by Ali Matalon
I have been writing this article for a long time now, in my head. I keep trying to craft coherent sentences that appropriately reflect what the last year has been like for me- and for so many others, but to no avail. So, this article may not be perfect, but here it goes.
In August of 2013, Professor Shaughnessy asked me to help plan and execute a spring break- field practical trip for his Social Entrepreneurship capstone class. I can’t explain the excitement that overcame me when I thought about students from my university seeing and learning about my country. I was quickly confronted with concerns like; “I’m only a sophomore how can I possibly do this?” Thankfully, I had incredible help from the SEI team, in particular, Olivia Allen- SEI’s superstar project manager at the time. In March of 2014, 40 students and 4 program leaders arrived in Kingston, Jamaica. I was working at the Development Bank of Jamaica for my first co-op at the time and had been anticipating their arrival for weeks. An article has already been written (by the superstar Olivia) about that trip, so you needn’t listen to me gush for the next three paragraphs. You can check it out here.
I think the students observed- as many who have the experience of traveling to developing countries observe- that a lack of access plays an integral role in denying members of low-income communities success. There is no talent deficit in the developing world or a lathery on the part of the people- there is however a desert of opportunity. Working to drive out opportunity scarcity is something social enterprise does extremely well- through coupling business with community benefit/ social return, wonderful things can happen.
As you may have learned from reading the previous article, we toured microfinance institutions, nonprofit organisations, visited local communities and met with several change leaders. It was surprisingly difficult for me to show my classmates the areas of Jamaica that experience significant hardship. I can’t determine whether the difficulty was rooted in shame for my inability to explicitly state how I was positively impacting my community; or if it was simply upsetting for me to see my fellow countrymen in unfortunate life circumstances, not of their own making, but rather a result of the luck, or lack thereof, of their birth.
The SEI students comported themselves in a manner program organisers can only have dreamt they would. The students asked thoughtful questions and engaged in the communities on a personal and an empathic level. Okay, I am officially gushing. I’m getting to the good stuff I promise…
After speaking to a number of them, many agreed that the evening they spent with Jamaican young people from inner city or low-income communities was their favourite moment of the trip. The organisation Youth Upliftment Through Employment (Y.U.T.E.) bussed about 40 young people to a dinner and activity- based event that SEI hosted. Y.U.T.E. is a holistic program that focuses on reducing crime in Kingston by growing employment opportunities for youth through mentorship and skill building. We played ice breaker style games, including “Step to the Line,” where we learnt about each other’s life experiences. Both Northeastern and Y.U.T.E students would take a step toward the line in response to statements like if “your favourite colour is grey” or if “you know anyone who has been affected by cancer.” After bonding with the Y.U.T.E. participants and learning about their cornerstone three step program (Train, Engage, Employ), the capstone group wanted to invest their USD10,000 grant.
Between September and November of 2014, Professor Shaughnessy and I discussed what that investment would look like and what the original capstone cohort had envisioned. We decided that creating a microwork centre and employing traditionally “unemployable” youth (16- 29 years old) would be most effective. After the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Department of D’Amore-McKim approved this project as a directed study capstone, SEI and I assembled a team of NEU students in January to begin laying the groundwork. The majority of the students were Jamaican, but we gathered insights from Bahamian, Venezuelan and Ameircan students as well. Liann Ammar, Jasmyn Glinton, Peter Cunningham and Samantha Odreman were members of the core team. Liann later joined me to work on site between May and August of this year.
After much deliberation, we decided that working with a for-profit, business process outsourcing (BPO) company would be best. We decided that an emphasis would be placed on personal development for the participants in the program, but that they would need to compete with global individual contract workers to do work made available on various BPO sites. We spoke to a number of companies and CrowdFlower was the most receptive. We also decided that a 4- 6 month trial phase with 10- 20 participants would be the ideal conditions for our pilot project. Y.U.T.E. agreed on all fronts expect on the number of participants.
Today, Crowd Flower has its own Y.U.T.E. portal designed to allow Y.U.T.E. management to see what tasks (whether they be data management, photoshop or Microsoft office related) participants have completed and pay them accordingly. Usually contract workers get paid through credit cards. Our participants typically do not have access to credit cards so this helps us get them their money efficiently and quickly. The portal now serves a whopping 40 young people and can easily be expanded to cater to more. In fact, there are talks of an additional 80 young people being hired to serve various local interests, aside from the work done for Crowd Flower with 60 additional participants already trained. This would mean that the seed capital SEI provided would have served to develop a program in which 120 young, formerly unemployed, would now be employed or have greater access to diversified income streams.
I know what you’re thinking; how will this be sustainable long term? What happens if participants don’t earn as much as they expected or as much as they need to cover their living expenses? How does this fit into minimum wage requirements? I get it. And, these are tough questions to answer. The truth is this… 1) we hope the project will pay for itself. As more people work and more companies request our services, the more likely we are to charge for the use of our spaces or partner with organisations willing to share space… 2) we don’t know what will happen in regards to our participants meeting their basic needs- the work they have access to doing is entirely based on their skill level. Our job is to help them improve upon existing skills and learn new ones so that they can level up and be increasingly more successful. Microwork is a stepping stone, NOT a resting place… 3) as contract workers, we’re able to bypass minimum wage requirements and allow participants to create their own schedules. This makes understanding whether or not our participants are earning a living wage hard but we are doing our best to improve that with time. Finally, I think I can safely say that, we (the Y.U.T.E. and SEI team) promise to work tirelessly to keep stringent records in order to share our outcomes and lessons learned for the future!
I know that this is a lot of information to digest and a lot to understand. I want to invite anyone interested in this program to reach out to me via email at Matalon.a@husky.neu.edu and I would be happy to answer any questions you may have!
Now in my senior year at NEU, looking back at my journey with SEI and the University generally- I can proudly say that I feel I have taken advantage of the Northeastern spirit of flexibility and helped, even if in the smallest way, create some amount of positive impact on my local and home community. I am eternally grateful to SEI, the team, and all of its members! In particular, for the opportunity to be able to engage in this type of hands-on work. It’s safe to safe that SEI is the place I call home in Boston and I feel so lucky that my home here has helped me serve my home in Jamaica.
If you have an idea, if you are connected to international organizations whether through your hometown or otherwise, reach out to SEI. There’s so much we have left to do, all around the world and it starts with us taking one step forward.
