Wealth Is Togetherness with community organizer Kennedy Odede

0:00In the West, we may have wealth, but do we actually feel wealthy? Kennedy Odette grew up in Kibera, the largest urban slum in all of Africa. As a boy, Kennedy aspired to work in a factory and earn 10 cents a day. But life took a sharp turn when, as a starving 10-year-old, he stole a single mango. Chaos ensued. And thanks to a small act of kindness, it changed the trajectory of Kennedy's life. Today, Kennedy is the founder and CEO of Shining Hope for Communities, or Shafco. They bring the most basic necessities to the slums of Kenya, helping over 4 million people get everything from clean water to education, from toilets to internet cafes.

0:45And the biggest lesson that Kennedy's learned from all his work is that what makes us feel wealthy is not how much stuff we have. It's the people we keep around us. This is a bit of optimism. Hey, Kennedy. Hey, Simon. How are you? Fine, thanks. How are you? I'm doing good. Thank you for... Where are you? I'm in Nairobi. You're in Nairobi. I was in Nairobi, when was I there? In June. Oh, that's recently. I'm going to start with a question. Tell me something that you're optimistic about in the world. I'm really optimistic about the world is the youth. Gives me hope. I just feel like they're not giving up.

1:30And as someone who is coming from African continent, whereby most of our leaders, they have really taken us around and around. and you see these young people becoming innovative. They are doing startups. They are doing charities. They are getting into leadership. So that's something good. One of the reasons I was so excited to talk to you, I was in Nairobi in June, and I drove past the Kibara slum. It is huge. It was amazing to me how big it is and how many people live there and go to work there every day. And I know that that's where you grew up. you were able to lift yourself out of poverty and and and go unto the world and do amazing things but the the reason i wanted to talk to you in particular is you are a perfect example of whether you want to call it divine intervention or luck where your life is going in one direction and something intervenes to change the direction suddenly that here you are this kid in the slum you steal a mango yes you tell me the story i know it from reading about it oh my god yes yeah so i was around i think 10 11 there and what happened for me is so growing up in growing up in poverty as you know you pass through kibera it is a tough place everything is scarce food is cars, there was no clean water, there was no toilets around.

3:04People really live as if they are refugees in their own country. I didn't want to be a thief. I was stealing one mango because I was hungry. And mob justice, they jump on me, muizi, muizi, which means Swahili, thief, thief, and I'm a baby, man. And I knew at that moment, I'm dead. Because in my community, I have seen, when you go through a lot, people who live in tough places, they put their anger into something small. So when they see a thief, we see them being killed, right? So I say, you know what? I'm done just for this, for me just to eat. So then this man walks in and be like, stop, stop, why are you beating this kid?

3:48Why are you beating this kid? And then he says, he's going to pay it. And then how many mangoes? There's one. Everyone felt ashamed, even those who were beating me. For me, at that moment, I saw the good in humanity. Yeah. But that moment for me, I was like, who are you? He said the word, I'm a good Samaritan. I'm a good Samaritan, he said. Yes. I don't know his name. I never met him again. Wow. And for me, I think that was a moment, despite us living in a tough life, There is always good of humanity. Most people do things to get something back, right? This is a man who didn't care, right? So he took me for shopping on the street, buy me some more food, yeah.

4:37And that really changed the way I see things. That was a very, very important moment in my life. So here you are, 10 or 11 years old. You learn this lesson of intervention and helping and doing good for someone. And as you said, he left. He was a figment of your imagination after that. You don't know his name. You don't know who he is. It was this intervention that changed the course of your life. And we'll get to the work you've done as an adult. But as a boy, you're 11 years old. How does that show up in your life now? How does that interaction affect you and your childhood? You know, what were you like before that event?

5:13What did you start to become like after that event? after that event it changed my life it planted something in me you know i start taking life very special yeah for me it's not a joke because i've seen other kids being killed i've seen people who still just a wallet being put a tire on them and being banned so as a kid i've been traumatized by mob justice, right? I just need to restate this. I need people to understand that this is not just beating a kid up because they were a thief. You saw somebody who stole a wallet and they put a tire around his body and then set him on fire. Yes, I set him on fire.

5:56And not once, several times. And I've seen people beaten to death with stones, you know, people just raining on you, right? So 99 % could be dead. Yep. And nothing they do because we can't arrest everybody. Yeah, done. He was a thief. Okay? We are teaching that kid a lesson. Yeah. Right? We're more likely teaching all the other kids a lesson. Yes, right? And it's interesting. So let's go back again. I never thought about it too much as it now comes into my head. Because sometimes we do things in our life we don't really connect it to. Because the life I lived in is next, next, next. It's hassling life.

