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Continued from previous page
Ed Marcum, WG'01
Nestled in a cluster of African shade trees in
Luandai, Tanzania, a new rectangular mud and
brick building has become the most celebrated
structure of the Ndekai Primary School.
It houses not a classroom, but a latrine.
Global Education Partnership, a Washington,
DC-based nonprofit now run by Ed Marcum,
WG'01, worked with Luandai families to build
the structure. A first for the village, the latrine was
what locals said they needed most to improve their
school. After all, learning to read comes after basic
survival, and unsanitary conditions can spawn
many infectious diseases still rampant in parts
of Africa.
GEP programs are not gifts or loans to the
communities they serve, and they are not wholly
run by aid workers. Rather, the organization partners
with local communities. Residents themselves
decide what their schools need - whether it be
textbooks, or chalkboards, or a bathroom. GEP
helps organize things and provides 50 percent of
the funding through international donations. The
rest of the money and labor comes from the communities
themselves.
"We as development workers . . . should be able
to pack up our tents at some point and go," says
GEP founder Tony Silard. "True development
occurs when the development worker leaves, and
the people say, 'We did this ourselves.'"
Marcum met Silard, a former Peace Corps
teacher, when Marcum worked for the Council on
Foreign Relations helping local officials formulate
strategies to promote international trade.
Marcum already had a pretty varied professional
life, having spent a couple of years traveling the
world on the minor league tennis circuit. It didn't
take much for him to join GEP, filling a position
in development which he now says he knew little
about. Soon, he started thinking about public policy
school to flesh out his skills. Wharton quickly
emerged as an even better fit.
But Silard didn't let the educational detour
interfere with his own ideas for Marcum's future.
Soon after the MBA was finished, he offered
Marcum a short-term consulting job, then used
the window to woo his protege into taking over
GEP full-time.
The two men seem to share a certain outsized
optimism about changing the world, bit by bit.
Global Education Partnership is their vehicle.
The organization works with communities
to provide low-income youth with all kinds of
educational resources and skills to bolster their
employment potential. Not only does GEP work
on primary school projects, it also runs young
adult programs on how to manage small businesses,
look for work, and use computers. "One of the
things that really excites me is the clear need for
the services we provide," Marcum says.
The programs include:
- Entrepeneurship and Employment Training,
which teaches income statements and balance
sheets, business development plans, and profit
management to low-income youths. GEP partners
with other nongovernmental organizations and
with microfinanciers to help students find startup
capital.
-
Educational Resource Development and
Capacity Building. This 50-50 partnership program
assists primary and secondary schools with
their most pressing needs, such as the latrine
building project in Tanzania. Capacity building
workshops help community residents create
multiyear school development plans.
-
Curriculum Development and Teacher
Training. GEP developed a five-volume series
of lesson plans, reading materials, and entrepreneurial
exercises for distribution to schools and
community organizations worldwide.
Also in the works is a plan to organize East
African safaris in which travelers who want to
sponsor community projects can time their trips
to include dedication ceremonies for the finished
product. Donations for these matching projects
can be a little as $1,000 and give the donors
a chance to see up-close the good their money
does. (For information, see our sidebar "How
To Get Involved" on page 22.)
The partnership element is key. Aid recipients
must contribute their own money and time to
the projects.
"GEP is acting as a catalyst for development,"
says Maria Msemo, a local GEP director in East
Africa. "[The communities] can do another project
by using the methodology of GEP."
Marcum's MBA is helping ensure the model
thrives. Already he has taken the tough step of letting
some staff go to reduce costs. He also retooled
the floundering curriculum project, which got off
the ground while Marcum was at Wharton but
then failed to meet revenue projections.
More recently, Marcum clinched the kind of
corporate sponsorship deal he was never able to
land before attending Wharton. Peet's Coffee
agreed to introduce a line of holiday gift packages
featuring coffees from some of the countries GEP
is active in, such as Kenya and Indonesia. Sales
proceeds will go to fund projects in those countries.
Marcum pitched the deal as a new product
line for Peet's, rather than as a straight act of corporate
philanthropy.
"Wharton definitely provided me with a way
of thinking that was more marketing oriented," he
says. It also gave him the confidence he needed to
supervise 18 employees scattered from the San
Francisco Bay area to Kenya, Tanzania, Indonesia,
and Guatemala.
Marcum, himself just 33 years old, is also
working with a group of first-year Wharton MBA
students on a consulting project for GEP. Perhaps
the experience will even lure someone into the
non-profit sector, though Marcum admits it's a
tough choice for someone coming from a peer
group where so many are headed for more lucrative
careers.
But if Marcum's enthusiasm is any gauge, it can
be a rewarding choice.
"Knowing that you are coming into work each
morning to tackle really serious problems, to me,
makes the job worthwhile."
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