Thope Lekau

Thope Lekau has launched an initiative to inspire women and youth in South Africa's townships to seize newly available economic opportunities and overcome the social challenges they face. Thope's model is unique in that it focuses on empowering women and providing them with the tools to introduce the lucrative tourism industry to the economically depressed townships in postapartheid South Africa.

Thope observed that within South African townships and in other poor communities across the country, one of the most popular strategies to overcome destitution is the establishment of small businesses. Nevertheless, while the small incomes derived from such ventures could sustain some families, she saw that their potential was undermined by the pursuit of too similar business models (e.g., funeral homes, drinking establishments), nonprofessionalism, and reluctance to exploit evident synergies in a way that, as Thope says, "benefits entire communities." To overcome this situation, Thope developed a socially responsible business–the Kopanong Bed and Breakfast–in Khayelitsha township, Cape Town. Her bed-and-breakfast attracts large numbers of local and international visitors to sample traditional African cuisine, enjoy cultural performances, and become immersed in enlivened history-telling. She is introducing a new type of business to the townships, one that consciously markets the uniqueness of the local environment for the benefit of both township residents and international visitors alike. Through these women-run bed-and-breakfasts, Thope is helping poor communities in South Africa escape poverty.
At the moment, individual entrepreneurs are cashing in on the tourism market in the "new South Africa," and Thope's idea is to transform this individualism to collectivism. Thope realizes that "one man-one woman" glory limits the invigoration of entire impoverished townships. Thope wants to develop an innovative way of doing business that is proving that people can collectively share profits in the uplift of their communities. Recognizing that other entrepreneurs add value to her business while simultaneously exposing their own goods and services to a lucrative market, she creates opportunities for the involvement of the entire community in her socially conscious business venture. She works together with other business people who are not in the tourism sector (vegetable vendors, craft sellers), but who also can benefit from tourists coming to her establishment. She is consciously making an effort to "keep the dollar in the township." Taking into consideration how individualistic entrepreneurship is, Thope's business model is unique, as her idea is to take people from a survivalist mode of doing business to diversifying and working together to make sure all businesses thrive. In order to expand impact beyond Khayelitsha, Thope has developed an entrepreneurial training module for women and youth that demonstrates how to achieve this sort of economic empowerment, self-sufficiency, and self-reliance. In a break with predominant entrepreneurial training models, she is offering experiential courses that place emphasis not only on constant identification of ways to penetrate niche markets, but also on equitable distribution of earnings to the largest number of people.

South African townships–the apartheid-created urban settlements where blacks and coloreds were forced to live in abject poverty–are besotted with a host of seemingly intractable social problems ranging from crime, substance abuse, environmental degradation, and few developmental opportunities. A telling indicator is the estimated average unemployment rate within townships of 65 percent while the national average is 40 percent.
Since political emancipation in 1994, one popular strategy promoted by the government to combat poverty has been entrepreneurial development. People are encouraged to start their own businesses because there are not enough jobs in the formal economy to meet demand and the government is not in a position to support its population with welfare or any other government assistance programs. Citizen sector organizations and churches have also started initiatives across the country to provide training on how to start small businesses.
Unfortunately, enterprises born out of these initiatives have shown to be homogenous and self-serving. The large majority of small business ventures–in South Africa townships especially–either sell home items, such as alcohol (sheebens), or funeral services. Additionally, it is not unusual to observe groups of vendors selling identical products or services within eyesight of each other. While this practice may cut costs for consumers, it narrows down retailers' profit margins and undermines long-term business and individual sustainability. A survey on entrepreneurial development in impoverished communities by the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Natal confirmed this problem, noting that in their areas of investigation "the market for the goods produced by the projects was usually the same impoverished communities in which they were produced. [Moreover] extremely low productivity and no entry barrier had made most of these projects unviable from the inception." Such studies show that businesses need to diversify their goods and services and must market their products to a broader audience.
There have been numerous private and public efforts to redress this situation with some varying degrees of success. Capitalizing on the massive influx of international tourists interested in experiencing the "new South Africa," a large number of tourism initiatives, including bed-and-breakfasts and tour guide companies, have mushroomed. While some were and are effective in their objectives, a preponderance present a limited view and shallow experience of the country. Thope is diverging from these commercial practices and is promoting a different kind of entrepreneurship–especially for women and young people–that is widely distributive, sustainable, and whose teaching methodology is experience based. In an era of emerging cutthroat capitalism, Thope is advocating a strong sense of communitariansm through her business endeavors.

