Rocco Falconer

This interview is part of our "Social Citizen Sightings" series, in which we highlight how people are using their creativity, idealism, and digital fluency to support their causes every day. In 2008, Rocco Falconer planted a seed in Sierra Leone and from it grew the organization Planting Promise. The nonprofit provides an opportunity for local people from Sierra Leone to provide for their families and communities by linking education with profit-making enterprises. At the age of 22, Falconer is not only the founder and CEO of this organization, but he is making a difference in the lives of thousands.

1)      What drove you to start Planting Promise?

Falconer:  Travelling to some of the poorest parts of the world made me aware of two things. Firstly, how awful, and also unfair poverty is. The second was the inadequacy of the responses by people trying to help. NGOs, with the best intentions, didn’t seem wholly relevant to the problems they faced. They weren’t making the real and lasting change Africa really needs.

This dissatisfaction stayed with me when I travelled to Sierra Leone in June 2008. I didn’t go with a plan to start a project; I just wanted to see what Sierra Leone was like. When I arrived I was struck by the poverty: the highest infant mortality in the world, desperate inadequacy of the education services; huge unemployment. But on the other hand I saw the enormous opportunity amongst the poverty: a huge number of people willing and desperate to work, arable farmland going to waste in a nation that can’t feed itself, and the most delicious tropical fruit that ends up rotting in the streets.

I met with a local philanthropist, Eddie Boston-Mammah. We thought that charity, or the provision of free services, was not enough to make a lasting change. It creates dependence and doesn’t make people free. But at the same time, there was a desperate shortage in the provision of free education. So we came up with the idea of running a school on the profits from businesses: making progress dependent on the success of the business would also be an incentive for profitable growth.

2)      The model Planting Promise operates on is an innovative one – what did the participating farmers think when you and Eddie first approached them with this opportunity. What obstacles or reservations did your team have to overcome during those early days?

Falconer:  For the farmers, our arrival was a bolt from the blue: we turned up one day in a battered old car. Some of these villages were so remote they had never seen a white man before, so the first response was always surprise!

There was practically nothing in these villages. Farming is subsistence. In a bad year they go hungry. And now, most of the young people in the villages are leaving to seek their fortune in the city, leaving the villages understaffed and depressed, and leaving a time bomb for the country.

So we said: farm for us. We’ll provide the tools, wages, seeds and bags. We’ll organize getting the equipment in, and the crops out. We’ll give you 22% of the profits. The rest, we’ll use to fund our schools. And we’ll try to bring education and genuine economic opportunity into the villages in return.

Almost universally, the people we asked were delighted. We were offering income, and uses for their land that would otherwise go to waste. We offered prospects for the future and made commitments to helping their children.

3)      Can you highlight some of the progress that Planting Promise has made since it first started?

Falconer:  It has been a tough journey; we’ve lacked equipment, skills, funds, expertise. We’ve bootstrapped our way through, and because farming is quite a slow game, when you make a mistake you pay for it over months and months.

But our business is bringing prosperity to the villages. More importantly it’s bringing aspiration and education. We started in June 2008 with nothing. It was me and Eddie, and we hopped into taxis and drove around Freetown discussing the best way to make a lasting change.

• We’ve gone from one school to four schools: from 160 children being educated every day by Planting Promise, to 550.
• We’ve got an adult education center that teaches illiterate women literacy, numeracy and vocational skills.
• We’re building a secondary school so that our primary school children have a place to go after they finish.
• We’ve started three major businesses to fund the running costs of our schools.
• From one small farm, we’ve gone to six large farms. We farm the two major staples, rice and cassava, and we’ve just laid down our newest farm of peppers, chillies, okra, aubergine and cucumbers.
• We’ve started a food processing factory outside the capital, Freetown, to add value to our crops, give us a permanent source of income all year round, and to allow us to produce more nutritional food sources for the Freetown market.
• We have an internet café and computer learning center in Freetown to generate profits.

4)      What advice would you give to other young individuals who seek to create change either on a small or large scale, in their own neighborhoods or internationally?

Falconer:  The most important piece of advice is that nothing beats optimism! You’ve got to keep your spirits up, because you will fail and you’ve got to learn to bounce back, even though it’s often difficult. Cliched, but true!

So what I would say to a young person is be prepared to explore, be prepared to go down lots of roads and accept that some of them will be cul-de-sacs! But as long as you keep your mind fixed on what might be possible, and approach problems with humility as well as enough strength in your own convictions that you can drive change; then, as I have learnt from those I help and those that help me: nothing is impossible!  

5)      What are your goals for 2011 and beyond? How can people support Planting Promise?

Falconer:  2011 should be a very big year for us. We’re on course to be fully financially sustainable by the end of it, meaning we would not rely on donations to fund any of the payments we make to our teachers.

The most important item on our agenda at the moment is to complete the building of our first ever Secondary School. There are only three free secondary schools in the whole of Sierra Leone, and ours would be the fourth.

To learn how you can support the efforts of Planting Promise visit its website or Facebook page.