6:37But here there's two things. the same one being want to kill you because you're hungry for stealing one mango without asking why you beat this kid and then again another person is like no you are in anger why people are so mean people are so mean and then again you're like wow there is hope someone really saved my life and this for me now depends do I want to focus that I was beaten to death yeah be honest with you simon that plays less in my life what captures me is a good samaritan saved my life right and i start seeing life in that way or i could be angry man who doesn't want to do anything because people were mean to me people wanted to kill me because i focus on good samaritan it planted something in me of doing good and you can see the history of my work moving on, there was nothing of gaining back.

7:39No. You do good because you're supposed to do good. You do good because a good Samaritan that I don't know, not my relative, not my friend, their name will not be written in any book. Their name will not be written in any university building. Okay? As I do in the Western world. But their names is written in my heart and the generation that will hear this story. So for me, that's very powerful. And I use that story a lot in my communities. It's rich. Let's just flash forward a little bit. But I want to come back here. Let's flash forward a little bit. So how old were you when you started your charity?

8:2015 years old. Oh, my God. So you're 15 years old and you started charity. What was the initial intention of the charity? And you're still living in Nairobi when you're 15 years old. Yes. So you're a poor kid who then decides to become a good Samaritan. What does the original charity do? I really became very generous. And my mom can say that. I will give my sweater when people are called. My mom will be mad at me. Why do you give your sweater away? I'm like, mom, somebody, that kid did not have a sweater. Okay. So even my mother, who I love so much, who believed in giving, thought I was too extreme.

8:59So this was planted in me slowly by slowly, but it was not structured. So what happened is that when I grew, I came with this idea, how can I do something that really having a bigger impact? Not just giving my sweater, not just giving one food here, like that as a kid, right? Magical King with Dr. King really inspired me. The story of Dr. King. So I fell in love with books of hope. The way I was able to stop using drugs, even though I was saved by this good sabbatian, the society was still tough. Why I was into drugs was to run away from the pain. The pain of dealing with this thing every day.

9:39So every time we use those drugs, you forget it. So then what happened to me, which I'm so lucky, is when I fell in love with books, they became my drugs. I could read and I forgot my property. And I will be with Dr. King in America. I'll be in the non-violence struggle. Just through books. I will be with Nelson Mandela in South Africa. It was inspiring me. So everything I was doing, I was trying to apply them into my life. So in Kibera, we love football or soccer, as they call it, right? And the more I learned about Dr. King, I got so inspired. He used what he had. What this man had was a church.

10:25in a small church in Alabama, a young man rose and from a small church it became the civil rights movement. It became what changed America. So I said, I can't be a preacher. I'm not a good preacher. I love this man. What do I do in my life in Kibera? Then I say, by then, African Americans, black people, they wanted to be together. So through church, that's what they was there. to give them hope, love, caring. But I bought Kibera. My friend, we love soccer. So that's why I bought a soccer ball in 20 cents. And I said, Dr. King, we are set from what we have. We have soccer. We love soccer. And Shofko was founded from soccer.

11:10And so basically what you did is you invited kids to come and play. Yeah. We wanted a place that we could be secure, safe, and share. Whereby there's girls and boys. and then from there we could play soccer and also go do cleanup with kibera so kibera we did cleanup you know it was about service it was a therapy it was amazing simon just i don't know why people were mean with their money and wealth i feel sorry for them there is joy there is this joy when you are doing something right so although we were poor but when we go to the streets and clean up. We were like heroes. And I felt like, wow, we are doing something positive.

11:52Slowly but slowly we were able to start helping kids with their homework. Slowly but slowly we were able to start helping women. Slowly but slowly Shofko started growing to other things because we felt the joy. Because what poverty does for you, poverty makes you feel unseen. Begging on poor. But here Simon, we are like, we are the service. We are here to give. And honestly, up to now, we received a lot. And that's how we were able to build Shofco. Is Shofco still only working in Kenya or are you working all across Africa? Where are you located? Our headquarter is in Kibera. So we have 47 counties in Kenya, but we are now in 35.

