Stefan Akoki (2:42)

Yeah. So again, thank you so much for having me. I'm Stefan Akoki from Ivory coast or Cote d'ivoire for our French speaking friends. And we, I am, I'm the founder of Elevate Court d'ivoire and I'll be telling you all about it. And our mission is, like you mentioned, to empower underprivileged Ivorian and we want to lead them to prosperity. I like to emphasize that in our mission statement there's no mention of poverty, as in, like, we do know Africa's impoverished, we do know Ivory coast is impoverished. But we want our people to focus on the end goal. And the end goal for them is to create a life of prosperity. And we found from our research, from talking to people, the best way to do that is to provide job opportunities or opportunities in general. But most specifically, currently we're focusing on jobs so they can leave a life of prosperity. And a life of prosperity for us is defined as a life where you do not have to worry about your basic needs centrally like that.

Dr. Rob Harder (3:34)

Excellent. And you really have focused a lot of your efforts on helping to train folks with job skills and help them flourish through employment. Out of the many things you could focus on, why have you focused on the majority of your efforts to helping people get jobs? You've just mentioned a little bit, maybe you could talk a little bit more what you found to be so important to helping people have a job, keep a job and grow in their job.

Stefan Akoki (3:57)

Yeah, yeah, that's a, that's a fantastic question. And perhaps it will help if I perhaps give a little bit of my background. So, you know, I grew up in Ivory Coast. Unfortunately for us, you know, we have, we've gone through several civil wars or like challenges, economical challenges that are similar to some other African countries. So we. Finding a job, finding opportunities for you to earn an income has always been a challenge. Getting a great education was a challenge for, for us. So I don't want to have to give you my whole life story, but I'll just give you like, perhaps like a snippet that will help you, you know, understand the, the, the elevate, the elevate overall mission. So 2011 is an important marker for me when I, I come back for my, my religious mission. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter, sent serve my mission in Ghana, returned from that mission and the country has gone through a pretty much an economic collapse due to civil unrest and then political tension and all. So I'm back and I want to go to college. While my college was affected through the conflict, so closed down for like two, three years so I can go to college. Most businesses have closed and it's hard, it's really hard to be able to live, survive. And also I'm thinking, well, okay, what do I do? Can't get a job. I don't have the education, the skills that I need to get a job. So I become what I call a necessity entrepreneur, get on the street, you know, try to sell things, various things. And I don't make a lot of money, but I make enough to survive for my needs, to provide for my needs and survive in that, that economy. And I started asking my, myself the question, well, it seems like I found a way to make money. You know, somehow what, what makes me different from all of my other friends or like others that are completely struggling. And, and then the elven vision was born, is like, how could we get people, how can we get youth or people that are struggling in this economic situation to learn whatever it is that they need to learn, address whatever gaps that there is with them so they can earn something. And that mindset about that mission or that vision helped me or led me to thinking, okay, I need to figure out what are the skills. I need to figure out what are the things people need to know so they can get an opportunity in a way that will give them the, the, the, the income or the life that they want is essentially. So that's where I was born. And from there on, you know, I was able to get a job. Then lost that job as in like, for like corruption reasons. And it wasn't making a lot of money and it was difficult. And then moved to China where I went and got some, some to further my education because of the challenge to get a good education. Then that turned out to be a scam. So very difficult time in China. And then eventually get another opportunity to come to the United States and then get my education here in the US and then get a great job starting consulting and then now working into the IT field. So that that journey was. I was searching for one thing essentially I was searching for an opportunity, an opportunity to be able to get the education that I need to be, to be able to provide for my needs. But also through that I kept in mind like what, what can I learn from China? What can I learn from those countries where I'm at that can be helpful to my people? What has China done differently? What has the US done differently that has made them either develop a nation or developed nation and Ivory coast can learn from. And so from that journey, from that travel and from my personal experience and also talking to my friends and all, I realized that there's a dire need for opportunities essentially. And that's I'm here because somebody gave me an opportunity. I have a job because somebody gave me an opportunity. And that opportunity was to earn. We need to earn something. We need to be able to provide for ourselves. And that's typical of any other nations. The difference is that country does not produce enough jobs or opportunities for the people to be able to earn, earn their way to, to prosperity in a way. So when I started, I started Elevate, really my first, I would say my first day of class, you know, I was taking business class. Yes, I was taking business classes at Enzyme College, then LDS Business College. And I, I will just take notes of whatever the professor was saying about how to better a business or to improve a business and I will just call my friends on using WhatsApp and I reco that way, you know, necessity entrepreneurs that, hey, this is what the Americans are saying you should be doing. You know, they're developed so maybe they're doing something right. So here are the, here are my notes. And that's how we, I started empowering local entrepreneurs and small businesses to grow and to scale. That's essentially how Elevate started. And, but again, it was all about opportunity from the very beginning. And I'm going to wrap it up to give you a question. But as we go through that journey, we had some successes with entrepreneurs and we had a lot of failures too. And so then I went through this long journey of like, okay, what is not working? It seems like people do want to earn, they want to grow, they want to make a living for themselves. But a lot of businesses that we've helped, we've seen struggles. Like the owner will eat, not eat literal, you know, they'll spend the capital of the business or they, you know, they will struggle and close or they, you know, they will get demotivated. Entrepreneurship is really hard because essentially it is very difficult to keep a long term perspective which you need of entrepreneurship when you cannot provide for your basic needs.

