Jerryanne Heath is the CEO and Founder of ConceptLink Consulting, a firm which helps US and international social-mission organizations connect with their stakeholders through various event management and communications strategies. She is also co-chair of the Africa Social Enterprise Forum.
A recent experience at Walt Disney World opened my eyes to a challenge for social entrepreneurs in the developing world – the challenge of maintaining authenticity. Two weeks ago, some friends and I dined at Boma – Flavors of Africa, a restaurant at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge in Orlando, Florida. I was excited to try the food after reading BOMA’s website describing the restaurant as:
Designed to resemble an African marketplace, the exotic restaurant serves dishes inspired by the varied flavors and seasonal dishes of over 50 African countries, from the coast of the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.
The lodge and restaurant were majestically designed, as only Disney could conceive. Everything was larger than life, including the portions – dinner was an endless buffet. The high ceilings mimicked a traditional thatched roof, draped in kente and batik cloths. African carvings and statues from various regions adorned the lounge and hallways. Sprinklings of Swahili words enhanced the African feel.
Although the décor was beautiful and the food was delicious, the menu was not African! Despite all of the Swahili words used to create the ambience, there was little representation on the menu from East or Central Africa, where Swahili is largely spoken. The buffet consisted of Western dishes including macaroni and cheese and chocolate mousse. Some dishes had African-inspired names, but the food was inauthentic. I was pleased to find Fufu on the menu but felt hoodwinked after tasting it! Fufu, a staple food of West and Central Africa, is a thick paste usually made by boiling cassava or yams, pounding with a mortar and pestle and shaping into balls of dough. Having previously eaten Fufu in Ghana, I knew immediately that Boma’s dish – mushy sweet potatoes, spiced with coriander and cinnamon – was not the real thing.
I am not a food critic. But this experience inspired me to consider the dangerous similarities between Disney offering an American audience a taste of Africa and social enterprises presenting the communities they serve. Do most social entrepreneurs represent the communities they serve accurately? Or do they present a mushy, cinnamon-spiced view to those who don’t know any better? It is easy to package photos of the starving poor or of smiling children in a distant land to make the information easily digestible to a Western audience. But in the process, aren’t social enterprises doing these communities a disservice?
Boma offers the most popular dining experience at Disney. If the restaurant served traditional African foods, would it have achieved the same level of popularity? And if social entrepreneurs presented an unfiltered view of their experiences and the communities they serve, do you think Western foundations and supporters would still be interested?
I believe social entrepreneurs, particularly those impacting the developing world, should maintain the authenticity of the communities they serve by enabling these communities to speak for themselves. Interview a beneficiary or customer for your next case study. Capture a normal day in his or her life and put that story on YouTube instead of your own. In addition to your successes, share the failures or challenges you’ve faced and lessons learned along the way. These steps can help build credibility with, and garner the support of, those who “know better”.