12:34And it has just grown with over a thousand staff. A thousand staff? Yeah. How many people have you helped? And you're building toilets and you're doing basic stuff. Yes, basic stuff. As you said, when you grew up, no toilets, no clean water, all of that stuff. And you're bringing these basic needs into people's lives. The power of unity is something that I really believe in. You cannot do anything alone. You cannot. And you see my work, as you can follow up a little bit, you'll see that I believe in ownership. That's how we are serving over 4 million people. but everyone in the community, they feel ownership.

13:14They have to own it. That's it. That's kind of what I really believe in. With no ownership, I'm doing zero work. All right. There's so many thoughts going through my head right now. Are you familiar with the chemical in the human body called oxytocin? I've heard about it, yes. So this chemical in our body called oxytocin is responsible for our feelings of love, our feeling of friendship our feelings of loyalty it's all of the mushy mushy human stuff yes and there are many healthy ways to get oxytocin physical contact is one of them another way to get oxytocin is through acts of service that when we do something nice for someone with no expectation of anything in return yes in other words it's not a transaction to your point yes then the reward isn't money, the reward is oxytocin.

14:06The reward is, I feel good. It feels nice to do something for someone. When someone is on the receiving end of an act of generosity, somebody does something nice for you and doesn't ask for anything back, you feel good. You get oxytocin, right? And the more oxytocin you have in your body, the more generous you actually want to become. It's the mother nature's way of trying to get us to look after each other, that when people are good to us, we actually biologically want to be good to other people. And so as this young age, this man who intervenes and does an act of kindness and generosity with no expectation of anything in return, he pays for your mango, then takes you shopping to buy you more food.

14:50The profound impact you have is it feels so powerful to be given something that it actually makes you want to do it more. Yes. My favorite thing about oxytocin is that when you witness an act of generosity or hear the story of an act of generosity, you get oxytocin. In other words, me hearing your story and us sharing your story makes people feel good. You also feel it. And so sharing the story is as valuable as the actual work you're doing. And your work proves it, which is if you think about it, the amount of charities or businesses that start where we're going to solve this huge problem and they don't and they try and build a plan.

15:31And you did it very simply. You did what is the cheapest, simplest thing I can do with the highest probability of success that makes me generous to someone. I can buy a 20 cent soccer ball and I can take a bunch of kids to play football and we will play. And at the end, I will ask them to help clean up the slum and they will have fun with friends. But more importantly, they get the joy of doing something that other people say you're, you were part of cleaning it up. Thank you. Yes. And then you discover that over the course of time, you start to find something else you could do and you start to find something else you could do.

16:05And before you know it, you're servicing millions of people and you've got a thousand staff members, which was never the vision. I'm struck by that. Thank you. I'm also struck by your point of view about what we focus on is what we become. You could have been the victim and said, I was beaten up and I hate that. And you said it, you said it. When people have nothing and you feel like you have no control over your life, you try to find anything that you can control to make you feel like you have some sort of agency. You talk about addiction. And addiction, you said, was important because it helped you forget about poverty.

16:51Yes. the new addiction became giving and service helped you forget about poverty except it's more socially constructive than taking drugs yes one is selfish one is selfless one is pro-social well the other one is anti-social what puts you down make you feel useless there is this feeling as a college like wow shoulder high your head's high out of the sand i am part of solution i am part of change. The other side is your son, somebody's helping you. What? You know? So I think it really helped me so much to feel like I'm not poor. Who say poverty? Up to now me and my friends from Kibera, up to now we say that.

17:36Poverty is not just materials. You can be the most richest man in the one, but you are so poor. Right? I'm so poor. I need you to say more about that. Tell me what you mean. You say you can meet the richest man in the world and they will feel poor. But you can be poor in Kibera and you can feel rich. So I'll tell you something simple. Despite our struggle in Kibera, we saw wealth. Because Simon said, something powerful people forget about. Love. My friend, when you have love, love produces kindness, love produces service. That's wealth. And you feel light. You know, anytime I get angry, I feel heavy.

18:16Okay? I feel so heavy. Anytime Simon, I'm so happy. I'm like, hi, Simon. How are you doing? Hi, Kennedy. So the story about it, for me, that is wealth. And we always forget that wealth is materialistic. No. Anybody can be wealthy by stealing, by doing corrupt deals. Right? You can be wealthy. But it takes some work to be a person of love. And love comes through experience. love comes through your mother dying from cancer. Love comes through beating to stealing a mango. Love comes from, no, it comes from pain. If you know how to master it, it turns into love, right? And that's wealth. So when I look around Kibera, I saw a lot of wealth, honestly.