Dr. Rob Harder (9:03)

So certainly when you do the aspect of helping create more job opportunities, that has a ripple effect in many different areas of someone's life. So maybe talk about that as you've created more job opportunities for those you serve. How has that also contributed to better health care? Maybe better education for these families you're serving?

Stefan Akoki (9:20)

Yeah, no, that's, that's a, that's a great question. I like to, to use the example of, you know, when I'm in school, my friends would tell me, like, tell me about malaria, tell me about growing up in Africa. And I'll tell them, you know, I've had malaria, like, more than 50 times. And they're like, they freak out. Oh, my gosh, you okay? Like, how did you survive? This is insane. He goes, I think there's a perception here that you get malaria, you're dead, right? Which, true in a lot of ways. But then I say, well, the reason I survived malaria or typhoid fever, all those deadly diseases, is because my dad had a stable job. He wasn't making time. He had a stable job and he had, he could access health care. So whenever I got sick, we knew we could at least buy medication. And it's huge. It's very huge. And in essence, I see this as, and my vision there has been, how do we tackle the root cause of poverty? Like, I, I can't afford health care. I can't get clothing, I can't have food. I think those are consequences of poverty. But the root cause is just a lack of basic necessity, lack of basic income. And when people have that kind of income, then they can easily say, you know, my son is sick, I can go to the hospital and I can take them there because it's, it's not very expensive. I was just in Ivory coast recently. I had a great doctor visit that cost me $20. And that was without insurance, as I don't have insurance over there. So it's not that expensive. About $20 is five times what the average person earns a day. So compared to my cost of living, to me, it's like, oh, $20. I go to the doctor in the United States, that's incredibly cheap for. Compared to the US and it's not even my copay, right, with insurance. But over there, it's five times what someone earns. But if you. With Our program with 10x people's income, and I'm going to talk a bit about some of the stories there, then it's like, you know, I was talking to one of my virtual assistants. She was like, yeah, my son is sick. You know, he needs new glasses. But she and I have been talking over the Years. And she said it in a way of like, yes, she's stressed as a mother, but it was like, yeah, we're going to go tomorrow to the hospital and just figure this out. But you can see that with confidence today because she's not earning five, six times what she used to earn. But before, the story was different. Like, my son is sick. He doesn't have what we need. Well, we just have to deal with it because there's no way we're going to the hospital. So it makes, makes a huge impact there. And on education, again, it's the same principle of like, I don't have to worry about my food. Then it's, I don't have to worry about my rent. And it's like, okay, what else can I do? And it's, it's crazy how, I mean, I've seen that shift with me. When I moved to the United States, I was like, okay, well I could learn this, I could learn that. I started getting hobbies. You know, hobbies are not a thing over there. Have you eaten, have you eaten enough yet for you to like, have you provided for your basic needs? We just don't think that way. And it's, it's, it's incredible. Like today here I garden. I, you know, I do like decoration. I was telling him about my, my background and stuff, but that's because I can eat enough, you know, that's because I have my basic needs taken care of. And so we have our virtual assistants today that I enroll with programs like byu Pathway Online. You know, online education. That's not something we push them to do. They just like, you know, I would love to get more education. You know, I would love to learn a new skill. But that's when, when your basic needs are taken care of and your family's safe, then you have the confidence to move forward and do sessions.

Dr. Rob Harder (12:41)

What a great description. It's so true. When you don't have the basics, if you, if you have a hungry stomach, it's very difficult to learn and to read and to want to do any of, certainly not even think about hobbies, you know, so love how you describe that. One of the other things you do, as I learned, is providing financial assistance. And I'm curious on, on how you do this because on the one hand you want to provide financial assistance, right? But on the other, you're encouraging self reliance through getting a good job. How do you balance the two and how does that work out when someone comes in it with a need, is it a period of time that they get financial assistance. Is it if they already have a job, that they get a certain amount of assistance? Maybe they get more if they don't have a job. Yeah, break that down for us. How does that work?

