The Butterfly Project

This is a project, which we are developing here in Kaduna State, although we have yet to secure funding for it. We are working on some initial research in the field and the objective with this thread is to gain some quality feedback on the idea, the methodology and the projected impact.

Firstly one has to start with the view that social entrepreneurs are people who are beneficial to disadvantaged society, perhaps, on average, substantially more beneficial. Thus the objective of the project is to encourage and create many social entrepreneurs in an area affected by substantial poverty.

In Kaduna state, Nigeria, 50% of children do not attend school, or at the very least have dropped out. Most of these spend their time either begging in towns or selling farm produce that they have gathered. it is a reasonable assumption that these 50% are equally as bright as those who are attending school. Since those who are gifted and/or talented are likely to underachieve or reject school, it is likely that this group also includes an equivalent number of gifted and talented children.

Most, but not all of these children live in rural areas, where schools are striving, mostly unsuccessfully, to provide suitable education and suffer from a lack of qualified teachers and resources. 20% of rural children are also dying before they reach age 10, due to lack of medical facilities.

Imagine if, from this group, you could find those children who have the most suitable characteristics to become social entrepreneurs - the Ashoka Fellows of this world - and then you provided them with all the support that could be mustered for them to achieve this potential, or indeed another, should this be more suitable. They would become people with the knowledge of how best to tackle social issues, but from a rural standpoint and with a passion to work in the hard to negotiate rural settings.

The Butterfly Project aims to take 48 gifted and talented young people, aged 7-15, from these rural areas, provide them with wireless internet access, mentoring from Ashoka social entrepreneurs, pairing with US counterparts through email contact, gather them together quarterly for activity weeks, support them in developing their own social projects, offer internet chats in which they can participate, provide English language tuition, if needed and encourage them to develop their IT skills, through the Virtual Africa project (to come).

Selection processes are to be tested next week, when 3 girls and 3 boys from rural environments have been chosen to participate in a special fun day, where they can enjoy a bit of luxury, but also find out their aptitudes in a variety of areas. We will be testing our selection methodologies, which we are striving to ensure will not favour those who have been educated. Two of the participants are several years behind at school, to to lack of appropriate schooling, but my belief is that they may actually be more intelligent than average.

If funding can be acquired for the project, then this selection methodology will be used statewide, by working with the Chiefs and Emirs to set up testing days in their locales, where young gifted and talented people are encouraged to participate.

If the project is successful we may be able to provide an injection of highly capable people into rural areas, who can be changemakers and perhaps ultimately Ashoka Fellows, or the equivalents.

Last comment added: Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:14:38 PST

Comment 1 on The Butterfly Project

This sounds interesting. I would be interested in hearing your selection methodology!

Comment 2 on The Butterfly Project

I'm intrigued, too, Ben - please update us when you know more!

Comment 3 on The Butterfly Project

The event has taken place and a number of very interesting areas have developed, as a result.

Essentially, it was a small piece of research, with just six village children aged 12 to 15 participating, 3 girls and 3 boys.

We devised a number of tests, to cover areas of potential talent: a) Verbal b) Artistic c) Musical d) Visual-spatial e) Technical f) Creative g) Leadership h) Reasoning i) Numerical j) Memory

We also interviewed them quite rigorously about their life and aspirations.

Two of the participants were from remote villages, where they were seven hours walk from the nearest village. Neither of these two could write with any degree of fluency, although they knew how to hold a pen.

It was clear to us that the elder boy, who could not write had a significant level of intelligence, as he was able to tackle complex questioning and was able to offer good reasoning and creative skills. He was also something of an artist.

Of the girls, none came from the remote areas, but one showed a level of intelligenmce significantly higher than the other two (as would not be unexpected.) The tests were not all successful and some were particularly hard to measure. We were uncomforable wioth our numerical ability testing, as the children were unable to complete it - the intention was to avoid Maths at all costs, but set up a complex counting task and also a "selling" task, where they had to work out the change from a fruit-selling transaction (as I understand Brazilian streetkids are used to doing).

The younger "remote village" boy performed poorly on almost all tests (barring the artistic and musical), but he did not strike me as being less intelligent than the rest. On the memory test, he did extremely badly.

I will be writing up the results soon, as there were clearly some interesting findings. I have a new idea as a result, which is to offer a rural centre, where remote children can come for weeks away, so they can enjoy the broader range of lifestyle that others enjoy. This is clearly unfairly holding them back and some action needs to be taken to give them more opportunity.

I have just these purely qualitative results and a follow-up and more "serious" testing process will I hope be developed from here. Working with the "remote" children was a definite success and one could see changes in their ability levels in only a single day (more than the others in the group.) We promised we would involve them again in something in the New Year.

Comment 4 on The Butterfly Project

I am the Education Consultant for the National Association for Gifted Children in the UK and have been endeavouring to help and advise Ben a little on the Butterfly Project. Its extremely hard to obtain conclusive intelligence test results in the best of circumstances so this was a real challenge and I look forward to viewing the data once it is completed. IQ testing is often only as good as the circumstances on the day and requires the participant, in most cases, to have a certain level of drive, motivation and education. We would not recommend testing under the age of 7 years and the intelligence test should never stand alone, there has to be many other factors taken into account when assessing the participant and looking at the results, e.g. level of education, background, upbringing, values and morals, beliefs, culture, gender, learning disabilities and/or difficulties, schooling, teacher and mentor references, coaching, life experiences etc. This of course is all relative within the local environment of the participant. In order to assist the children of Nigeria we need funding to put skills classes into place for them but first we need to train and pay salaries to high quality teachers who can make a difference to the future generations of Nigeria.