19:06For example, I went to America to study. People don't know their neighbor. I'm like, that's poverty. You don't know your neighbor? That's poverty. My friend in Kibera, I can walk with you like, oh, that's so-and-so. that's so and so if i need a salt i will go get some salt there if i need some food i can knock this door and for me that was that's when i went to america that's the thing i missed i missed that part people are saying hi to you you go to america none of my business you are in the elevator people are just sad i used to be like hey how are you morning people don't want to talk i'm like what is going on here anyways i don't want to be too crazy no no no okay no no here this is what I'm learning from you, right?

19:47That you are making the distinction between being rich and feeling rich. And there's a lot of wealthy people in the world. They may have wealth, but do they feel wealth? And I would argue no, because that's why they keep trying to add to their wealth, thinking that the feeling will come. They keep thinking that if I make more, eventually I will feel rich. And I think that in the West, we have wealth, but we don't feel wealthy. yes and we are addicted we have the same addiction that you had as a young boy in kibera we are addicted to money and it helps us feel like we don't have to think about the stress and the strain and the lack of love in our lives and the lack of friendship and the fact that i don't know my neighbor and the fact that i get angry at things and i walk and i love what you said when i'm angry i'm heavy when i'm happy i'm light you said it and we're addicted to money we're addicted to the material and we we in the west come to africa we drive past the slums in nairobi and we say to them oh they're so poor i feel so sorry for them look at them which is the same thing as a drug addict looking at everybody who's not a drug addict saying i feel so sorry for everybody that you don't have my high that you don't feel high like i feel high right now i feel so sorry for you and yet these poor africans are looking at us going you idiots you're all addicted to drugs yes it's true and we may have struggled but we have lightness we may have struggle but we have love we may have struggle but we feel wealthy and you have so much more than us and yet you are so sad and heavy.

21:34You're so sad. And you are addicted to money thinking that that is what will alleviate your pain, but all it is doing is hiding it. Yes. And you are living proof of that. I think the West can learn more from a slum in Nairobi than the people in the slum of Nairobi can learn from the West. Because trying to emulate the way we live our lives just makes you heavy. It's true. and just makes you addicted to the wrong thing to hide your pain. So I think the West believes in individualism. Africa has something called Ubuntu spirit. You are because I am, and I am because you are. Is that powerful? So when you believe that, your neighbor is there because of the interconnection.

22:28And I think that has been the, when you come to Africa, you come to Kenya, You see that connection. Because I know the Ubuntu speech. We are coexisted. Okay? You can't live by yourself, Simon, no matter how wealthy you are. Okay? You can't live in an island. How would you do now if only someone in this world, you with your own money, Simon, I'd be like, okay, Simon, you know what? Live by yourself. You'll be the most sad person in the world. Right? So, but Africa knows that. We are like, you know what? We have to coexist together. So that's why tomorrow you're going to come for sugar. Today, they give you salt, right?

23:04So I asked some people in America, told me that, I don't know if the Second World War, when people started getting rich, communion started going away. So I think maybe, Simon, money is a problem. Wealth. Too much wealth in America. Too much wealth in the West. I think it's a time now to start thinking about that. Don't let wealth control you. Control the wealth. otherwise you could be the world's going to lose something big i don't know anything about that that's my my theory the west overdid it on individualism yes and i know there's an african proverb you know to go fast go alone to go far go together yes yes and you said the umbutu spirit yes which is which yes we are better than than i yes i am you because you are me and you are me because I am you.

23:58Yes. That we are a community and the community will take care of each other. And you see this in poor neighborhoods a lot. Tell me if Kibera is the same. I spent the day at Daravi, which is the largest slum in Mumbai, in India. And just to give people a sense of how dense the population is, the island of Manhattan in New York City is 26 square miles. And the population of Manhattan, the people who live on that island is 1.5 million. And anybody who's ever been to New York City, you know what that density feels like. Yes. Whereas in Mumbai, in Daravi, it's one square mile and it's between 750 ,000 and a million people.

24:45They're not 100 % sure. Okay. So the people are living on top of each other, literally. Right? Wow. It is so dense. and you understand why disease spreads so quickly. Yes. And when you walk through it, the water is filthy and there's live power lines that if you have to duck your head, if you accidentally touch one, you'll die. Yes. You know? But I saw an entrepreneurial spirit that was electric. Yes. Because there's no sophisticated welfare system in India because the country's too big. Yes. And so in the West, if you don't have a job, you won't die you know the odds of you dying if you don't have a job is very low you may go live on a friend's couch there's a church who may take you in there's a charity that might feed you death is not the obvious thing if you lose your job it may feel that way but in reality it's not going to happen whereas in in in india if you lose your job if you have nothing you probably will die.

