they wanted to replicate. We’d be happy to franchise, but right now we don’t have a lot of spare capacity.

ISOKO: If someone was interested in replicating the First Step model how would they go about doing so?

RS: I don’t know. You’re the think tank. You’ll have to help us conceptualize.

ISOKO: Anything else you’d like to mention?

RS: Right now we are in the process of establishing a heavy Special Economic Zone. Our existing zone is light, you know for light industry. We’re in negotiation with three or four other serious businesses including one that is gigantic in the iron and steel industry. It will be one of the largest businesses that will come to Sierra Leone.

We want to keep the light and the heavy separate because the light will include a lot of agro processing and the heavy will including a lot of things in processing metals and other things that are in Sierra Leone.

For more on the First Step Special Economic Zone visit the links below:

Making Profit in Africa: A Transforming Role for NGOs and Development Organizations

Tony Blair Visits First Step

Sierra Leone Launches Trade Hopes with Mango Juice

West Africa Rising: Leaders tout Sierra Leone’s first value-added factory since war

Sierra Leone Looks to Farmers to Help Spur Economic Growth

Juice Factor Could Bear Fruit for Sierra Leone

Richard Schroeder is the founding Chief Executive Officer of FIRST STEP Economic Opportunity Zone, Inc. (FIRST STEP). Prior to taking this role, Richard worked in the non-profit international development sector, living in Bangladesh for three years and the former Yugoslavia for three years. Included in his work with non-profits Richard managed a soybean seed storage and distribution program in Bangladesh, established a highly successful microfinance institution in Kosovo, designed a microfinance based peace and reconciliation program in Kosovo, and was a founding director and chairman of Kosovo’s credit bureau and pledge filing office. From 2005 to 2010 Richard served as the Director of Economic Development for World Hope International (WHI). In this role Richard designed and implemented rehabilitation plans for two large microfinance institutions in West Africa; established a new microfinance institution in Indonesia, created a global loan fund for WHI’s microfinance programs, and, in 2008, initiated WHI’s effort to develop FIRST STEP. Richard has a M.A. from Carleton University and a B.A.in Economics from the University of Winnipeg. He and his wife Allison currently live in Baltimore with their son, Ian.

2011 marked the 17th anniversary of the end of the 1994 Rwandan genocide that killed nearly 800,000 people.  Since then, the people of Rwanda have taken huge steps towards peace, recovery and women’s rights.  The fight for basic human rights for all women around the globe is slowly crawling towards equality and most countries’ efforts are lacking, even non-existent.  Rwanda, however, is a shining example of a country that has suffered through war, poverty, and the extermination of its masses only to regain its composure and lead the world in empowering its women. In fact, today there are more women holding government positions in Rwanda than any other country. After the killing of so many Rwandan men, Rwanda’s population is now comprised mostly of women. So it is partially up to the women to govern, rebuild, and thrive.  Those who previously suffered have recovered triumphantly and are now the breadwinners, the business owners, and the government officials responsible for the rebuilding of a nation.

A great example of the tenacity and enterprising spirit of the Rwandan woman is Teddy Gacinya, a 2011 PEACE THROUGH BUSINESS® graduate who opened Rwanda’s first school after the genocide.  Using a vacant school and whatever supplies remained, she started the school by promoting its opening on the radio.  The school now has more than 500 students.

Teddy was mentored by Dr. Freda Deskin, owner of ASTEC Charter Schools in Oklahoma City.  She learned how to find resources to expand her school, reach out to the community for help and better manage her finances. Teddy returned to her country and was appointed to the Senate along with another 2010 PEACE THROUGH BUSINESS® graduate.  Teddy says, “I promise I will do all I can for my country and will advocate for my fellow Rwandan women.”  The institute encourages women both locally and internationally to get involved in public policy decision-making and to pay forward the knowledge they gained during the program.  Dr. Neese believes that women who do not have a keen understanding of the politics that govern their lives are in danger of allowing those politics to control their lives.

Another inspiring example of a Rwandan woman transformed is 2011 PEACE THROUGH BUSINESS® graduate, Chantal Mazimpaka.  Chantal suffered greatly during the genocide.  After losing her mother to illness at a young age, she watched her father and brother murdered in their family home at the age of 14.  She fled with her cousins into the woods to escape, but she was eventually captured and held hostage for many days at the home of one of the soldiers where she was beaten, starved, and raped repeatedly.  Chantal eventually escaped and was rescued. She began living with her aunt who raised her and her cousins from that point forward.  Chantal says she didn’t want to plan for her future because at any moment it could be taken away. But eventually she became a nurse and is now working to help hundreds of women infected with HIV.

