It is that same optimism and brazen determination that we try and instill in our 30 Ajiri-sponsored orphans. 100% of Ajiri scholars graduate from secondary school. And 98% of our scholars have gone onto some level of higher education. Those are the good numbers.
But there are some numbers that challenge our optimism. Young adults in Africa make up 20% of the population. These same young adults make up 37% of the working-age population. And yet, they account for 60% of the unemployed. The jobs numbers coming out of Kenya aren't any better. Of the 800,000 jobs created in 2016, 90% were in the poorly paid informal sector. Newly minted college graduates are quickly outpacing the rate of formal sector jobs.
At the darkest and most frustrating times in our business, these numbers can seem defeating. Are we filling our students with hope and telling them that they can do anything, just for them to find out that anything doesn't exist? Where is the line between sponsor and parent? Where is the line between being a business and being human?
Numbers just tell one story. People tell another. The 100% figure of Ajiri graduates doesn't show the tears cried over a math exam, the searching of a kid who has run away from school, the textbooks lost and rebought again and again. That figure doesn't reflect our doubts--it only reflects our triumphs. And so we must approach the unemployment figures as one that reflects the doubts, but doesn't show the triumphs.
So what choice do we have but to be optimistic? What choice do we have in this world but to try? Thank you all for being part of this journey. You see the real value in a $9.00 box of tea, and the real value in people.
With ongoing hope and determination,
Kate and Sara
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Angela, Wesley, and Damacline were now hopelessly off course. They had managed to scale that final fence and were walking down toward a forest. I wanted to run to them, set them on the right course, explain scale and direction and how they should put the compass on the map. But instead I watched them from the top of the hill. They were now making pretend owl calls to each other, quite literally hooting from one group to another and then bursting into laughter.
See, there is this tip-toeing around issues in business. No company should align itself too "political" for fear of alienating customers. But to have opinions and emotions—well, that's just human. As a society, we've become too corporatized—too sanitized to believe that companies shouldn't have a voice. Of course politics affect our business. Tariffs on tea! The war in Iran means higher costs of shipping our tea. The elimination of USAID and its direct impact on our community in Kenya. But more so than something directly affecting us and our business, we still care about policies that affect our neighbors and people across the world.
At Ajiri, we feel so lucky to be on this earth at the same time as all of you. Your purchase of tea holds a lot of that elusive power of art. Sure, your purchase is the transference of physical money that goes to support women and children. But your purchases of tea, time and time again, transfers this feeling of belief. You believe in these women. You believe in these kids. You believe that the world can be a better place.
Kate Holby
Author