“I haven’t eaten in five days.”

That is what a Paradigm Shift entrepreneur recently said to a member on our team. This is by far the exception to the rule and is not an everyday experience for us to hear such words. And maybe that is why these words are so heart-wrenching.

These words were not easily extracted from the entrepreneur either, but after much conversation and our shared friendship with one another he felt comfortable to share this very humbling aspect of his daily reality.

Maybe his story is typical and we are just learning along the way.

He’s a foreigner, from Mozambique, looking for a better life and a steady source of income to provide for his wife and three children back home. He has taken up the skill of welding, which in South Africa has many applications in both residential and commercial markets.

He wanted to head home for a week or two to see his family for the first time in months. He was waiting on full payment from a delinquent account, but nothing came in. Dejected, he had to postpone his trip and scrounged up the little he had and sent it home.

It is an honorable thing- seeing a father provide for his family even when it hurts. And for our friend, he felt the hunger pains of fatherhood.

Our natural inclination is to give. Giving is good. But within Paradigm Shift’s outreach, it would actually be detrimental for us to be seen as ones providing food and other neccessities. That is why partnering with a local church is so beneficial. The church may or may not be aware of who is truly in need, yet we can help identify those needing some much needed help.

Looking forward to the day where I can write about his flourishing business that has enabled him and his family to eat and meet some basic neccessities in their lives.

This story is to be continued…

The Paradigm Shift field team is working on developing core volunteer teams in each of our partner churches. Which means, when we grow our volunteer teams we grow the outreach and effectiveness of meeting the spiritual and economic needs of South African microentrepreneurs.

We have four main volunteer opportunities for partner churches:

Business Trainer: This person handles the facilitation of the business curriculum

Life Coach: This person handles the facilitation of the discipleship curriculum

Table Trainer: This person facilitates learning in smaller table groups

Mentor: This person enters into an organic one-on-one mentoring relationship with a specific entrepreneur

Here is the first issue of Mentoring Moments. It will be a monthly publication of what is happening within the mentoring component of Paradigm Shift’s work.

Keep in mind it is written for a South African mentors, so South African currency and English spelling takes precedence Click the image below or here to download

We continue to experience the communities response to the desire for increased business training. Twenty entrepreneurs were waiting at 8:30am for the 9am-4pm training! Another twenty showed up between 8:30am-9:00am!

We were at capacity at 25… but showing compassion on those who came from long distances… we eventually cutoff the training room at 33 entrepreneurs! We had 100% attendance the 2nd day of training, which was another first.

A loan family was formed and the businesses are quite diverse: cabinetry, preschools, energy services, tailor and designed clay sculptures. The businesses are as diverse as the entrepreneurs themselves.  The picture below is the completion of the training course.

More photos are on Flickr

Recently, Paradigm Shift shared the latest brochure on the developments here in South Africa.

If you are interested in seeing the latest developments, click here or the image below to download the four page overview.

To download the four page South Africa overview- click here

With the proliferation of social networks, the proliferation of causes has been a byproduct. According to a Washington Post article published in April, there are:

235,000 Non-profits using the Causes application
25,000,000 people that have joined at least one cause via social networking

Paradigm Shift has even created a Cause page

But Paradigm Shift is not another cause…
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