Chantal says her aunt helped her to heal because she encouraged her to think about her future, which gave her something to live for.  She also said President Kagame’s messages about Rwanda having a future helped as well.  Today, she is the owner of Guilgal Creations Company (GCC), an event planning business where she, ironically, is paid to plan for the future—a concept she says has also helped her heal.  “I am in control of my future and this is something I can work to improve,” she says.  Chantal also volunteers with a genocide survivor’s group.

When you look at her, you don’t see a genocide survivor whose past has worn her down.  Chantal is a mother, a survivor, an entrepreneur and someone who is working to improve her country.  She says her story is important because she doesn’t want the past to die and wants to use it to help improve the future of her country.

The PEACE THROUGH BUSINESS® program brings women entrepreneurs from Afghanistan and Rwanda to the United States for an intensive business training and mentoring program each year.  First, the students spend 8 weeks learning business and marketing essentials in their home country.  The top 15 students from each country are then chosen to travel to the U.S. to participate in leadership development.   While in the U.S., they receive in-depth business training at Northwood University’s Cedar Hill, TX campus.  Afterwards, they spend one week living and working with an American, woman business owner who practices their same trade. During that time they gain hands-on business knowledge, get tips on career-family balance, and learn the importance of political activism.   In turn, many mentors have reported receiving much more from the Afghan and Rwandan women than they gave.  The uplifting, although sometimes horrifying stories of courage, determination and triumph, give the mentors new insight and a renewed appreciation for being an American woman.  The women experience a work-life balance from an American perspective, learn to be savvy business owners, and develop into powerful public policy advocates.  In the end, they learn that no matter what country they live in all women struggle to be the best boss, employee, mother or wife that they can be.

The U.S. phase of the program wraps up with the International Women’s Economic Summit and graduation ceremony where the graduates showcase their experiences and network with members of Congress, their ambassadors, prominent business owners, CEO’s and think-tank professionals from around the globe. This year’s summit and graduation will be celebrated at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington D.C. on July 23-24, 2012.

IEEW’s PEACE THROUGH BUSINESS™ program has graduated over 200 women to date with over 80 percent of its graduates still leading prosperous businesses.  Graduates return to their country poised to pay forward their knowledge. In doing so, they have indirectly touched the lives of over 2000 women worldwide—proof that American women business owners are making an impact in the lives of their sisters globally.  President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia says it well, “No nation prospers unless there’s full recognition of the contribution of women and they are educated and allowed to participate in society. Where women are empowered the country’s economy expands . . . and the level of tension in society is reduced. Any country that wants to prosper and to have sustained growth and development has got to empower women.”

IEEW is committed to the mission of empowering one woman at a time on both a local and global level economically, socially and politically.  Dr. Neese offers a sound philosophy to put into practice: “The best way I know to enrich a nation’s economy is to empower its women.”

Institute for Economic Empowerment of Women

2709 W. I-44 Service Road
Oklahoma City, OK  73112
405.943.4474 office

www.ieew.org

Moments before the interview I stared out at the lights of Kigali, at the line of lampposts snaking around the valley toward the skyscrapers on the next hill. I wondered how the darkness must have felt only years before, and why this was all changing. Soon a voice answered on the other end of the line – a voice carried through a hair-thin wire on the ocean floor, brought hundreds of miles into the heart of Africa. And I asked him, “What brought you—Scott Ford, the golden boy of Alltel’s $28 billion buyout—to Rwanda?”

The story starts on the old county roads of Arkansas…

Read entire article on How We Made It In Africa

From David McKenzie, CNN

June 1, 2011

Nyirangarama, Rwanda (CNN) — A maverick entrepreneur and self-made millionaire, Sina Gerard is probably Rwanda’s most famous businessman.

Having established a business empire from the bottom up, he’s now training local farmers to help make Rwanda an agricultural exporter.

“My aim is to make sure that the Rwandan people build themselves and get out of poverty,” he says.

“My aim is to make sure Rwandan farmers, because they are rated at 90%, feel proud to be farmers. I’m sure I’ll achieve it because so far I have achieved a lot.”

There’s no disputing Gerard’s achievements. Twenty-five years ago he had just one employee, who helped him sell the bread he baked at his parents’ farm. Now, Gerard says he employs hundreds of workers and buys produce from thousands of farmers…

Read the full article in CNN’s Marketplace Africa.

