Let's Grow Together was a project that aimed to create empowerment opportunities for students from lower-income generating households. Sparked by the 2015 Fees Must Fall Movement in South Africa. The project aimed to create employment opportunities for students through the sale of fresh fruit and vegetables to students and staff of the North-West University. Through this, we were able to provide a stream of income for students to purchase basic necessities such as food and toiletries, as well as a platform for students to expand their social capital within the university.
What skills and resources were you able to draw from the community for this project?
We were able to garner a lot of support from the community for the project. When the project started it was started with money out of our pockets. It wasn’t a lot of money, but it allowed the project to grow organically over the first few months. During this period of growth, we were introduced to various people on and off the campus who were very excited to either get on board directly or provide guidance and soundboard strategic decisions. For us, this was the greatest contribution. Let’s Grow Together was able to grow because of a small, but very passionate and committed network of students and staff at the North-West University. The Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research (AUTHeR) played a crucial role in helping us get a deeper understanding of the social components of the business, the Technology Transfer and Innovation Office also played a key role in advising on the business component of Let’s Grow Together. We were also able to obtain funding through the North-West University’s Leopard Lair competition which amounted to R75 000.00 as well as $2000.00 from Monash South Africa through their MSALEAD programme. These two awards were crucial not just due to the monetary contribution, but also the credibility that it gave to us.
The challenges
We launched Let’s Grow Together on the 22nd March 2017, a project that aimed to provide the North-West University (Potchefstroom campus) with fresh fruit and vegetables to end food insecurity on the campus and contribute to a healthy and quality lifestyle. To achieve this we launched a delivery service that offers a range of fruit and vegetables to the staff members of the Potchefstroom campus every Thursday. Currently, the program is self-funded as we believe this was the most appropriate method to start a project we are so passionate about. As we grow we shall explore various other funding methods to fully realise our dream of becoming the second largest employer of students in the Tlokwe Municipality (after the NWU). We believe that our ambitious target is fully achievable if we work diligently and remain true to our values. The endless hours of hard work and full dedication to the program are worth it and we have all made sacrifices to ensure that we can fully dedicate ourselves to this dream.
Addressing the challenges
The first thing we wanted to do is change the perception of students, as lazy, unmotivated and dependent. We were ultimately able to achieve this in the engagements we had with staff members who were able to get to know the students behind the project and through this change, their negative assumptions about students to positive experiences and we believe we were able to achieve this. The project was also able to open the eyes of the University to student entrepreneurship on the campus and open the door for other students to pursue their various business and entrepreneurship ventures. During our operations, we were able to provide direct support to a number of students who engaged with the project. The students who stayed longer with the project were then able to develop a rapport with lecturers and administrative staff who were then able to support the students more in their personal capacity. There’s always more that can still be done a lot of the challenges that were present in 2015 still exist. We still need to change the way people think about social responsibility when we started we wanted to make it as easy as possible for the end-user to engage in a project like this while still undertaking their daily or weekly tasks. It is only once we integrate these two aspects that we can begin to address the current and future challenges.
The achievements
Let’s Grow Together had a number of different accomplishments. Founded as a social-entrepreneurship business our greatest achievement is not in monetary terms but rather in social terms. Prior to starting Let’s Grow Together we were approached by a young engineering student who was struggling financially, after his involvement with Let’s Grow Together he was able to improve his food security though the salary he earned from Let’s Grow Together as well as take on other jobs with people he meet through Let’s Grow Together. He was able to finish his undergraduate degree and is now pursuing an honours degree. Among the other accomplishments of Let’s Grow Together were 1st prize at the inaugural Leopards Lair Competition, as well as the Vice-Chancellors award in 2017.
Token Project / Move One Million
Johannesburg, South Africa