THE BLUE SWEATER BOOK REVIEW

THE BLUE SWEATER BOOK REVIEW

The Blue Sweater an inspiring book by Jacqueline Novogratz, which addresses severe development issues through the writer’s personal life experiences and adventures. The book brings out new ideas, innovations, and strategies that solve the global problem concerning poverty, which even charitable organizations have not adequately addressed it. It shows how compassionate actions that are done by someone can have a significant impact on the needy. Jacqueline left her lucrative profession in international banking. She went on a mission to have a firsthand understanding of poverty and, after that, develop a workable solution to empower underprivileged communities in the world (Novogratz, 2010).

The story behind the title of the book is impressive because, in chapter 1, Jacqueline recounts her blue sweater, which was a gift she valued and treasured while she was still back at home in Virginia. When she grew, and the sweater could no longer fit her, she disposes it and thinks that she will never see it again. Surprisingly, Jacqueline saw the same garment ten years later when in Rwanda. It happened one day when she was walking in Kigali streets and noticed a boy with the same sweater, she confronted the young man and realized the garment was bearing her name. Seeing her clothing was a life-changing experience that vividly created an impression of how little actions of charity and compassion can bring a lot of impact to those in need. The title of the book brings out the idea that all people in the world are connected.

The challenge social entrepreneurs face every day is knowing the best sustainable solution to offer to the community challenges. For the case of Jacqueline Novogratz, she applies the power of markets to influence economic empowerment to the marginalized and bring social transformation. Through the book, we see her rising as an ordinary person who engages in extraordinary things through courage, resilience, and passion for realizing her greater mission. This book is an inspiration to those who are struggling or do not know how to change the world. The book does not just highlight the problems of the destitute, but it also suggests sustainable solutions to community challenges.

The fantastic journey begins when Novogratz joins Chase Manhattan Bank as a new college graduate. The job offered her great opportunities to travel around the globe to assess the impact and quality of the bank’s credit facilities. In Rio de Janeiro, she experienced high poverty levels and also extreme wealth. She had a good suggestion of poor Brazilians accessing loans, but it was turned down because the poor were considered unable to repay borrowed money. She later discovered a greater passion in her of giving to the poor and helping the needy in society. Despite her job security, prestige, and a good salary, she resigns and joins a nonprofit organization that works with the African Development Bank (ADB) to empower organizations in West Africa economically. Despite her inability to understand the African culture and languages, she traversed throughout the region. African women leaders rejected her due to racism and their claim that a young American lady had come to occupy their senior place at ADB. When she came to Nairobi, she was told that they neither needed nor wanted her (Novogratz, 2010).

In chapter 2, Jacqueline also suffers rejection when she went to work for ADB in Côte d’Ivoire. They threaten to poison her because of becoming a stumbling block to the power of African women. She did not give up but learned survival tactics of how to handle Africans while maintaining her goals. In chapter 3, Jacqueline moves to Rwanda and gets an assignment of assessing the need for a credit system and developing its financial institution. She creates a paradigm shift from providing handouts to giving loans to women. She engages government officials and local women in the markets who motivate her efforts. A credit organization called Duterimbere is created successfully, and it gets political support from influential women in the government. In chapter 4, she diligently works with the native women leaders to grow the microfinance, and she faced challenges of compelling borrowers to be responsible enough in repaying their loans. She observes how the poor people were denied loans, thereby making it impossible for them to uplift themselves from their impoverished situations. She then realized that handouts to the poor are not the best way to solve problems. The people needed empowerment programs to enable them to alleviate poverty with their abilities. The initiative was to be achieved through the provision of resources, opportunities, and finances to the needy.