25:50The options are slim. And so it becomes this fantastic entrepreneurial hustle culture. I'm going to go into the city center and I'm going to take all the plastic out of the garbage. And then I'm going to come back to Daravi and I'm going to sell it. And somebody will buy the plastic and they'll sort it. And somebody else will melt it and make it into pellets. Then somebody else will take it back into industry. And they all help each other. And it's this amazing entrepreneurial spirit. I saw struggle. Yes. But to your point, I saw people working together to make it work. And it was really inspiring.

26:24The same as Kibera. The same thing. Is the same in Kibera? Is it entrepreneurial? Yes. Yes. Very. Very. So something else I want to ask you, Simon, now. It's very interesting. You can give me an answer. I felt when I was living in Kibera, In the toughest life, I was more aware, more connected to my soul. Right now, I have water. I have food. I don't know what I bought it. I feel that I have to struggle to connect to my soul. What do you think is the problem? I think there's two kinds of struggle. And it goes back to that magical chemical of oxytocin. Yes. Right? One of the things that produces oxytocin is shared hardship.

27:07So when people go into battle together, it makes them feel closer. When a family goes through tragedy together, it makes the family closer. And I think, to your point, in the West, the struggle we tend to go through is individual struggle. and when we struggle by ourselves it does not produce the feelings of friendship and oxytocin and connectedness it exacerbates the feeling of loneliness and despair wow and i think your analogy of the neighbor is that when i am depleted of eggs when i am depleted of salt, when I am depleted of joy, when I am depleted of energy, when I am depleted of hope, the one thing that we are not doing is going to our neighbors and saying, can you give me some hope?

28:02Yes. And that's the thing we haven't learned in the West. And the more we learn to ask for eggs, literally, not metaphorically, the more we learn to ask for eggs from our neighbor, the easier it will become to ask for hope when we run out of that as well. Yes. People in Kibera were so surprised when we read in the newspaper that somewhere in New York and London, somebody died in a house for two months, not been found. And we asked ourselves, what the hell? In my community, we were like, I've not seen Kennedy. I've not seen Kennedy. Is Kennedy okay? It's common. We ask that. I've not seen Mama Kennedy.

28:43We call Mama, you know, Mother of So-and-so. I've not seen the Father of So-and-so. What's happening? So when we read those news in Kibera, we were like, this is crazy. How can that happen? And they were living in an apartment, which for us was a big deal. Like, it's a building, right? Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Nobody cares, right? People, bodies decompose because there was no one they can talk to. And yet they were there. So nearer and yet so far. So I got your point. Wow. I just think this whole thing about being wealthy and feeling wealthy, because the things that we're struggling with in the West right now, loneliness at epidemic proportions, suicide is up.

29:21People are struggling and everybody's looking somewhere. We're trying to do yoga. We're doing ketamine and mushrooms. We're doing all of these things to try and alleviate our feelings of despair and loneliness and lack of hope. You can see people grasping on the political spectrums on the left or the right. It's not grounded in any larger vision. It's just looking desperately to feel a part of something that gives my life meaning. And when you talk to those people who are in those movements, they will say, I've never felt so empowered. I've never felt like I belong to something in my life. This is magical.

29:56And you can go see them and they are with their brothers and their sisters and they feel connected and they feel in common cause. Except is it adding or is it taking away? And then, Simon, as we talk about that, what's happening in America right now? the left, the right. Not from there, but I can give you my observation. Please. The Americans have stopped. They have stopped to listen to each other. You are from the left side. Don't talk to me. You know, something powerful that I work in my community. It's really amazing. This is something that I will never leave. So our elders used to sit under the tree and they'll bring every side of the extreme and they'll be like, why?

30:37Let's first understand why Simon is behaving like that. Why? why is Simon angry at us? Simon is angry at us because Simon did not eat food the last two days and nobody has come to ask Simon, like, Simon, you need some food? So he's just angry to these people, right? So I felt like if Americans can start understanding and listen to each other side not what they are doing now, but go under the roots of it and be like, why are you behaving this way? I will bring a lot of understanding. But right now, they are all right. And when you're all right, Simon, that's the end. You have to have something called, I want to listen to you from love.