Andrea Garcia, DMSB'17, and Leah Bury, DMSB'18 traveled across the globe to serve as business consultants in the townships and informal settlements of Cape Town, South Africa, where company success is a matter of survival.
The student consultants worked with Moses and Jeanette Tinfayo, survival entrepreneurs, who own and operate Nfayo Products, a retail business that produces the Wonder Bag, an insulated cloth sack that turns half-cooked meat and vegetables into fully cooked meals.
“We have to run this business, or we won't survive,” explains Jeanette, underscoring the critical mission of the D'Amore-McKim Social Enterprise Institute and its students who are committed to harnessing business as a tool for social change. The Institute partners with social innovators and change-makers to help alleviate poverty in the developing world by utilizing enterprise based solutions and recently awarded Nfayo Products a 20,000 Rand (US$1,600) loan for business expansion.
Garcia and Bury collaborated with local students from TSiBA, a non-profit university with a mission to provide tuition-free business degrees for students from townships who seek to give back to their community. Together, they gave strategic advice, showing the Tinfayos how to minimize costs and identify market opportunities. The student analysis and recommendations aimed to increase business profitability and in turn sustain the community's livelihood by spurring economic growth and job creation.