Comment 5 on The Butterfly Project

I suspect in this case there needs to be a component of EQ testing as well...and maybe that is the biggest part!

Comment 6 on The Butterfly Project

Linda, I am not very familiar with EQ testing - is there any chance you could elaborate on your remark, as it sounds like it could be significant?

Comment 7 on The Butterfly Project

I would suggest the book "Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman.

Comment 8 on The Butterfly Project

Book arrived today:)

Comment 9 on The Butterfly Project

I will be interested to hear what you think. When I read books like that around here, there is no one to talk to about it. It might be another interesting book for the "book discussion group."

Comment 10 on The Butterfly Project

I have started this book, which is certainly very interesting from a perspective of how best to proceed with the Butterfly Project. EQ as a measure, if it exists, might well be of value.

I would suggest, though, that we do have a balance of "tests", which include leadership and problem-solving which are not traditionally associated with IQ, but we could include aspects such as "teamwork" or gauge their empathic response to situations in some way, so we will see how this develops.

Comment 11 on The Butterfly Project

I thought readers might be interested on the testing that we did, so I will delineate the various tests and ask for feedback on their content:

ICEBREAKER - This was a traditional learn about your partner and then introduce them to the rest of the group.

VERBAL - we simply asked them (on film) to describe their normal day, in as descriptive a way as possible, with a view to trying to interest us.

ARTISTIC - each participant was given a knife and lots of fruit and they were asked to make a floral fruit display fit to grace the chief's table. I will put the pictures of this in at some point.

MUSICAL - each was asked to sing and their ability measured on how they handled the "Happy Birthday" song. Happy Birthday is particularly strange in that it is one of the most well-known songs that few can sing properly.

VISUAL-SPATIAL - the participants were shown around the site and told that they would be given some pictures soon, the locations of which they would need to identify later. The pictures were taken digitally and circulated on-screen once and they were challenged to find and draw signs, which were at the locations photographed. They would need to plan their route to be fastest.

TECHNICAL/MECHANICAL - one by one the participants were shown (once) how to put together an electrical switch. They then had to put another one together, as quickl as possible.

CREATIVE/PROBLEM SOLVING - we tackled this in two ways. Firstly individually and on film they were asked to find ways of trying to solve a particular problem that they had as a group agreed was important to solve in their village. Secondly, they were asked to name a sweet and describe its ingredients.

LEADERSHIP - the group were briefed on a game and told that they were going to be measured on their leadership potential. They were to be in charge of a team of younger children, who were going to play the game. They would have to explain to them the rules (with help from us), devise a strategy to win and then coax their team to ensure they achieved the best results. They were not allowed to play the game themselves, just take a leadership role.

REASONING - This was a group participative activity, where all were encouraged to come up with a problem in their village and then each asked to prioritise that problem and explain why they felt that this was the highest priority. The session was on film for latyer assessment.

NUMERICAL - There were two parts to this; a) A swift counting test, where many objects were shown and they needed to be counted. b) A "use of money" test, where objects were given a monetary value and mental arithmetic had to be done to establish the right amount of change from a complex purchase. Although this did not work, as it was found to be too hard, I believe that highly numerate children would have been able to complete the task and the idea was to assess high levels of numeracy.

MEMORY - This was a simple Kim's Game format, made slightly more difficult, in that the objects were described in some way and the participants could gain bonus points if they were able to remember how the object was described in exact words. The memory test concerned me, as one of the boys with the lowest educational level performed very badly and this could indicate either that he was less intelligent than the others (which I don't believe) or that "education" is correlated somehow to memory. I guess too that he could have been intelligent but with a bad memory.

Overall, I believed that we proved that such an assessment was feasible and, with a level of slickness included, could be completed in half a day, a full day, if it was viewed that the tests needed to be "fun".

We used logic to devise the tests, not a sophisticated psychological testing professor's thesis. The tests definitely demonstrated levels of intelligence and from the session perhaps one would have made it through to a second and more intensive testing process, where Butterfly project members would be selected.

Comment 12 on The Butterfly Project

For those interested in such things, here are some photos from the Butterfly Testing Day

The group had around 90 minutes computing, with about half an hour to themselves.

None of the children knew their heights and so this was a fun exercise for them to do prior to the actual testing. This is the best picture I have of the actual participants - Dogara, Elizabeth, Suleman, Angela, Monica and Ayube

Not everyone could write their name and this was an immediate issue we had to tackle. I wonder how an intelligent child can spend five years at school and still not be able to write their own name. This shows that there is more to the educational issue than simply bringing in supposed teachers.

The artistic test involved each participant being given a bowl of identical fruit. They were told to make an attractive design for the chief's table. The above was one of the best. The variation in quality on this test was very significant.

Emmanuel Nehemiah took a session on camera where each were asked to describe the problems in their village and to prioritise them, justifying their reasons. Later they were asked to provide solutions to the problems they had raised on an individual basis.

Slightly more controversial, the counting test was basically a "race" to count up all of the items in the picture. It wasn't meant to be easy, as the test is for gifted and talented and only one was able to come up with a result. Counting was used, as we viewed that maths would add bias to the assessment (at least more than counting would).

The photograph shows the venue we used for the day; the activity shown was the leadership game that was played.

Comment 13 on The Butterfly Project

Fantastic pictures and so great seeing everything happening.

Comment 14 on The Butterfly Project

Yes I second that - wonderful, Ben! Much thanks!