In chapter 5, she realizes that women are rarely employed, and there are no jobs created for them. Jacqueline then identifies a group of single women and works with them to reinvent a bakery project that was started by a group of 20 women who were organized by a government ministry providing social services. She helps the group to change the charity subsidies and run the bakery as a real business by increasing sales and reducing the costs. It reached an extent she became “too American” when she wanted to convert shy Rwandan ladies to become aggressive in marketing and making sales at the bakery. Despite the business making profits, the women lacked a sense of ownership. Jacqueline gave them opportunities to initiate the changes they wanted to see and own the company. It is a motivating story when we see her transform women who lacked confidence and courage, but in the end, we see them rising to create successful enterprises in Kigali Rwanda. She shows us how, through the process of changing others, in turn, transformed her life and perception to social change. She then realized that social change and economic empowerment could not be imposed on people, but rather those in need must have the motivation of self-realization in pursuing better opportunities (Novogratz, 2010).

In chapter 6, Jacqueline begins a new assignment in Nairobi, Kenya, with UNICEF to empower women in the slums economically. She begins to experience how governments waste and divert resources and funds from development organizations that were meant to benefit the poor. Projects like maize mills failed since the locals could not fix problems, and some schools closed because there were no accountability mechanisms. This part of the book confirms the high levels of corruption, especially in developing nations where civil servants initiative projects claiming to bring development but end up enriching themselves (Hancock, 1992). A clear gap is seen between donor projects or government initiatives and the needs of the communities. Chapter 7 covers the trust issues that Jacqueline witnessed, and she was at crossroads on offering solutions. Her guard steals from her, and she wonders whether to report to the police or not. She later witnesses a murder of a thief who was lynched. This makes her grapple between the pursuit of law and the craving for freedom. Jacqueline realizes that she needs to leave African and go to study to acquire more skills in management and leadership.

Before joining the business school, the World Bank gives her a contract in the Gambia to help women in the agricultural sector. She came up with an excellent proposal to sell fertilizer to women on credit, but it was never implemented. After being frustrated with that project, she then joins business school to learn better management skills. A very defining moment is experienced in chapter 8 when Jacqueline finished her master’s degree at Stanford and joined the Rockefeller Foundation to do philanthropic work. She gets an invitation from a former UNICEF colleague, requiring her to go to Tanzania and help in reviewing a microfinance project. Jacqueline realizes that most women, especially in rural areas, needed critical health and education services. In her report, she recommends the government to provide incentives, platforms, and infrastructure where self-sustaining projects can run.  With her compassion, she goes back to Rwanda to have a firsthand experience of the aftermath of the genocide that occurred within three months and had claimed more than a million lives. The discovery of how her colleagues and friends in Rwanda succumbed and faced the genocide is full of some mixed reactions of sadness and motivation (Clark & Kaufman, 2009). Jacqueline is taken aback at how power corrupts after meeting her friends Agnes and Prudence, who were in prison for being perpetrators of the genocide. She visits Duterimbere microfinance and learns of the enormous impact of the loans to women and appreciated Rwanda for allowing her to drive social change (Novogratz, 2010).

In chapters 13 & 14, Jacqueline uses her lessons, business approaches, and concepts to initiate an institution that funds enterprises that serve the poor. Formation of Acumen Fund defined a new path for Novogratz’s quest of using entrepreneurial techniques to solve social challenges. The organization worked with social enterprises to alleviate poverty. Acumen Fund in Pakistan invested in technology in establishing a drip irrigation system that provided water to the poor. Farmers are also provided with farm inputs to maximize their productivity. In chapter 15, the story of a man from Tanzanian is told that shows how healthcare projects enhance the ability of people to earn income. A small gift of a mosquito net helped the man to stay healthy and be productive on his farm, which gave him income. Acumen Fund then worked with A to Z Textile to manufacture nets. There were challenges in coming up with distribution and marketing models. But they moderated their prices according to the target market and even implemented door-to-door awareness and selling techniques. Jacqueline learned a lot from the end consumers, and she realized that markets are the start point of solving poverty problems (Novogratz, 2010).

