The Business of Saving Lives: Global Soap Project

Before submitting this manuscript for publication consideration, I had toyed with numerous potential titles including SPECSAVERS — i.e. Soap Project, Ebola Pandemic, Community and Social Enterprises, but that was many months ago and it won’t be until many more months ahead until the paper publishes.

Be that as it may, I also recalled the popular phrase I had become accustomed to in days growing up “cleanliness is next the Godliness…” But is it really possible to be clean (literally speaking) without access to soap? That is where Derreck Kayongo’s Global Soap Project comes in — and where I opined that:

“With hindsight, The Global Soap Project has much to offer in terms of “saving lives” in these communities, as the battle against the Ebola virus calls for containment measures. The study provides avenues for future research enquiry into how single cases might be transformed into multiple cases, both within and across sectors, for the benefit of humanity in general and affected communities in particular.”

Talking about communities, I also drew inspiration from another study highlighting a notable instance community entrepreneurship as it may apply to the Ebola enclave of Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. As long pointed out:

“…Social issues addressed through entrepreneurship benefit the community through work, employment and personal development. Therefore, social entrepreneurship is linked to societal and community-based entrepreneurship through the social value created by community-based entrepreneurs that facilitates the growth and development of a community.” [Ratten and Welpe, 2011, p. 284].

While the Ebola virus and its trail of death could do without elaboration, the Global Soap Project — a silent panacea to the spread of the virus and other potential pandemics — needs one. Before going into the details of the Global Soap Project, I would like to highlight some key pointers.

Despite its history (see below quote), the approach to combating Ebola has been one of a delayed ‘fire-fighting.’

Ebola dates back to the 1970s with roots in Zaire (present day Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC). It is also not confined to SSA as previously thought — research shows cases have been observed and reported in Reston, Virginia in the US in 1989; Texas in 1990; DRC again in 1995; and the Philippines in 2008.

The question then is whether the comeback of the Ebola outbreak could have been prevented and thereby saving lives? Could the pandemic have been better managed, and again saving lives? Surely there should be answers to either of these questions — if not both. Now let me return to the case in question.

The Global Soap Project is a social enterprise founded by Atlanta-based (at the time of its founding) Derreck Kayongo, a native of Uganda who has resorted to giving hope to the underprivileged in his home country and/ or community. A key driver for the project was the recognition that curbing disease in Uganda and the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa should not only be tackled at the curative phase, but also, more importantly, at the preventive phase. Indeed the Global Soap Project, commenced long before the current Ebola pandemic across West Africa — from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, to Senegal, Nigeria and Mali (the latter three countries least impacted).

The extent and spread of the virus has criss-crossed continents — with the United States (Texas and New York), the United Kingdom and Spain all in the spotlight. However a profiling of the causes of the virus and its spread has been reported as one global epidemic that requires action at both the curative phase (with large multinational pharmaceutical firms stepping up efforts at developing a vaccine; military health personnel being deployed to the region, and huge monetary donations/pledges made by numerous governments); as well as at the preventive phase (with more education on the subject — notably the practice of personal hygiene). It is on this latter note that the “success story” of the Global Soap Project is proposed as an initiative worthy of duplication in health crises ridden environments such as these.

With hindsight, The Global Soap Project, has much to offer in terms of saving lives in SSA (sub-Saharan Africa). Indeed the battle against the Ebola virus, needs to be fought on all fronts from prevention to curation — while vaccines are being fast-tracked, the spread of the virus can be curtailed through personal hygiene and The Global Soap Project illustrates how entrepreneurship can be leveraged from the individual to community entrepreneurship.

Ultimately the study might have implications for the Zika virus that has traversed borders of South America to Asia (Singapore in particular, is grappling with the virus).

References

Madichie, N. (2016) The Business of Saving Lives in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) — A Social Imperative? Insights from “The Global Soap Project.” Journal of Enterprising Communities: People and Places in the Global Economy, 10(3), 321–342. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEC-11-2014-0025

Madichie, N. (2013) Transnational Diasporas and Cross-border entrepreneurship: Derreck Kayongo & The Global Soap Project. Refereed Research Paper presented at the ISBE Conference, Cardiff, UK, 12–13 November.

Ratten, V. and Welpe, I. (2011) ‘Community-Based, Social and Societal Entrepreneurship’, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 23(5–6): 283–286.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.