Comment 15 on The Butterfly Project

Cool ... and thanks! :)

Comment 16 on The Butterfly Project

Ben it sounds like the testing was a real learning experience for the kids as well. I'm wondering, how did you select the kids to participate in this?

Comment 17 on The Butterfly Project

Christina Jordan said:

Ben it sounds like the testing was a real learning experience for the kids as well. I'm wondering, how did you select the kids to participate in this?

We selected the six, from three districts in the chiefdom, that we interviewed as part of the Ethanol project, which is talked about on another thread. In that project we discussed the roles of men, women and children in the production of ethanol. We simply chose a selection of the children from those that were confident enough to speak up in front of the rest of the village about cassava farming. I was also particularly keen to include two from the remotest village we visited, as I knew these could be the hardest to "test". One was actually selected by members of one of the villages and he turned out to be the one that performed the best.

My hope is that we can allocate time next year to run tests in all ten of the districts, where the children are actually selected by members of the village and their teaching staff. We will then do our more formal testing and possibly pick one in each district for a more determined pilot.

My hope during this year is also to supply this chiefdom with internet access, so we can follow up by providing them with an XO laptop and a bit of training, as soon as they become available. The internet access will be tied into the cooperative federation work we are hoping to do, if we can prise some funding from somewhere.

Naturally the pilot will also include some central activities at the Kamuru Centre, which are designed to begin to interest the participants in becoming social entrepreneurs.

Funding for this project has been hard to place, as it seems to cross a lot of boundaries and is perhaps a bit too radical or perhaps even "elitist" for some. I think we have taken the view that we like the project very much and we will put it into action regardless of funding, but in a much smaller way. If we can show some early success, perhaps the state government can be persuaded to run a statewide pilot.

Comment 18 on The Butterfly Project

One was actually selected by members of one of the villages and he turned out to be the one that performed the best.

Yes, it seems to me that villagers know very well which children among them are the brightest stars.

Funding for this project has been hard to place, as it seems to cross a lot of boundaries and is perhaps a bit too radical or perhaps even "elitist" for some.

I've been reading lately about the Law of Attraction... you need to stop describing it in that way if you want that to change! I think you are putting together the basis of something very fundable. But just like you might need to invest in a prototype of a new product to be able to find an investor, in our sector we've also got to invest in developing our models before investors will be ready.

I'd suggest you not limit yourself to thinking about the state system - there might be a lot you could do with a club structure, for example. If you could narrow down a cost per regional club start-up you might be able to link with entrepreneurial organizations like Rotary or AIESEC to get local chapters sponsoring/connecting with your clubs of kids in Nigeria.

Comment 19 on The Butterfly Project

Sorry about the slight negativity. I do feel strongly that we need to "demonstrate the model" as you suggest and certainly our model needs some more detail applied to it.

I will pass the idea of Rotary and AIESEC to Emmanuel to see if he has any ideas how to instigate this in Nigeria. I had personally thought that the districts themselves might even sponsor one of their children on the project, as in small measures, the medicine is easier to swallow.

Many thanks for your interest.

Comment 20 on The Butterfly Project

Ben, here's one thought I just had on your testing methodology. Something has been gnawing at me about the leadership test, and I think it's that you've observed the kids being tested in a position of leading younger children, but you haven't tested for leadership among their own age-mates. (Or maybe you have and I missed that?)

Have you involved all of the kids being tested in solving complex problems as a team? When they need to work together to create a skit, or build something, or plan something, then I'm thinking you would have a higher quality indicator for leadership than by only watching the same kids lead younger children. A lot of kids have experience with younger children that they gain from the home context, but being good with younger children is (imo) a different social skillset than mobilizing and organizing one's own peers or community members of an older generation. I guess I'm thinking all of these are what you want to see in your potential social entrepreneurs.

Another something I wanted to share was that in Gulu the children held an election to elect their club leaders. We made sure every child could vote by offering a private oral vote in addition to a ballot. In advance, the children who wanted to vote orally selected the person who would record the oral votes. That person sat at a table well out of earshot. The children voted on self nominated candidates. I'm thinking perhaps this could be an idea to help you select from the village level. Let the children tell you who their best social leaders are. Perhaps nominations could come from adult community leaders or teachers so that you have those voices included in the mix.

Comment 21 on The Butterfly Project

Well, to give an idea of the mix, the teams were 90% younger with 1-2 in each team (of about 8) of similar age, but I take the point that this "family context" older being of a higher rank than younger could impact on the assessment. We certainly were viewing the teams and some of the best leaders were "organising" and "motivating" more than others. Some were more "enthusiastic" and some were clear-spoken and good at giving instructions, but these are qualitative assessments. there probably ought to be some measures out there for "leadership skills", so perhaps I need tor esearch this a little more.

The girls performed worse in this test too (3rd, 4th and 5th of 6), which might indicate that there are cultural issues that need weighting against too, but it is a little too early to be certain on this.

I very much like the idea of children selecting candidates for their "social leaders". The districts are quite large and so we would have to work out a sensible methodology for picking 12 from 500 or more 10-14s.

Comment 22 on The Butterfly Project

ben this is really interesting work! i am curious: how would you define "success" for the butterfly project's first cohort of graduates?

Comment 23 on The Butterfly Project

Well I think early success would cover a number of areas:

"Buy in" from the communities - we have already achieved that.
"Stretching" tests which were communicated effectively - only partial success so far
Finding genuinely gifted and talented children from a range of different areas, distinguished by the testing process - minimal success here, but then the sample was only 6. 3 were clearly "above average".
Smooth operations and timings - abysmal failure on this, but we will do better! It needs to run sweetly, as the intention is to "process" fairly large numbers.
I would also like our tests to have obvious credibility, which we simply do not have, as yet. I hope to gain this from gifted children experts like Elaine at NAGC.