In the last chapter, Jacqueline views the world to be changed, and 30years had gone since she donated her blue sweater. She observes that people have tools and resources that can offer equal opportunities to everyone and close the wide gap and bring equality between the underprivileged and the wealthy. Twenty years of work experience in Africa, Pakistan, and India taught her lessons that sustainable poverty solutions are driven by critical factors like accountability, excellent management skills, resilience, and utilization of the market strengths. She learned practical listening skills and upheld trust and hope in times of challenges. The 2007 post-election violence in Kenya gave a reminder to Jacqueline of the negative impact inequality between the wealthy and the poor, particularly in third world countries where the majority of the people are unemployed youths. Acumen provides support to businesses and organizations that empower the poor to solve their challenges. To build and sharpen leadership skills, create networks, and moral values to social difficulties, Acumen came up with a Fellows program in 2006. To be able to develop sustainable solutions to world problems, one requires to be self-less and have compassion.

The Blue Sweater is a story of Novogratz’s fantastic life journey from the time she begins her career in the banking sector to the time she rises to be among the wealthiest people by working as a microfinance consultant. We learn about life-threatening moments where the underprivileged suffer by lacking opportunities for growth and development. The book teaches us life lessons which social entrepreneurs need to learn so that they effectively offer sustainable solutions to societal challenges. The first lesson learned is that giving out handouts does not eradicate poverty. Through examples given by Novogratz, we see good initiatives and plans end up failing (Novogratz, 2010). For instance, women were given maize mills intended to improve productivity and boost their livelihood. Unfortunately, they lacked skills to fix and repair them; hence the machines ended up breaking down and failing without serving the intended purpose. Also, schools were started without considering the factor of training, hiring, and retaining a skilled workforce to teach the learners at all levels. Those institutions ended up being a waste of resources and funds. Handouts cause a dependency condition that confines the minds of those in need and limits their potential. When things go wrong, the people are left vulnerable, desolate and weakened because they lack the skills to solve the problems that occur. People who are given handouts do not have proper mechanisms to account for the resources they get, and they end up misusing them or getting to those that do not deserve it. Also, handouts do not solve the problem of human pride because people do not always want to be spoon fade, but to be empowered to use their potential.

Nonprofit organizations need to create sustainable solutions that should outlast the initial strategies. Apart from just addressing the current problems, philanthropists need to focus on a greater good that brings a long-lasting solution. It will require creating systems that do not provide temporary relief but equip the needy with necessary skills that empower them to use their potential in sustaining the initial investments. Jacqueline emphasizes the need for building long-lasting solutions to be the best approach to alleviating poverty among people.

There are several developmental and leadership themes addressed throughout the whole chapters of the book. We see Jacqueline inculcating accountability to women in Rwanda by making them responsible for repaying their loans. Through her initiative, she demonstrated a positive impact and transformation of lives by using accountability principles (Greenleaf, 2002). The theme of using business strategies in solving social and economic challenges is seen when Jacqueline initiates and empowers enterprises that are sustainable and community-driven. Corruption and other developmental problems are highlighted when donor-projects and funding are diverted to people who do not deserve it. Fraudulent projects that exploited the poor formed a big impediment to solving the poverty challenges. Community and trust is a strong aspect which Jacqueline embraces to create a good rapport and build trust among the people to bring a positive change in the lives of the people she served. The role of government is highlighted as a key component in establishing the right infrastructure and resources that bring a long-lasting positive impact.

Jacqueline highlights the strengths and weaknesses language plays in solving global poverty challenges. From learning the people’s expectations to understanding the root cause of their problems and working with them to create sustainable solutions. Jacqueline’s experiences teach us the limits and gaps from donor aid projects. As much as charity organizations gave handouts to people, they ended up creating a system where the poor became lazy, helpless, and only depended on donations. Markets are viewed to be vital since they provided accountability, efficiency, and business scaling aspects. The theme of women and development strongly comes out because Jacqueline works with women and organizations that empower women who are the pillars of families.