When the 1994 genocide took the lives of her father and three brothers, Emelienne Nyiramana was forced into a life of day-to-day survival. She persevered, keeping her eyes on the road ahead. With other women who “shared the same problem of poverty”, Emelienne helped start a sewing cooperative – Cocoki. Because of her potential, she was singled out for the Goldman Sachs “10,000 Women” business training program and received her certificate this past December.
Today Emelienne is the Treasurer and Master Seamstress for Cocoki, playing a pivotal role in its expansion – the cooperative now sells its accessories and crafts to more than thirty high-end retail stores across the U.S.

ISOKO: Where were you born?

Nyiramana:  I was born in Nyanza, in the southern province of Rwanda. Before the genocide I studied two years in high school. I didn’t finish the second year though. I got married after 1994 and we moved to Kigali.

ISOKO: What led you into the business of sewing?

Nyiramana:  I’ve lived different kinds of life. I spent a long time at home, watching the kids and trying to survive. It was a difficult and miserable life. After I tried to open a small shop and it failed, I did the jobs of fetching water and cleaning offices. But it was not getting me anywhere – my salary was not exceeding 400 Rwandan francs (75 cents) a day. 400 Rwandan francs cannot get you anywhere. I didn’t even have a bank account.

In 2005, I made a decision to learn how to sew.

ISOKO: How did the idea of starting a cooperative come about?

Nyiramana: Together with women who shared the same problem of poverty, we decided to start a cooperative with the help of an organization called Indego Africa.

At the start our cooperative was part of another association, but we later parted. We had nowhere to work after that. I gathered the women and put them in the sitting room of my house. That’s where we worked for four months. We then managed to rent a house to work from, with the help of Indego.

We started the cooperative with 200,000 Rwandan francs [$350]. But we really had no capital to make it grow. We got this capital from the orders we received, and the business began to expand.

ISOKO: What were some of your initial struggles with the cooperative?

Nyiramana:  When we got here [pointing to the rented house], it was really hard for us. The house was not in a marketable place. Some of the members started leaving. We started at the number of 49, but now have only 26 women. The other members left because of the delay in profit making.

I’m one of those who had the patience to stay, and urged the others to stay as well. When we started, I was the manager of the cooperative. When we moved to this house, another women was put in charge of financing, and she failed. Another one replaced her, and she failed too. I was therefore entrusted that position because of the way I worked.

ISOKO: How did you get involved with the Goldman Sachs program, 10,000 Women?

Nyiramana:  I continued to show more potential at the cooperative, to the point where Indego Africa advised me to apply for the program. I applied for the trainings and did an interview. Over one hundred applied, and I was among the thirty selected.

ISOKO: Were you afraid of studying at the School of Finance and Banking [the program’s partner university], where some of the country’s brightest, most educated students attend class?

Nyiramana: You see, I was very happy when I was first told about it. I knew it would be difficult and I knew that I might fail. But I said to myself, “If you really want something, you can achieve it.“ I can achieve it. On the application papers, they asked if you were ready to leave your family and attend the classes. I was ready for that. I knew I was ready, and I was very happy –happy for the chance to attend trainings from a place like that.

ISOKO: What did you learn at 10,000 Women?

Nyiramana:  We learned how to start a business – customer care, bookkeeping, human resource management, how to register a business. There was a study of linking our cooperative to the customers, and a very nice lesson on accountancy – as a person who once made a loss, I really needed to understand the books to that it wouldn’t happen here too. And bookkeeping was very important. At the cooperative we didn’t know that there was a book for the bank, a book for the materials we take in, a book for the materials we take out.

ISOKO: What did you learn as an aspiring entrepreneur?

Nyiramana:  The one thing I’ve learned is that if you are to be an entrepreneur, you have to be patient and learn how to deal with the difficulties, because later on you get something out of it. We spent a lot of time here without a market for the goods, but the market soon widened with the help of partners like Indego. And you can see that the market widened even more with more partners. An example is the internal market we started selling to through Rwanda Nziza. Before we had no market to sell locally, and now we believe the market will widen further.

ISOKO: Growing up, did you ever consider that you would reach this level?

Nyiramana:  You know, in my childhood I never thought I’d be anything. I never thought I’d be a woman who can make something to be sold in America. But today, the fact that I do these things, the fact that I was picked out of more than 100 women to attend the Goldman Sachs training, showed me that if I keep working with courage I’m going to take another step, and I’m going to be someone else.  And I tell these things to my children. I tell them that they need to focus on their future, and know that good things will happen when they work hard and with courage.