This may not answer your question, however. Presuming we have say 30-40 graduates from an intake of 48 after the first year, my expectation would be that each one of them would have instigated a social project back in their village, which was sustainable.

My vision for the time post graduation is less easy to predict, as the gifted and talented group can be very wayward, whilst brilliant. However, I do feel that we should have some channels for them to plough, which are as follows:

IT-based - the VirtualAfrica project, which will provide far better means for westerners to give directly to villages and see results.
Graphics-based - an art studio based in the rural areas, which trades its work through internet technology - video-conferencing and other internet technologies
Music/Art - the development of local cultural assets, selling them to global markets
NGO start-up - support for starting an NGO in an area for which the graduate has a specific enthusiasm e.g. HIV/AIDS, health, education etc.
Politics - governments need more rural dwellers in their ranks to make the changes needed
Solar power development - we are about to start a small business in this area and can see the opportunity to have more experts able to take it forward
Other rural technologies - stoves, sustainable forestry, biofuels, agriculture model farms

There will be no pressure to move into any of these areas, but often the gifted and talented group will need a peg on which to hang their abilities.

Remembering that probably 70-80% of our participants would stay most of their lives in their village and become farmers, I would regard a success as being part of any of the above seven topic areas.

Of the 30-40, I would not be surprised if half became social entrepreneurs in the sense that we know it, with the right inspiration through the programme from Ashoka fellows.

Thanks for the question, Lars, as I can now see that more planning needs to be done.

Comment 24 on The Butterfly Project

Ben, great stuff - thanks! Now that I have a sense of what "success" looks like for the Butterfly project, I have another, which is about the larger context into which your project inserts itself - and how those shape expectations - in at least two ways:

Success rate for social enterprises is shaky. Many entrepreneurs aren't successful until they've not succeeded a few times and have ways to problem solve and improve their ideas. As one report put it, "The success rate for nonprofit enterprises is the same as small businesses: a large share fail. The difference is, with the social mission attached, it is harder for nonprofits to let go."
The skills students learn could be invaluable preparation for life paths other than founding a social enterprise - for example: leading a small business, joining the staff of a multinational NGO or business, or furthering their education in a college or university. Perhaps sparking a passion to make a life-long contribution is already a significant rewriting of a community's future...?

Just two thoughts. 100% "success" rate is very admirable - and I don't hope you will not be disappointed if you should see your children, after all you have taught them, choose a different path...

Cheers,

lars

Comment 25 on The Butterfly Project

I wouldn't expect a 100% success rate - it is hard to know what percentage we would feel positive about, at this stage.

I ran a social enterprise for four years for my sins and it was way more difficult than a standard enterprise. The bonus is that it's not just your own organisation that wants you to succeed and our many followers and supporters in local government helped us through the boom and bust of funding streams.

There are few examples of social enterprise in Nigeria and the terminology is certainly not known and understood. However, my impression of normal business in Nigeria is that it is not so hard. Salaries/rents are so low that if you have the product that people want, you don't need to sell many at all to make a profit and if you can find a product for the rich - say solar power - you can use that business to subsidise solar installations in rural areas, where they would struggle to support the cost.

Regarding your second point, there will be no pressure to become a social entrepreneur, other than when conducting a village project, while they are participating in the programme. We may even include sessions on commercial business within the various programmes we run and I agree that instilling a lifelong contribution to society could in many cases prove more fruitful than an unsuccessful sortie into the pitfall-filled world of social enterprise!

Ignoring all of that, and moving several cohorts along, what if we were able to develop a consortium of expert indigenous rural developers with high integrity, that could facilitate rural upgrade, because they know the people and the terrain and they can create buy-in from the communities? Would they not be in high demand for overseas funders?

Comment 26 on The Butterfly Project

Thanks Brian - perhaps I misunderstood:

30-40 graduates from an intake of 48 after the first year, my expectation would be that each one of them would have instigated a social project back in their village, which was sustainable.

I read that as, 100% of our graduates will have instigated a sustainable social project.

You asked, "what if we were able to develop a consortium of expert indigenous rural developers with high integrity, that could facilitate rural upgrade, because they know the people and the terrain and they can create buy-in from the communities?"

Sounds brilliant to me - sectors of nutrition, health care, and literacy would be a boon. And not just in the rural areas: something must be done about the slums of Lagos!

Cheers,

lars

Comment 27 on The Butterfly Project

Lars Hasselblad Torres said:

Thanks Ben - perhaps I misunderstood:

30-40 graduates from an intake of 48 after the first year, my expectation would be that each one of them would have instigated a social project back in their village, which was sustainable.

I read that as, 100% of our graduates will have instigated a sustainable social project.

Yes, quite right, but treat this as a mandatory requirement of being a participant - you will be undertaking a small social project (supported by the Butterfly team) back in your village. 100% participation, but perhaps less than 100% sustainability and probably a very small project.

Some may not do it, but they will receive substantial support in putting it into practice, and it will be their own project. This isn't their legacy, though, nor necessarily their eventual career and possibly not even related to what they might do long-term after they have "graduated".

Comment 28 on The Butterfly Project

Ben Parkinson said:

Linda, I am not very familiar with EQ testing - is there any chance you could elaborate on your remark, as it sounds like it could be significant?