It is hard for many people to accept failure; however, Jacqueline demonstrates fundamental leadership values. She reflects, acknowledges, and learns from her failures, especially in her first days in Africa. The shortcomings of her initiative to bring change that she desired taught her great lessons that helped her in the future. We understand that success becomes elusive when people refuse to learn from their past mistakes and failures. As a good leader, Jacqueline learned different cultural dynamics in coexisting with people from unique backgrounds to help them alleviate poverty. Empathy and patience helped her to connect with the people she served. Her journey in life is full of resilience.

Other authors support key developmental issues raised in the Blue Sweater book. For instance, Heron’s book on Desire for Development brings out the idea that well-established nations have a moral imperative of helping developing countries, which seen to have many problems. The countries in the Northern part of the globe are perceived to play a unique role in eradicating poverty among developing countries. Students had the quest to go to third world countries where they could gain experience of working with the needy and solving social problems through international development programs. Volunteers who did not connect with local customs and culture faced resistance issues. Third world countries are viewed to be places of bloodshed, starvation, and suffering. Barbara Heron demonstrates how people change their lives by performing good acts of service to the needy. She helps us understand the ethical complexities among the developed countries who colonized and exploited the third world nations but are now determined to address international development issues (Heron, 2007).

From my assessment of the book, it enlightens us on the best approaches to creating maintainable solutions to poverty challenges. Putting investment in profitable enterprises that focus on a social impact is a sustainable method to empower the poor. I learn about a profit-making company known as Husk Power, which provided electricity to many thousands of poor Indians in the remote villages. Husk Power company used a profitable system to solve immeasurable challenges of the community, where even the government had failed to allocate resources that could uplift their livelihoods.

The book challenges support programs in Africa that could not help the needy but only focus on a small fraction of those at risk. A good example is given of the initiative to provide mosquito nets to pregnant mothers. Even though people were willing to buy them and protect their families from malaria, the program did not favor the majority of the needy. Acumen Fund brought a sustainable solution by investing in a textile company that could locally manufacture the nets at low costs and sells them to make small profits. In a continent where 300,000 children and adults die and productive time is lost due to malaria, mosquito nets solution brought an excellent sustainable solution to the challenge. Therefore, we learn that sustainable approaches to poverty eradication are created through technology-driven solutions that use functional distribution networks.

It is clear that aid programs alone cannot eradicate poverty; neither can business investment on their own solve the problem. A sustainable solution is provided by combining the two approaches to solve this global danger. This book is the best fit for those who want to learn about Africa, the challenge the poor face, and how to come up with sustainable solutions that foster development and alleviate poverty. Not only does the book give a biography of someone’s life, but also it provides valuable information on social change and impact using life experiences.

References

Novogratz, J. (2010). The blue sweater: Bridging the gap between rich and poor in an interconnected world. Rodale.

Heron, B. (2007). Desire for Development Whiteness, gender, and the helping imperative. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press.

Collier, P. (2007). Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it. Wider Angle (2), 1-3.

Greenleaf, R. K. (2002). Servant leadership: A journey into the nature of legitimate power and greatness. Paulist Press.

WuDunn, S., Kristof, N. D., & Knopf, A. A. (2010). Half the sky: turning oppression into opportunity for women worldwide. Sister Namibia, 22(1), 26-27.

Werhane, P. H. (2009). Alleviating poverty through profitable partnerships: Globalization, markets, and economic well-being. Routledge.

Hancock, G. (1992). Lords of poverty: The power, prestige, and corruption of the international aid business. Atlantic Monthly Press.

Clark, P., & Kaufman, Z. eds. (2009). After genocide: Transitional justice, post-conflict reconstruction, and reconciliation in Rwanda and beyond. New York, NY: Columbia University Press and London, UK: C. Hurst & Co.

Sachs, J. D. (2006). The end of poverty: Economic possibilities for our time. Penguin.

Lee, M. (2007). Acumen Fund: How to make the greatest impact. The William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.

Heifetz, R. A., Heifetz, R., Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. (2009). The practice of adaptive leadership: Tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. Harvard Business Press.

Bornstein, D., & Davis, S. (2010). Social entrepreneurship: What everyone needs to know®. Oxford University Press.