Nick Harrington, an analyst on SVA’s impact investing team and founder of social enterprise The Manjeri School Project, pitched last week to The Funding Network for funds to support the next phase of the organisation’s growth. Nick set up The Manjeri School Project six years ago while he was on a gap year between school and university.
Nick joined three other social entrepreneurs who presented to an audience of active philanthropists, with each entrepreneur sharing in a six minute presentation what they hoped to achieve with the funds they raised.
Nick founder of The Manjeri school wows them at @TFNaus pic.twitter.com/zzp6Yj2V4f
— Ian Learmonth (@ilearmonth) November 5, 2014
Nick shared the story of The Manjeri School Project with the audience:
“The Manjeri School project is unique because of its sustainable school model which is breaking away from the often damaging traditional charity approach. After building up the infrastructure, resources and staff to make a high performing school that serves 300 poor rural students, our goal is to make the school 100% sustainable and independent by 2018.”
“We are setting up businesses that will see the school stand on its own two feet and serve this community long into the future. After our chicken farm and recent honey bee cooperative we are now poised to invest in our next venture, a ‘matatu’, or in English, a taxi bus business. This new business will not only generate daily income for the school, but also acts as a school bus before and after class, saving some of our kids up to 2 hours of walking a day.”
At the conclusion of the evening the The Manjeri School Project raised enough money to buy a matatu, plus a little extra. Nick commented that he was thrilled to have had the opportunity to share the work of The Manjeri Project with such an engaged audience and to come away with the funds to enable the Ugandan school to set up the matatu business that will contribute to the school’s sustainability.