Ben

There is EQ and SQ and both may be relevant to the Butterfly Project and other areas of your work:

Emotional Quotient (EQ) – Is about feeling

EQ is a term used to represent other factors that can lead to healthy relationships and the ability to respond appropriately and positively to every day life. It is about recognising emotions and managing them. Emotions without a physical expression are collections of thoughts. Talking about emotions means we have to have an understanding and a language for feelings then we have to be able to articulate our feelings. EQ is about understanding ourselves, how we relate to others and how others perceive us. EQ also helps us to understand how others are feeling and enables us to develop more fulfilling and deeper relationships. All this is essential if we are to be able to manage and resolve conflict as and when it arises as well as functioning collaboratively and collectively in everyday situations.

Spiritual Quotient (SQ) – Is about being

SQ is very difficult to define. But it needs to be clear it is not about organised religion. SQ is about questions more than answers. It lives in stories, poetry, metaphor, uncertainty and paradox. One of the biggest qualities of SQ is wisdom. Ingredients of SQ are values such as courage, integrity, intuition, compassion, empathy and knowing the limits of your knowledge. SQ can also mean unlearning what others have taught you; questioning life issues; thinking laterally or outside the box; seeing situations and issues differently; having a greater understanding of all possibilities. Spirituality is an essential component of a holistic approach to life, its finds expression in creativity and all art forms and is the bit that adheres together our conscious intellect and our intelligent action. Spirituality sustains us from within when all else fails; spirituality allows us to dream, aspire and raise ourselves up.

Hope this is helpful

Elaine

Comment 29 on The Butterfly Project

Thanks, Elaine

Do you have any ideas how we could apply it into the testing process, i.e. measure it amongst our 11-13yo group?

Is there anything diagrammatic that could help me understand the difference between the three?

Comment 30 on The Butterfly Project

Hello Ben and thank you for the invitation to participate in this forum with you. I have read through the postings and am intrigued in the concept. I won't question your tactics because i have no experience of the region at hand. However, in the past I have been a Scout, Beaver and Cub Leader as well as vice-President of programming for the Stormont-Glengarry district of the Voyageur Region of Scouts Canada(phew that took a lot to say). In Scouting, we do not place leaders and then test them. We put the kids in groups of six known as sixes and from this group we observe those with leadership abilities. They are then selected to be sixers and that child has a helper known as a seconder that they choose from their pack of six. If you would refer to the many books available from the World Scout Organization, you will find many helpful tools dealing with and teaching youth. Remember, we live in a world with varied regions, climates, positive/negative environments, etc. however, our commonalities lie in the fact we all hunger, we all require protection from the elements, we all need food and water, we all need love and compassion. Find the commonalities in those children that exist in all children and teach from that point forward.

Comment 31 on The Butterfly Project

I am familiar with the Scouting system and I rate it very highly.

We are clearly stating that we are looking for future social entrepreneurs amongst our target groups and we are looking for children and young people who shine above the rest of their peers in one way or another. They may not shine in leadership, so this is an area that we will wish to train and we must make the assessment as to whether a programme participant has leadership potential. There are three other areas that I believe we will focus:

Nurturing of talent
Confidence building
Nigeria's position in the world stage and the value of social enterprise

Nurturing will include the provision of information, opportunities and challenges. Confidence building will include intellectual, emotional and spiritual support.

I am going to redefine the project in the next fortnight or so, with a view to implementing it in a small way in the next 3-6 months, perhaps in a single chiefdom of 100,000 people. We may only select six for this pilot, as funds are scarce. We will select the six from probably 120 children put forward (plus the original six). I hope that we will have proper representation of Christians and Muslims.

Comment 32 on The Butterfly Project

Have been distracted recently, but I am back focusing on this project again. I was hoping that I might receive some feedback on the following table. Essentially it records (at the top) the "essential qualities of a successful social entrepreneur" and then:

Explains how the 8 testing criteria (now pared down) relate to these essential qualities and
How the Butterfly Project intends to provide training which is designed to foster these qualities.

This is certainly not set in stone, but I am keen to finalise it in the next fortnight or so.

My hope is to be able to institute the first proper pilot session in July this year, cash permitting, with a guaranteed 12 months of monthly support for the selected 12 participants.

I also hope to give each of the 12 an XO laptop, with internet provision lined up for 12 months, again cash permitting.

More details to follow, anyway.

Comment 33 on The Butterfly Project

I think that with this kind of attention you can develop a social entrepreneur but I don't think that all of the characteristics that you list are requirements for social entrepreneur. I believe that any good person who can run any kind of business can be a social entrepreneur regardless of knowledge of broad world issues, ICT knowledge, charisma, etc.

I believe that those added capabilities can increase opportunities but don't make a social entrepreneur. I would rather see a whole world of people using their little businesses as social benefit organizations than one great social entrepreneur.

I do love the work you are doing with the children and the opportunities you are affording them! Great stuff.

Comment 34 on The Butterfly Project

Yes, you're right, Linda - the word "essential" crept in there without my realising its significance. Easily replaced by the word "Useful" or "Helpful" or even "Relevant."

Comment 35 on The Butterfly Project

A little bit of consultation and we have decided to add four further assessments:

Thinking Skills

Higher level thinking skills

Understanding/Translating Information

Written ability

Whilst writing is a potential discriminator, it does seem to be an important area of talent that might be missed if it is not included in the testing. All participants will be given a subject to write on and given an hour to do so, under the auspices of the district heads. They will bring their writing with them.

