We achieved something we thought we could never achieve. We thought it would be like drawing blood from a stone, but we did it, we drew oil from an avocado.
The purpose of our endeavour began with a very dedicated class of 16-19 year old students in a local school called Regina Pacis. With them, we planned and ran our entrepreneurship club, which was received very well. Every session was greeted with quizzical frowns and beaming smiles. So, with the group effort of the volunteers, some with business and economics qualifications and others without, we hoped to teach the students how to start their own business on a more advanced level.
Every week the sessions were a success but there came great lessons of trial and error when it came to jointly inventing an innovative, profitable business, with and for this diverse group of young people in the small semi-urban town of Huye, Rwanda.
Unfortunately, the school holidays were soon upon us, lasting from November to January. This posed its own difficulties by requiring us to rely on students to give their own time every week to learn the skills to build their own business. Luckily, and surprisingly all the students came to the holiday sessions, always enthusiastic and eager to learn. With a combined effort we brainstormed multiple failed hypothetical businesses. Weeks were spent planning a chicken farm, but this was not innovative enough, and a week of planning to invest in and set up a salon which was the most fitting as all the students are required to have short hair. Alas due to miscommunication, we then found out the school already had a salon. Other ideas included a new fashion brand, sundried tomato paste and preserves production, with the aim to prevent zero food waste at a low cost and high profit and many, many more.
After weeks of pulling our hair out, we had an epiphany.
The moment came when my fellow volunteer and I were walking to town, on the dusty orange roads when a woman, carrying a bowl upon her head stopped us and asked if we wanted to buy some “avocaat”. And of course we did because trust me, Rwandan avocados are delicious!
These big, green creamy fruits gave us an idea. We began our research into what we can make with avocados. Initially, we thought a about a home delivery service, guacamole production and many more but realised through group discussion these were unfeasible, unattainable business ideas, more suited to our own avocado based fantasies. Finally we thought of a truly unique product that fitted in with what we had taught the young entrepreneurs about low yield and high margins: Avocado Oil!
Avocado oil has two main uses, to cook with and in Rwanda, to moisturise your skin and hair. We wanted to test our findings and see if we really could produce avocado oil from avocados considering our limited resources. Especially considering that our student’s market research concluded that avocado oil has never been used for cooking and usually only for hair, but could only be found in a Ugandan not Rwandan hair product, rather than lotion. We made handouts with questions which the students should ask, and asked them to think of their own. They visited all the local shops and spoke to the community to understand the market for their potential product.
To make the product, we knew we needed avocados, a pan, fire and muslin. With our avocados in hand and nothing else, we asked our pals at a local café Ipafu if we could use their kitchen to heat some up on their stove. Sure, they looked at us like we were crazy but in our beautifully broken Kinyarwanda and English they granted us permission to take over their kitchen for a few hours.
We thanked them and washed their dishes in gratitude.
Alas, post-work day and pre-curfew time constraints stopped us from completing our work that day…. So a few days later we tried again. That is one thing you will learn on placement is you must try, try and try again.
So, over a hot charcoal stove, in 30+ degree sunshine, after hours of stirring the mushy brown, sad looking avocado, the avocado which once looked so plump and ready to be eaten, was skinless and forlorn. But we persevered; we wrapped the tired old avocado in a makeshift cloth. This makeshift cloth was the bandage from my emergency first aid kit which shows what an emergency situation this really was, we really needed a win. Sometimes, you fear nothing will come of all this stirring and sweat but it was at the moment where I squeezed this bandaged avocado that my face lit up. We had produced oil.
Finally, this meant we had a tried and tested product to show our class, to teach them how to make, brand and sell it. They were intrigued and delighted to get stuck into pitching, branding, researching and beginning a business in avocado oil.
The lesson learnt from this experience is that something so small, like a droplet of oil can bring such joy and elation. We were successful. A droplet can create a ripple effect, to push you forward and motivate you, and in turn you spread that to others and the ripple expands further and further creating a bigger impact than you could ever have thought.
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