Group Food Committee (2007)

Although I was born into a short blanketed family (in my culture this is a dignified way of saying poor), most of my socialization was very elitist in nature. Not only in later life when I attended elite institutions like UWC and Stanford. But also in formative years in my public primary school: Mafhikana . 

Our teachers segregated our classrooms based on academic performance. Argued to be the most intelligent student in school, I sat in group A amongs the top 25% high achieving students in my class. Most of us came from poor families but we believed in our hearts that poverty was not in our destiny.

In standard 7, my table and I decided to form a food cooperative. The idea was to bring fruits and other snacks to share every day and also save money every day so that at the end of the term we can go buy magwinya (fat cakes) and menoto (chicken feet) like the kids from well off families. The fruits and snacks were based on what people could find, and were often fruits we could easily find in the wild or in our homes, such as mothwane, moretologa, and peaches. 

The daily commitment was to contribute P0.05 with a P0.05 penalty per day for every day a person missed. $1 is about P10, so P0.05 is about $0.005. As the undisputed group leader, I was in charge of collecting the money and maintaining records of collections. This was a successful projects, especially since we sometimes contributed more than the minimum amounts required. 

The main lesson from this was the power of collective action, but also of how far insignificant amounts of money can go when pooled together. I would not be surprised if my Venture Capital firm in the future sources its money from many individual investors.