Masikhule Steel Works

We finished our final report for our client today highlighting our deliverables over the past 6 weeks as well as recommendations to achieve future growth targets and better management practices for the business life span.  Last Thursday, 27 July, we visited three schools in Khayelitsha with our client and two sales were made.  We sensed the excitement from our client as he told us how motivated he has become seeing that he could go out and make two sales in one morning. It may have helped having Rebecca and myself by our client’s side but we tried to interject as little as possible during the discussions we had with the school principals. Now, these are three new contacts for our client that he can keep in touch with for future reference and follow up.

Ikaya Trust

We are now wrapping up our engagement with the Trust Center and have learned a lot of lessons from the whole experience.  The homestay tourism project stands to gain from further involvement if upcoming donor funds are used optimally to increase the network of the Center with other NGOs as well as private tourism businesses.  The Indaba Tourism conference/exhibition runs yearly in Durban and KwaZulu-Natal. Attending this exhibition with representatives from the homestays would reap potential relationships with tourism planners, retail and group tourism agents as well as other tourism destinations that focus on township visits elsewhere.

Ikaya Trust Center

I met with six ladies who operate homestays in Kayamandi today.  Mrs. E Swartbooi, Ezme Makhalima, Kholeka Fingo, Valencia Mgijima, Julia Zulu and Patricia Mayakiso

have all been hosting volunteers and other visitors for the past couple of years. The center and municipality would like the women to upgrade their homestays to the level of bed and breakfast and all have received hospitality and tourism training funded by an organization called Boland. THe women do not see themselves becoming bed and breakfast businesses and want to remain the way they are.  Kholeka said a bed and breakfast would not be “a home away from home” and as she sees it, the homestays are there to welcome the visitor into the home, where a family goes about its day as usual while providing for the guests in African fashion.

We are meeting with the women again on Thursday at 1pm at there homes to take photos and learn more about each woman’s homestay experience and what each plans on doing to make their individual experience a memorable one. 

Masikhule Steel Works

We met with the owner of Masikhule today and he was receptive to the logo we presented him that will be stenciled and painted on his finished products with customer approval.

The owner is meeting with the man who is preparing his business plan for him tomorrow, Tuesday,  and we are meeting with him on Thursday to visit some schools in Mfuleni and Khayelitsha where he feels there are potential jobs. When a customer came today that needed to have his muffler repaired, the owner fixed the muffler for R 25 but did not record anything in the books. We have to still work on getting the idea into the owner’s head that every transaction should be recorded to see what the real earnings of the business are.

Branding Masikhule

One of our partners in the program came up with a cost effective and creative idea for putting a logo on our client’s products. We’ve been thinking of a way to use some of the scrap metal that the client has lying around and using it as a welding piece to place on the door or window frames and bars that he makes. Initially, I had the idea of finding someone to supply outdoor stickers with a graphic design for a backdrop with ‘Masikhule Steelworks’ and the phone number on the label.

The problem with this route is the cost and the reliance on a supplier that we never located in the first place. SO the new idea is this. We still recommend using scrap metal for a diamond, oval or square shaped weld but now, instead of a sticker, we will make a stencil out of some durable plastic and spraypaint onto the welded scrap the business name and number. A silver galvanized security door with a blue welded piece placed directly at eye level for the future customer to become acquainted with ‘Masikhule Steelworks’.

Ikaya Trust

Today, Dustin and I went to pay a visit to the centre and met with the restaurant owner ‘Roots’. Roots is being backed by four business people from the Stellenbosch area in his venture of opening up an African cuisine restaurant in Kayamandi.  We were there to see how he planned on collaborating with the centre and its activities.

Its clear that there may not be much. Besides assisting the crafts people to gain exposure with any influx of visitors that takes place after the opening in September, the owner expressed no willingness to have anyone at the centre controlling any aspect of his operations.

We are putting together a booklet for the homestays that Ikaya assists in terms of booking and advertising. We will shoot some photos of each one of the ten homestay mothers’ houses and write up a short profile for each.

 Photos of Cape Town’s skyline, Robben Island and Downtown

Masikhule Steel Works

Today we visited Lolo’s supplier in Mitchell’s Plain. The name of the company is Steel World and Lolo buys most of his materials there including tubing, screws, hinges, primer, paint, cutting blades and welding rods. This is the type of company Lolo would like to see himself in someday. How effectively he would position himself within this industry is questionable given the capacity of his current operations.