This past Saturday, November 13, 2010, social entrepreneurs and innovators gathered in Washington, DC, to participate in TEDxYSE (Youth Social Entrepreneurs): Unleashing Young Social Entrepreneurs. This special event [watch video] highlighted youth from around the world who are developing creative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing issues. Speakers challenged one another and the audience on a variety of subjects, ideas and solutions—with topics ranging from microfinance and foster care to journalism and discrimination.

What a Difference a Day Makes

Organized by Ashoka's Youth Venture, the event was part of a global competition among youth-led innovators who are addressing social issues affecting their communities. "The [competition] winners demonstrate the impact one person can make in the world," said Gretchen Zucker, executive director of Ashoka's Youth Venture. Contest organizers received more than 500 entries from 52 countries with eight finalists receiving $500 and consulting on their programs from Staples.

Actor James Cromwell, Academy Award nominee and supporter of social change, kicked off the day with inspiring words about the importance of social responsibility and making a personal commitment to improving society. He called for a “dramatic change” that will help create a paradigm shift and change of heart among the people. What followed was an inspirational series of talks, performances, and video presentations about youth empowerment. The contest finalists gave the “talk of their lives” TED-style on stage among an audience of almost 400 people. Rebecca Kantar won the grand prize for her dedication and efforts to social change reflected in her organization, Minga.

Competition finalists included:

• Mohammed Barry, 19, of the Republic of the Gambia, exemplifies leadership and perseverance. Mohammed lost his father and contracted HIV at the age of seven. He faced enormous discrimination in his community, but turned it into a positive force through the creation of Aid for Smiles—a coalition of global social activists who work toward empowering and mainstreaming marginalized and socially disadvantaged young people. Mohammed was recently nominated for the World Children Peace Prize.

• Shiv Dravid, 24, is the founder and creator of The Viewspaper, a youth journalism website for young people in India. Shiv was inspired to take action when he realized that his own daily experiences were quite different from the observations and discussions amongst media elites. The Viewspaper is seen by more than 150,000 readers a month and publishes daily articles written by youth staff.

• Rocco Falconer, 22, is the founder of Planting Promises, a community-based organization in Sierra Leone that develops the prospects of the world's poorest country by giving local people the opportunity to create sustainable businesses and pursue their education.

• Rebecca Kantar, 18, is a founding member of Minga, a youth-run civic organization dedicated to ending the global child sex trade through educating teens worldwide. Rebecca serves as Minga's director of film media and is a highly accomplished public speaker. She has been named as one of TIME Magazine's Tomorrow25 and is now a freshman at Harvard University.

• Ben Lyon, 24, was inspired to create FrontLineSMS:Credit that is pioneering technology that is connecting microfinance institutions to their borrowers via cell phones in Sierra Leone. Ben has been selected as an "Unreasonable Fellow" by the Unreasonable Institute, which attracts up to 25 high-impact, young social entrepreneurs from across the globe for a ten-week conference.

• Lamia Oezal, 21, founded DeuKische Generation, an organization that focuses on improving the integration of Turkish youth in Germany, after witnessing misperceptions and experiencing discrimination of her Turkish heritage in Germany.

• Seaon Shin, a 19-year-old Korean-American living in Dubai, founded the Global Youth Empowering Movement (GYEM), which links youth together globally allowing for collaboration on service projects.

• Heather Wilder, 17, a Las Vegas teen who is an advocate for the rights of children in foster care through her organization, Fostering Kids at Work. As a foster kid who suffered abuse before being adopted into a loving home at age 12, Heather writes a series of booklets that address issues faced by foster children.

Lessons from the Day

For these social entrepreneurs their youth was the critical ingredient to their successes. The path for each was different, but the ultimate goal of helping others and making a positive impact was the same. We caught up with a few of the finalists to learn what they see as challenges and opportunities for their generation.

Challenges:

Seaon Shin of GYEM noted that one of the biggest obstacles Millennials and younger generations will have to face in the coming years is how they perceive themselves. According to Shin, “too often youth believe that parties, money, and material success” [are what fulfill a person.] We must break through that type of thinking and change the culture.” Instead, Shin and her movement are striving to showcase positive things young people are accomplishing and how that is helping improve out world.

Opportunities:

Falconer of Planting Promises reflected on how technology has helped his program from the very beginning. He noted that the technology “revolution is happening now” and “connectivity” is impacting the productivity levels of individuals around the world. Ultimately, this is a factor that this generation can and should harness. Falconer recounts how very early on in the organization’s development, he used Idealist.org and other online platforms to help him identify the organization’s Director for the Sierra Leon team while he was based in the UK. Embracing the entrepreneurial spirit, Falconer believes that technology can help to “light that fire” for someone and “show people what is possible” to get them engaged.

Falconer, Shin and others definitely lit a spark among listeners that day through their stories. We've heard from these young entrepreneurs and now we want to know what you think the future holds in terms of opportunities and challenges? What inspires you? How can different generations learn from one another and work together to contribute to this growing movement of social entrepreneurship?  

 

Photo of Rebecca Kantar courtesy of Ashoka Youth Venture