Last August, Santa Clara University President Julie Sullivan accompanied 12 rising seniors to Africa with the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship. The group conducted research in Rwanda and Kenya for six Miller Center-supported social enterprises.
Sullivan was struck by the way the students and the businesses each benefitted from the opportunity to learn from and work with each other. “I was so impressed with the maturity of our students and with their preparation for this experience,” Sullivan says. “We saw all of them within their first either couple days or week of being in the country and they already had formed relationships with people on the ground, within the social entrepreneurs’ businesses.”
Miller Center Lewis Family fellows Júlia Von Gersdorff ’25 and Yael Grimaldi ’25 conducted ethnographic research in Rwanda for the company Jibu, which distributes safe drinking water to urban communities using a franchise business model.
Each day, the pair visited franchises and interviewed staff to create a prediction model identifying factors for success. “I talked to people who were just so kind and open,” Von Gersdorff says. “Everybody calls you ‘sister’ and ‘brother’ and I feel like there was a community of care and cooperation.”