Thope's insight is that in the rush to alleviate poverty by encouraging communities to take initiative and engage in entrepreneurial activities, little attention has been paid either to diversifying ventures in an already crowded market, or ensuring that the business ventures benefit the greatest number of people in the most equitable fashion, or applying the theoretical information.
Thope realizes that if she is going to make a dent in the poverty and the sense of hopelessness, among women and youth, that she witnessed on a daily basis in her township where her family had been forcefully relocated, she would need to create a model of success that would inspire the community. Seizing on the overwhelming interest among non-South Africans to witness the remarkable social transition taking place after the end of apartheid and the relatively unexplored concept of tourism in townships, she established a bed-and-breakfast. The idea was to offer foreign tourists an authentic experience of "township life."
Thope was also determined that aside from creating an alternative business model, her initiative would be governed by a social ethic. Accordingly, her business has not sought to capture the entire tourist market or run the array of ancillary industries like cultural entertainment and craft-sales that often accompany such ventures. Instead, she forms relationships with local entrepreneurs who provide these services and goods. Thope involves the entire community in her business as craftspeople display their wares at her bed-and-breakfast, and she has established relationships with other families in the community who host visitors in the event of overcapacity. Thope repeatedly stresses that she has no ambition to create a major tourist hotel in Khayelitsha, but only to create a model imbued with a strong egalitarian ethic to inspire others.
The diversity of experiences that she offered–from traditional African meals to cultural performances in a highly professional manner–quickly raised her initiative's profile in the country and around the world. As soon as it had achieved this effect, and when requests to help starting similar ventures poured in from women in her township and other parts of the country, she realized she was ready to take the next step–training others to embark upon similar, innovative business ventures. An additional component to her strategy is to offer entrepreneurial training in conjunction with other women who have developed successful ventures around the country. A key feature of this training is tutorials on how to overcome risk-taking, a fear she has observed as the primary reason for inaction among women. After the training, she continues to be a resource by offering counseling and technical support as needed. Thope is also striving to professionalize her entrepreneurial training by obtaining institutional accreditation. Her training is unlike most in South Africa as she is working with experts at a technical university both to enhance the effectiveness of her small business development trainings and to uniquely tailor them to the needs of various industries. In order to measure the training's effectiveness and modify it if necessary, she conducts formal, follow-up, six-month evaluations.
Thope is determined to spread the idea beyond Cape Town to the rest of the country and has therefore put in place relevant spread strategies. Women and youth who receive entrepreneurial training are also coached on how to become educators in their own communities by using the same entrepreneurial content and empowerment training. Moreover, engagement with tertiary institutions will form an important part of her spread strategy, once her module that is heavily focused on practical training is integrated into the curriculum.
She is also using the media to spread her story and inspire others by actively contacting news agencies and development agencies to profile her training project. Knowing that there are other entrepreneurial training organizations in the country, she is forming partnerships with them to advance her course and the common goal of empowering women. As the initiative grows across the country, Thope envisions assuming a strategic planning and oversight role–particularly on mentoring other past recipients of her training program–to ensure that the knowledge cascades throughout the country efficiently and professionally.

Thope grew up with an intimate understanding of poverty. In the 1960s, her family was forcibly relocated by the apartheid regime to Gugulethu township, a barren wasteland many kilometers away from industry and other employment opportunities in Cape Town. Her parents struggled to make ends meet, and she often had to look after her younger siblings while her parents were away working or sell small consumable items like sweets and milk to supplement her parent's meager income.
As an adult, she became involved in community development projects as a way to make an impact on the problems she saw afflicting her community. She observed that though projects often yielded positive social change, many citizen sector organizations were adrift and lacking imagination now that their raison d'etre had largely evaporated in the postapartheid South Africa. She therefore sought a "different way of doing things." This desire found expression in 1997 when she was awarded the J.H. Heinz Company Foundation Fellowship to study small-scale entrepreneurship at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1998, shortly after she returned home, she resigned from her position at a development project to focus full-time on the Kopanong Bed and Breakfast. In a few short years, Thope has trained managers and put into place an effective business plan so that the bed-and-breakfast now largely runs itself. She is at the point of inflection where she is sharing her experiences and lessons learned to a broader audience and uses the Kopanong Bed and Breakfast as "a model case for a successful woman-owned small business venture."