Passion for working with extreme poverty in Africa

Fredrik Svedbrant Start Date: Jul 18, 2024 - End Date: Nov 17, 2024
  • Leadership/Training Program
  • Professional Development
  • Volunteer Trip
  • Ghana
  • Botswana
  • Togo
  • Benin
  • Ethiopia
  • Uganda

My Travel Story

by: Fredrik Svedbrant Start Date: Jul 18, 2024 - End Date: Nov 17, 2024
  • Leadership/Training Program
  • Professional Development
  • Volunteer Trip

Hi!
I am coming back to Africa to make a difference. I have fallen in love with this continent and I love that I can have a purpose and make others life so much better in many places. I want to free children that has been sold to factories and mines. I want to help the extreme poor children and families to a bright future by buying goats, connecting them to monthly donors. I want to meet entrepreneurs and help them get funded so they can employ others. I want to clean out orphanages and refurbish them and if possible find a way for kids with relatives to find a family.

My name is Fredrik and I come from Sweden. I am an architect since 15 years already and I have now done a year of agile project management, an efficient way of trial and error to make projects more successfull. I have worked as a project manager before, leading teams in projects, but I need to practice the agile now. I need and want to do an internship sept-dec, 4 month in 2024 in Africa. This is while all my classmates go to IT-companies and banks to do there internship and several get paid 4500 USD/month. But I want to have more purpose. I will go in late august and leave in beginning of January. Hopefully I can find a paid job in development projects after this or another job in Africa and work for the higher purpose on the side.

I have traveled quite a lot in Africa already. I bicycled 2016 and 2017 for 6 month, passing 8 countries between Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Namibia and South Africa. During this bicycle ride I raised 10 000 USD and used it to help in many places along the way, buying schoolbooks, madresses, goats, equipment for a guy who started a music studio in the slum and a lot of things for kids in poverty. Now I am back to do more with my new skill set.

I need 4 month internship practicing agile methods. So I need a team, a budget, a time frame and work in sprints and tasks/goals. The team is preferably 5 people but a minimum of 2 except me. Budget, I hope you have some money in the organisation, to make the tasks which you need help with. If there is no money, I may need to fundraise that as a part of my project which I am not skilled at, which then would take away a lot of possibilities to make an impact with my project management skills. Goals can be building stuff, solving problems, organising stuff. Hopefully we can work on complicated tasks, like freeing children slaves. We make a todo list try different methods for 2-3 weeks, then do an evaluation. Learn and implement. Then redo another try for a better solution.

I want to work with orphans or kids in poverty. Maybe freeing children that need to work (which have been sold for example). I don't necessarily need to work with the kids. Rather I lead the team to work with them or that I lead the team to develop things/structure making them suffer less from poverty. I would love to work with an organisation to learn best practice of how to help. Still I would like to have a bit of creative freedom with the team to come up with the best solutions, not yet thought of. After all I am an architect with a very creative mind which I intend to use to the max!

I hope that gives you a better idea of what I am giving!

My value: I calculate my 2 months of preparation, 4 month on sight and coming home is aloss of income of about 30 000 USD. The expenses for plain tickets, travel insurance, visa, day to day life rent and food, transportation, all ads up to 7000 USD.

Also see my web sight www.bikeofgoodhope.com and soon I will have a podcast.

Please write and ask me whatever questions you may have! I very much look forward to make a difference.

Best regards Fredrik Svedbrant
  • Ghana
  • Botswana
  • Togo
  • Benin
  • Ethiopia
  • Uganda

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