Secondly, I wanted to ask whether at some point this year anyone with an internet connection at Ned would be interested in being a mentor for one of the twelve, possibly 18, participants. Your job would be to listen, inspire, inform on world issues and be inspired by the Butterfly participants. Emails will be either in English or will be translated for you, by NFI staff. Your emails will be translated into Hausa, if necessary, i.e. the Butterfly participant cannot read English.

Comment 36 on The Butterfly Project

I would be very interested, Ben.

Comment 37 on The Butterfly Project

Ben, I'm wondering if this could be done in a thread (or even workspace) too, so others might possibly benefit from the mentorship dialogue? Just thinking out loud.

Comment 38 on The Butterfly Project

Well it would be wonderful if I could start gathering the 12 mentors we need. Bear with me and I will put something a bit more official together over the weekend.

Comment 39 on The Butterfly Project

I am wondering if doing this kind of mentoring on open thread might prove too intimidating for the kids. Just a thought.

Comment 40 on The Butterfly Project

That's a good point Linda.

Comment 41 on The Butterfly Project

The idea of a direct and frequent communication between the rural African gifted and talented child and some of the best social entrepreurs in the world captured on a thread does appeal.

Elaine Hook, who is giving me advice on the project, often says that we must not pre-judge the gifted and talented. Off the wall comments and higher level thinking is what makes them different and in most cultures they under-achieve, as a result.

Catching them early and helping them achieve is what Butterfly is all about and my belief is that what they have to say has rarely if ever been heard before by Westerners and we'll have to wait and see what it is they are thinking.

Whatever happens, their ideas and wishes will be respected, but I definitely think it is an idea we can put to them, singly or as a group. For instance, I would like to feature the projects they set up or wish to set up within the Kaduna thread for comment.

Comment 42 on The Butterfly Project

It always seems to me my comments tend to be rather random, based more on what I happened to have just read, or even an idea that popped into my head than on the topic on hand.

One of the scholars who is a kind of hero or mentor of mine in re education is Jerome Bruner. In general the problems of the development of social sciences have intrigued me. In education circles it's common for practitioners to say that education is both a science and an art. That often seems a fancy way of saying "Don't press me too hard about what it is I'm doing." Most theories in the social sciences are quite tentative in contrast to theories in more mature theories in the physical sciences. Bruner's career inspires me because he did serious science--explored theory--and was an instructional designer. More than any other scholar in psychology and education he brings together the science and art of education.

I pulled out an old book, The Process of Education written in 1960 a time when the USA was worried about science education in the context of the Cold War space race.

He develops four themes in the book:

The role of structure in learning. How can the limited exposure of materials "be made to count in their thinking for the rest of their lives?"

Readiness. Bruner proposed "[T]he foundations of any subject may be taught to anybody at any age in some form."

The Nature of intuition. Intuition: "The intellectual technique of arriving at plausible but tentative formulations without going through the analytic steps by which such formulations would be found to be valid or invalid conclusions." A summary of this theme is a bit difficult to explain, but centers on the difference between learning by rote the conclusions of a discipline and the "centering on the inquiry itself."

The desire to learn and how it may be stimulated. LOL this is the central theme to Linda's thread on learning. It's interesting how this theme was developed about 50 years ago. The book, as I said, grew out of Cold War concerns and there was a conference sponsored at Woods Hole. At the conference teachers and scholars were divided over the relative emphasis placed on the teacher. Some felt that the teacher should be "the sole and final arbiter of how to present a given subject and what devices to use." Others saw the role of the teachers as "explicator and commentator for prepared materials." This debate still rages on today, at root it's a debate over the quality of authority.

I'm an avid reader of blogs. Michelle Martin The Bamboo Project explores "career development, technology and learning strategies for lifelong personal and professional growth." Last week she wondered in a post: "Why is workplace learning largely learning 1.0?" Later in the week Martin pointed to a post by Manish Mohan, also a management professional who blogs on the subject. Mohan makes the point: "Training is measurable; learning doesn’t quite seem to be so easily measureable."

I've muddled this theme of Bruner with too many words and still not brought this disagreement over how to stimulate the desire to learn into high relief. But I think it's important that mentors especially be aware of the disagreement about authority and training versus learning 2.0. Mentoring in someways contradicts established views about the nature of education and learning. I do not think the activity is incommensurate with established views about what education is supposed to be, but the translation isn't automatic. So some thinking and planning needs to occur about how to deal with the differences or debate about roles of authority in learning--how we can negotiate the territory between learning 1.0 and learning 2.0.

Somewhere in the piles of clutter around me is and old textbook on educational evaluation, but I can't seem to lay my hands on it at the moment. In terms of feedback about your table: Ben, it's a thing of beauty! My thoughts turned to how to construct assessment instruments and then my enthusiasm sunk a bit: "Geez, that's a lot of work." Tests about knowledge--"Just the facts madam"--are much easier to construct than assessments of higher level learning and learning to learn, but it's the latter we're most concerned about. Nevertheless the table provides a framework for devising assessment instruments. Because mentoring is an essential part of the framework, mentors are in a position to do assessments. But it seems to me that constructing the assessment instruments is something the mentors shouldn't be expected to come up with. In other words, advance development of assessment instruments needs to be done. It's somewhat unglamorous work, so goes easier as a group project. I do think it worthwhile to work on this aspect of the program.

Certainly I would be interested in being a mentor. LOL I would be interested in other behind the scenes work too, so look for ways you might find me useful.

Comment 43 on The Butterfly Project

Many thanks, John for your insight and offer of assistance.

I have done quite a bit of work on the assessments in the way I do it, which is more intuitive than informed, but I believe worked pretty well in its infant form last November. To some extent I am torn between devising a fully-rounded assessment for each area, explored to the nth degree and simply putting together something which feels right and I suspect that we will end up somewhere in the middle. I hope so.

