MBA students set sights on clean drinking water for Sierra Leone

A team of business students from Simon Fraser University are using their growing expertise in management and social media to address one of the most pressing issues facing Africa today: access to clean drinking water.

The MBA students from Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business — Angie Rai, Karen Robson, Tina Sun and Pankaj Saini — are raising money to build a clean water well in a Sierra Leone village via the not-for-profit Free the Children.

The fundraising effort originally got off the ground as a result of a classroom assignment. Students in the MBA class Managing Information Systems, taught by SFU Beedie School of Business Assoc. Professor Michael Parent, were challenged to garner as many social media likes and comments as possible in order to increase organizational engagement with consumers.

On the night previous to receiving the MBA challenge, students had viewed the documentary A World Without Water, which casts new light on the commodification of water globally and the tragedies stemming from lack of access to safe drinking water. Moved by the central premise of the program, Rai vowed to address it in her team project.

Her team’s Facebook page, entitled 1 Dollar Per Like, initially hoped to acquire 5,000 likes in order to raise enough money to build the well in Sierra Leone. She notes that on the first night of her group’s Facebook campaign, they had 400 likes — translating into $400 raised. By the end of the first week, they had attracted 1,000 likes to raise the same number of dollars. The team has since garnered sponsor commitment of up to $5,000 — the amount required to build the well — and are well on their way to attracting that many likes. “Amazingly, we will have used our Facebook page to have built 100 percent of the well,” she said.

“Now we’re saying, why stop at $5,000 — why not $25,000 and adopt the entire village?” said Rai, who is also the co-president of the SFU Net Impact Society – a student club focused on the intersection of business with sustainability and corporate social responsibility. “That would mean building a school classroom, plus a well, and starting health care and alternate income programs.”

Rai herself is no stranger to volunteering for infrastructure projects in Africa. Previous to coming to SFU’s Beedie School of Business, she worked with Free the Children, helping to build a school in Kenya.

Moving forward, she hopes to combine her newfound enthusiasm for business with her experiences in the developing world. “I’m trying to do good through business,” she said. “Whatever I wind up doing, it’ll have a lot to do with Africa, because that’s where my passion lies.”

For more information, or to donate, visit: http://www.facebook.com/1DollarPerLike