ISOKO: How do you see yourself a role model for other women?

Nyiramana: In Rwanda, even though there are some women who are capable to work, many have not released the fear. Like I told you, when we started some saw that it was not immediately possible, and they got scared and left. They would say that instead of staying here and waiting, they’d rather sit at home and take care of their kids. We, however, are proud because we thought we were capable, even though it would not come immediately. There was also a lesson about that in the trainings, to be an investor you have to be ready for problems. But after problems there comes prosperity.

We feel we have the pride because we’re good examples to the other women who still think they can’t be investors. We have that pride because we are women who accepted the work and who will help develop the country. Because actually when a woman works, when she develops, the family develops too. Many times when you teach a woman, you’re teaching the child too.

The Refugee

Greg’s parents fled Rwanda in the summer of 1959, seeking refuge from what would become a forty-year build up to genocide. They settled on Lake Albert in western Uganda, once there finding only harassment under the infamous, cruel regimes of Idi Amin and Milton Obote. Greg was born in a UN camp that sheltered 300,000 displaced Rwandans. He spent the first eighteen years of his life at the camp.

Like many born amidst conflict and poverty, he could only guess his birth date—“around ’74 or ’75”—and his homeland seemed distant and unreal. The conditions at Camp Kyangwali were lamentable.

“When I was growing, the only thing I knew, to survive, was to line up in front of the UN offices and wait for the food.”

Greg and his fellow exiles were cast-outs in a country that didn’t recognize them as citizens.

“There was a dangerous bridge called Kafu that had a checkpoint. Obote’s army was at this checkpoint, and they would see the Rwandans as the meat of the bullet. That’s how they would explain it in their Swahili language – we were the meat of their bullets.”

The fake ID Greg used to get a driver's license, a keepsake that still reminds him of what it took to succeed.

When Rwanda’s northern volcano region erupted into civil war in 1990, Greg returned to the camp (he had left a year earlier to learn car maintenance in a nearby garage) with hopes that the longstanding tension between Tutsis and Hutus would soon be resolved.

Yet the war dragged on for four years. It ended with the victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a Kagame-led rebel group that delivered Rwanda from a brutal, three-month genocide in the summer of 1994. As bodies still rotted on Rwanda’s streets and floated down its rivers, making their mournful procession toward Lake Victoria in the east, Greg boarded a UN truck and returned to the homeland he’d never seen. He settled on the eastern flatlands with his uncle, and for three years awaited inevitability’s push.

The Driver

By 1997, tourism was ripe for future growth.  An old Ugandan friend encouraged Greg to move to the northern town of Ruhengeri, the gateway of the famed “gorillas in the mist”.  He soon found a niche in a tourism industry still suffering from continued insurgent raids, which had menaced the region ever since the genocidaires were exiled to nearby Zaire.  Because travelers were still uneasy about a prolonged tour in Rwanda, Greg focused on a short-term approach to attract clients.  He borrowed local trucks to take clients from the Ugandan border-town of Kisoro into Rwanda, where they would see the gorillas and return to Uganda by day’s end.  He earned his living on commissions and tips and slowly began building his reputation and income.

From 1999 to 2001, the government’s campaigns to stabilize the country were finally coming to fruition.  The northern region “started breathing easily” again, a sign for Greg to make his next move. Tourists at this time were high-rolling adventurists dropping by for a glimpse of the gorilla, to compliment the lions of Kenya and the great migration of the Serengeti wildebeests. Established tour guide companies had already tapped the market. Greg decided to focus on a different offer to a different type of traveler.

The Entrepreneur

Michael Grosspietsch, a German researching the image of Rwanda as a tourist destination, was working with the Rwanda Office of Tours and National Parks (ORPTN) in 2003. The Director of Tourism came to him one day complaining about someone from Ruhengeri who asked ceaselessly about a concept called community-based tourism. He asked if Michael would sit down and share some of his knowledge with the young man.

Community-based tourism was a foreign concept for an industry that had built its success around the mountain gorilla. The idea was that tour guides would establish business partnerships with local residents—who were mostly rural and poor—and take their clients to see the residents’ communities and volunteer on different projects. This accomplished two goals: it gave clients an authentic experience and provided the communities with an income.

Michael met Greg and was immediately impressed, believing Greg to be honest, intelligent and most importantly altruistic with his intentions. “He was not going to betray the communities.”