I think we are breaking new ground and as mentioned before it's a little dangerous to preempt what the gifted and talented group will come up with or how indeed they will respond. They are just as disparate as other people, perhaps more so, so I am deliberately looking to integrate more qualitative assessment from discussions to date and work in some flexibility and time to react to situation.

Your idea of mentor assessments is not something that we had considered to date, so I will review how this might be implemented or how it impacts on the methodology. My feeling is that there will be a significant "warming up" period in mentoring - although once again I must not pre-empt - while language issues and cultural differences are overcome. It would be interesting to hear your comments on how you feel mentor assessment might be incorporated.

Comment 44 on The Butterfly Project

Oh Ben, I wasn't thinking so much of assessing mentors as I was helping mentors to figure out ways to assess the progress of their person they're working with. I meant that to figure out how well the program is proceeding along the lines of the framework you outline in your table, some means of assessment is necessary, and mentors are in a good position to provide some of those assessments. But what methods and what instruments used is what concerns me. Actually what concerns we is that mentors would be asked to make assessments with little guidance. So what I have in mind is figuring out some ways to know whether the important stuff is happening and providing mentors with tools.

Comment 45 on The Butterfly Project

Ok, I understand. So this issue of continuous assessment throughout the programme - that's a tough call. It might be interesting if somehow some kind of visual or verbal link was possible. I suppose it must be possible through correspondence, since courses are run like this.

I'll give it some thought.

Comment 46 on The Butterfly Project

I am going to look for some "off the wall" ideas for mentors - I will ask OLPC themselves, possibly a senior figure in USAID or DFID, does anyone have any ideas for interesting people to invite?

Comment 47 on The Butterfly Project

I was reading through one of Elaine Hook's articles on gifted and talented and it does appear that we have stumbled across a very interesting synergy with the target group.

Gifted children, according to Elaine's research article, are frequently burdened by "world issues". I am guessing that this "higher level thinking" that they are capable of at a much earlier age gives them an insight into and subsequent interest in the broad perspectives of society, where other children are pestering for their next set of trainers or indeed working hard on their schoolwork. Many are often classed as "daydreamers":)

This synergy with social enterprise's often broad visionary approach might well stand us in good stead with finding potential social entrepreneurs, whilst also satisfying these young people's desire for mental stimulation.

We are still set for a late July early August date for the official assessment days. It was put back slightly to accommodate the rainy season, as Ikulu is inaccessible in parts during this period and this might preclude some of the participants being able to attend the testing days.

Comment 48 on The Butterfly Project

sounds like a great project- but I am a bit mote worried about bhow you choose the mentors than how you choose the kids -

tutoring

virtual communications

being a social entrepereneur

do not necessarily involve the same skillsets?

Comment 49 on The Butterfly Project

Thanks for this, Chris. What I need, then, is a responsibility and person spec, so I'll work on this and post it up here for comment.

I should know very soon, whether I can confirm whether we are tom implement the project on schedule, so hope to bring news on this too.

Comment 50 on The Butterfly Project

do you have a latest age range - 7 is clearly different from 15 in terms of everything a mentor can do!

two methods that I am interested in from elsewhere and I dont know if they may or may not fit

developing courses that become peer to peer- essentally this is core to the free university at Joburg http://cidaworld.tv - whilst this is basically at age 18 and done with a real teacher to student interface- the idea that vocational apprenticeship ultimately becoming something that a newly experienced stident then mentors the next year on seems to me to be vital wherever we can map out methods that are working like this

the other method I am interested in is Dr Yunus' social action diaries - which he encourages youth teams of 3 to keep who commit to one social goal in their community

Comment 51 on The Butterfly Project

The age range has been decided at 11-15, simply because we feel that younger than 11 require different techniques and we want the testing process to cover the whole age range efficiently. My intention is to develop "Technology Action days" (TADs) where younger children can come to view technology in action and perhaps try it out themselves. From here we might spot budding Butterfly talents of the future.

We have seriously been thinking of the idea of training the next year down, as gifted young people tend to take a lot of interest in passing across their skills to those younger (or less intelligent) than them. We have to make Year 1 happen first though:)

I have been in touch with Virgin Unite re- CIDA, as I had felt that Butterfly blends very well with the CIDA concept and I was hoping that they might support a complementary programme in South Africa in 2009, or maybe help us this year in Nigeria. It is on my list of actions to write to them to suggest this possibility, although they did suggest that African projects were being put on ice until they recruit a new director.

I am not familiar with the Social Action Diaries. This may be an interesting method where perhaps a Butterfly participant gathers a youth team of three around them to assist them implement a project locally. At this stage what I don't want to promote is them teaming up with other Butterfly participants on their practical project, because I want it to be theirs to direct alone. We will have other ways of "training" teamwork and I want this to be training "leadership and decisionmaking".

Comment 52 on The Butterfly Project

Following Chris's recent post on the use of blogging in education, I have formulated the idea of a "Blog for the Rural African child", which might also be the idea that Mark was suggesting earlier of an "open dialogue". Promoting early use of this medium will open up the discussion more widely and might well create more interest in the project and awareness of the rural African issues.

The problem is to entice the young people to participate and to train them into how to do it, but that is part of what the project is set up to do...