Lolo has been very receptive to our pricing recommendations of 15% above total costs. We still have to do a break-even analysis to find out how much Lolo needs to earn in any given month to cover all monthly costs of operation. We have also discussed possible marketing/advertising strategies which we will carry out in our next session, beginning with walking around Mfuleni distributing pamphlets that Lolo has made copies of at the local primary school.

SMART Objectives

I met with Kholi at IKaya today and discussed the pitfalls and opportunities for the education project at the center. She heads the education project and spends a lot of time reaching out to the community, especially parents, who are not as receptive to the center’s education program as she would like them to be at the moment.

There is a need at IKaya for increased information sharing and collaboration among various stakeholders within Stellenbosch and Kayamandi in particular. There is also a need for clear and easy to use performance indicators to measure the work performance of the overall organization in terms of the education project, music project and tourism project. 

In developing DALS plan of attack in working with Ikaya, we need to focus on clear and measurable deliverables that are SMART:

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed.

Obective of Performance Indicators for effective communication with donors and internal coherence of the organization

• initiate three performance measurement tools that are easy and effective in measuring the impact of the education, music and tourism project

Timeline: Education evaluation — 14 July 2006, Music evaluation — 21 July 2006, Tourism evaluation 28 July 2006

Responsbility: Steve

Objective of Collaboration among local stakeholders

• Establish a regular working relationship with three separate stakeholders in the Greater Stellenbosch Area and delegate an IKaya contact person for all three

Responsibility: Lindsey (with other NGOs including Kuyasa in Kayamandi and Stellensbosch), Dustin (with the music conservatory at the University and MIAGI contact), Alvira (with the outreach center and writing center at Stellenbosch University)

Timeline:

5 July 2006 Meeting at Schuman Building

Our consulting group, DALS Consulting, met with the manager Eugene and one trustee Hannes, today at 1300. 

Hannes lead the discussion today, explaining more about the background of IKaya and its funding sources. 

Donors 

The center has applied for funds from the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund in partnership with a Swedish NGO that has also given money to Ikaya for administrative training and development. The education program is funded by ’godparents’ of students who show an ability to excel and finish out their schooling. One grey area in the project is a determined commitment for a defined length of time, for which the donor will finance each student’s education.

The money from the National Lottery Fund will go to develop the music training project that is currently lacking funds to continue and build. A large local company, Distell Group Limited, has shown a willingness to fund the musical project at Ikaya but has not committed to any time or amount that will be given.  We proposed a strong partnership with Stellenbosch University’s music conservatory in order to draw upon the resources available at the local University.

Volunteers 

A volunteer coordinatior position would be ideal not only for this partnership but for all volunteers that shuffle in and out of Ikaya providing their numerous skills and training.  Eugene mentioned that volunteers are unreliable but with a coordinator to assist in scheduling and managment of volunteer procurement and activities, we feel volunteers’ impact and productivity would improve substantially.

Kayamandi Tourism Corridor

This is an intiative by the local municipality and all stakeholders involved in the Kayamandi Community. IKaya coud potentially benefit from this development as long as there is collaboration among itself and the other restaurants, nonprofits, hostels and homestays within Kayamandi. Hannes mentioned some political obstacles that should be worked out with time and negotiations between Board of Trustees’ from different nonprofits and IKaya.

Performance Measurement

Performance measurement tools will be put into practice by the end of the next four weeks for the education, music, social services and tourism project.  Having measurments by which to assess the impact of each indiviual project will give the donors, board of trustees and staff benchmarks from which to strive to obtain and provide coherence around the overall mission of the center.

Competitor Analysis

This may be a misnomer because competitor nonprofits in Kayamandi should become collaborators and partners to make each organizations’ projects more effective. A competitor anaysis however, will be carried out to provide information to all organizations on the perceived strengths and weaknesses of each center’s mission. By leveraging each organizations assets in categories where Ikaya does not perform as well, we can improve the overall working environment among nonprofits throughout Kayamandi.

Partnership with Stellenbosch University

As was mentioned above, a partnership will be sought out between the music conservatory at Stellenbosch and Ikaya but we have also proposed a staff development partnership between the community outreach program at Stellenbosch and the adminstrative staff at IKaya. The writing laboratory at Stellenbosch would potentially be used to improve upon typing skills as well as information organization using programs such as excel.

Education is IKaya’s Strength

It has been noted that a teacher/manager position is urgently needed at the IKaya center for the kindegarten project. We will work together with the Trustee in charge of this project to project a timeframe of when a teacher/manager will be procured and how it will figure into the education budget. As it stands now, the education project is financially stable and a new classroom has recently been constructed for the next term. The next step is procuring someone for the teacher/manager position.