Michael continues, “He realized that the people who were going to trek gorillas loved to stay another day or two, and just wanted to get involved with local people. This was the opportunity. This is what he saw in Uganda. He could do the same here, and keep clients in Rwanda longer; give them a great experience while benefitting his own people.”

Greg wanted to show his clients the warrior dance of the Intore, baskets weaved from thick papyrus grass found in the southern valleys, and other hidden pillars of a beautiful and unseen culture.  His clientele would be middle class—backpackers, NGO workers, teachers, businessmen and volunteers—and his aim would be to show them the real Rwanda.

It was time to make the leap. Michael helped Greg put all of his ideas under one umbrella, brand it with a name that embodied Rwanda’s strides towards reunification (Amahoro – meaning ‘peace’), and process the necessary papers.  Amahoro Tours was registered as a business in 2003.

Michael represented Amahoro at the World Travel Market (WTM) in London the following year. He returned to develop the website and brochure, and help Greg package his diverse community projects into a stronger association. Together they formed Amahoro Tourism Association (ATA), an umbrella network of thirteen different community groups.

“He covered all costs I incurred, himself. That was the deal. When I printed brochures, when I printed business cards, when I launched and hosted his website, he paid me for it.”

Michael brought him several interns and volunteers to sustain the growing company. Three years passed. Michael was still representing Amahoro at the WTM in London and the International Tourism Bourse (ITB) in Berlin. Greg was now hosting over eight hundred clients a year.  Continuous marketing at the world’s two most prestigious tourism fairs was paying huge dividends. Yet it wasn’t enough. Greg needed to understand his clients on their home turf.

In March of 2006 Greg boarded a plane for the first time in his life, and headed to Berlin. The ITB was an eye-opening experience, where he met with international operators and individual customers and expanded an already growing client base.

The payoff was significant, as Amahoro pulled in a thousand more clients than it did in 2006.  Greg “made the good money, bought the first car,” and in June of the same year bought two Land Cruisers.  The reaping of Berlin’s visit made manifest, he went again in 2007.

The following year, two more Cruisers were added to meet the growing demand.  As the larger companies in Kigali staggered beneath a crumbling global economy, losing high-end clients who could no longer afford extravagant trips across the sea, Amahoro took advantage of a growing middle-income clientele. More of the West’s youth were escaping their failing home economies to backpack and volunteer in developing countries like Rwanda.  The larger companies were not structured to meet the demands of this type of customer, so Amahoro gladly picked up the slack.

Greg differentiated his company by reinvesting almost all of his profits, seeing the long-term benefits of international trade fairs, quality employees and expert partners like Michael Grosspietsch.

Still growing, still learning

Today, Amahoro is growing its share in Rwanda’s tourism market and is the prototype for community-based tourism. It still operates under Greg’s credo of offering a unique, cultural experience to clients who have traded luxury for authenticity.

His community-based activities are now called the Amahoro Integrated Development Program (AIDP). AIDP’s housing project, which began in 2007 as a scheme to house a widow with two to three orphans, has successfully built nine different homes. Increased interest towards the program has Greg planning on six more homes being built in 2011. Additionally, a village craft market (essentially a house where the community’s women can weave and sell baskets) has just been completed.

I listened to this story on a grassy clearing overlooking Camp Green Hill, Greg’s property that sits above the dusty streets of Ruhengeri. Amahoro’s office sat beneath us, where two secretaries were busy calling next week’s clients. Greg’s calm and confident gaze on the streets beneath us contrasted sharply with what we saw— a group of women carrying heavy baskets of potatoes to the market, children selling candy at the bus station, an old man pushing his goats across the road—and it was easy to envision what Greg could’ve been.  I asked him what lessons from Camp Kyangwari, learned long ago in a desolate corner of Uganda, shaped him into the businessman I now saw.

“I accept the challenges and know how to deal with them. I don’t give up.  And I have never taken a loan.  All our growth has been based on our savings.”

New challenges for Greg – the high costs associated with growth, controlling an expanding number of employees and adapting to an ever-changing tourism industry – still remain. He told me about his ideas to reduce cars and outsource driving services to cut maintenance and driver costs; use better management techniques; focus more on entertaining clients than allowing the hassles of owning a large fleet to interfere with a trip.  His sound sense of business rings a familiar tone.  Yet Greg has never opened the Harvard Business Review or discussed the Theory of Constraints with a gray-bearded professor.  The world did not give him these things.  The world gave him a tree to study under and a UN ration line.  He has taken it upon himself, the hardships of his youth pushing him forward, to become the self-reliant and innovative entrepreneur he is today.