Comment 53 on The Butterfly Project

yes I wish I could fnd someone at virginunite who outreaches -they seem to be quite bureaucratic when it comes to dealing with the outside though I may be getting confused with the mandela elders network which they also correspond for - my queries have often become a sort of ping pong click betwen them

cida http://cidaworld.tv itself is fairly easy to contact as one of my longest contacts lives in joburg and knows cida from almost day 1: easiest to put you in toch by external email chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk

here is a section on social actions- the worldwide web diary for it out of dhaka probably will not arrive until year end; as there's one other game of turn the interent upside down that their west coast partners want rolled out first

From Nov 2007 open source postcards by Dr Yunus prior to launch of his bestselling book

Social Action Forum – will Yunus & You create a worldwide happening?

Having a dream about a better world is fun. Why not interact to help make the reality closer too? My suggestion- especially to young teenagers: create a small organisation we call a Social Action Forum. It can be as small as three people who band together to address a single, manageable local problem. If others want to join that’s fine. But if you feel comfortable with three, don’t try to expand that number

I am planning to create a website where you can register your social action forum. On the website, you can describe your plan for the year, record you thoughts, mention the frustrations and excitement of your work, show the progress you are making, and display pictures relating to your project. To start a Forum –all you need is the willingness and initiative to make a difference.

You might start a forum around a neighbourhood improvement. Or if you live in a developing country, the action forum might be built around helping a beggar find a job or self-employment. Some social action forums may remain small, operate for 2 or 3 years and then disband. Others may grow bigger and bigger, and some may become successful businesses.. An idea from one forum may inspire other forums to replicate the idea. A few forums may grow into major programs with the potential to transform societies.

Aside from launching a Social Action Forum, there are may steps that individuals can take to help promote the social-business idea. If you are a teacher, you could help launch a course to teach young business people about social business. If you are a member of a civic or faith group, you could help arrange a series of lectures, meetings or conferences about opportunities for social businesses in your community. If you help to oversee a pension fund, you can propose that part of those resources be set aside to invest in social business. And of course, if you are a business executive, you can explain to your CEO the value of creating a social business.

One way to generate social business ideas is to host competitions. Any organisation or person can sponsor such a competition: a school, a foundation, a chamber of commerce, a civic group and so on. I can picture local, regional and even global competitions with hundreds of thousands of participants vying to create the most practical, ambitious and exciting concepts for social business. Prizes for the best business designs could include investment funding for the project, or connections to social investors. All the proposals submitted could be published on the internet to inspire the designers of subsequent competitions or to provide ideas for entrepreneurs who want to start social businesses.

Comment 54 on The Butterfly Project

I just thought I would post an update on the project, since it has been a while. The schedule has gone back due to delays in securing some finance to kick things off - around £9,000. However, we are still hopeful that we can start with the full assessment phase in late August/September.

We have had a lot of interest from funders and it is only a matter of time before some money comes through, Until then, the planning continues. Please stick with us!

Whilst a little off topic, there is some news too relevant to the project. My org, Social Enterprise Solutions is no more. It is now Social Enterprise (Africa) CIC, a UK-based registered NGO with a focus on generating income in rural Africa.

Butterfly will benefit from this, as youngsters will have an immediate UK link to funding or to enterprising ideas and a platform for their own development, should they need it, which I intend will help sustain and expand the project into the future.

Comment 55 on The Butterfly Project

That was quite an onslaught (I read the 'discourse' from the begining). Good work Ben.

Comment 56 on The Butterfly Project

It is mid-October and I am still in the UK, due to substantial delays in acquiring a long-term visa. I have now acquired three XO laptops, from a generous donation, which can be used for the benefit of the project.

I am going to reduce the numbers to 6 participants (perhaps 9, if more stand out), with a view to working with three districts and an XO will be given to each as part of the project. We will also set up some level of wireless internet access to cover the areas concerned. This will enable browsing and email.

The XOs are in good condition (third still to arrive, though) and I have found they are tricky to operate, as they are for little fingers, but extremely intuitive in learning. I am wondering too whether the art packages will be easy to work without a mouse or some other drawing implement?

There have been a couple of issues which I have been concerned about from recent events. The main issue relates to the possible negative impact that technology will have. I have heard of children running away from their villages to who knows where, after having been exposed to the comfort and delights of Western technology. Some have also felt betrayed by their parents, when they have discovered (perhaps) that they had been misled as to what was really out there.

While these are not 800lb gorilla issues, they are still very significant to me and I was wondering whether any NED readers had any feedback on how best to tackle them. The project is designed to bring opportunity to enhance rural life, not to transpose Western decadence.

The testing programme has now been developed and most of the equipment needed has been acquired (and has been packed). For a number of the testing areas, I have been recommended to work with Raven's Progressive Matrices by Pearson's. The EQ element will become a key focus too, as we assess personal qualities, vision and "altruism".

Anyway, progress is being made, albeit not on my original timescale. Many thanks to those who continue to provide assistance and support.

Comment 57 on The Butterfly Project

The BE! project on Globalgiving seems to have similar objectives to Butterfly, but is looking for entrepreneurial skills as a priority, rather than learning capacity and is also focusing on girls only.

There is an interesting Youtube video, which shows one of their workshops:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=1G SkC3ADu40

The areas they are focusing on - Trust, breaking down barriers, confidence, negotiation skills, empathy - are all along the same lines to Butterfly.

Comment 58 on The Butterfly Project

Ok, here's another interesting report from the BE! Project from

http://www.goingtoschool.com

http://www.globalgiving.com/pfil /1594/Be_achievements_top10.ppt

It gives some interesting examples of enterprises and also some of the "thinking" which differentiates an entrepreneur. It's a Powerpoint file (7.5Mb).