Stefan Akoki (13:22)

Yeah, no, that's a fantastic question. And I don't think I'll say we have figured this out entirely. It's a very tough balance because you see someone who is suffering today, they need the help, and then you tell them, well, train for six months and get a job, and eventually you get help. It's a hard answer to say. It's a hard notice to people when you know that they're suffering. So first we prioritize those who would believe are the most underprivileged. And there's definitely a range in terms of like underprivileged levels. So widows, you know, we have widows that we help. They've lost their husband was a primary bread, the breadwinner of the family. The husband is gone. That means the job, the income, everything's gone. And now they left with five, six kids. So when I was in Ivory Coast, I make the effort to visit widows. I care so deeply about widows and it's not, there's not an easy answer for them. And unfortunately a lot of them do not know how to read or write. It's the nature. It's. There's a huge population of women in Ivory because cannot read or write. So it's very hard to help them move to a stable job income. The kind of job that we provide is not just fit for them. So with, with, with, with, with such a demographic, we do have a program where we provide rice assistance or like very basic food items that we help with from time to time. And then we look into what we can do beyond that. And that's very much of per cases. So last time the widow we visited, she had a daughter that just graduated from college. She doesn't have a job. So we were like, hey, well how, why, why not join a community? Yes, your mother has a little business she's hustling with, you know, trying to provide for, you know, the family. But perhaps we can give you a job so then you can, you can help the family. And just some bit of cultural background there. We, we like to say that children in Africa, in Africa specifically, like this parent Social Security, this is our retirement plan. You know, there's an expectation that children will provide for their kids, so for their parents. So in that context, you know, we, we, we provide financial, like basic necessities assistance to the widow and then we, we ensure most of the kids usually have gone to school. We help them with getting a job so they can help their family. So that's a model we're exploring. And that beyond that we do, you know, just one time, like big assistance, like Covid was a time where we're like, hey, we really need to help when there's like a disaster, you know, disaster recovery, disaster help, aid, we don't do a ton of that. But like, we believe that in cases like this, it does make sense to be able to give a one time help. But as we do that, then we say, hey, look, by the way, we have this program that can help you get a job and if you just can't qualify, then we'll find you other things. And we love, we would love actually in fact eventually to get back to the entrepreneurship lessons that we used to do because with some of those women or like orphans or others that we're helping that don't have like the skills or the education baseline that we need to get them like remote job, for example, we do want to make sure that they have a way to stop providing for themselves and their basic necessity, if that makes sense.

Dr. Rob Harder (16:27)

Yeah, no, it does. Well, related to this is the importance of realizing, addressing the many layers of challenges, I'm sure that are faced by underprivileged Ivorians. How do you take into account the many potential barriers in the empowerment process of individuals that you're helping? Because it's, there's so many different things you could do to come alongside to help these families. How do you differentiate all those different challenges?

Stefan Akoki (16:48)

Yeah, no, it's, yeah, that's a great, great question. It's, it's tough. It's tough. It's. Poverty is a complex issue. It's a complex issue. So it's, it's, you know, sometimes even saying that we'll solve poverty, it's so bold because you, you get down to like, yeah, there's a macroeconomics, you know, there's not enough jobs. There's, you know, there's not enough industries know, there's not a mechanization for agriculture. There's all these issues. And then you get to individual level and a family level and there's so many stories, you know, of like, why did this person end up where they are today? You know, and it's hard to solve to create a solution design that can help us solve the problems for. So in a way, sometime we create solutions at the level of like, okay, we think that'll help the most People like, okay, remote jobs that could help a good chunk of people. But then you get, like I said, a widow that comes to you say, I never touched a computer. I don't even know what that is. And then I need help. Then you're like, well, we need to think about creative ways to be able to support this demographic and all. So with our approach, so we realize it's important to have a focus target in terms of this is what we do for people. It's also important focus. Have a focus demographic. And for now we're focusing on young, educated and unemployed Ivorians. So and which is millions. The African populations. It's very young. Millions of people. In that case, I've had at least a high school degree. I'm young. I just don't have a job because there's not enough jobs. We help you in that process. And I can describe that process a bit later, but from certain other demographic we still haven't quite figured out, okay that's the best way to help them. And that's a big barrier because what we have in place, this is what we can service them or can offer them today will match, you know, their needs and it doesn't fill the gap for them. So I would say, like for us, we just take it a demographic per demographic and, you know, impact know really well that demographic know their needs, their what, their aspirations, their goals. You know, every time I travel there, I was even supposed to go to Ghana. That's my last time in Ghana. I was just asking, like, what's your dream? Like, what do you want to accomplish? Like, what's the life that you want to do for. To those youth? Because that's our demographic. I'm also in a professional development product manager. So I do a lot of customer interviews that I like to drill down to the problem and figure out a solution. That we apply those principles, I think in a nonprofit and understanding. And most of them will say, I want job like. And I'll ask them what that job like, how much. How much you wanted to pay. And they will say $500 a month would be like the best salary I can ever get. Which is not very much in the United States, but over there it means it's a. It's a big amount. So. So I think to. To your question, like, we. There are barriers, there are challenges. And you know, not to even mention the language barrier. That's a whole different problem. They're French speakers. Then you have to insert them in the English English number English world. So like figuring out that is complicated, but it's a lot easier when you you have a focus target focus demographic. We do want to help the entire country, but also realize that because of all the challenges and barriers that that is is due to the complex nature of poverty. We just have to take one focus at a time.

Dr. Rob Harder (19:54)

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Stefan Akoki (22:33)

So I like to take the example of Ruth. So Rut AWA is a single mother from Nigeria. So she and I serve a religious mission together in Ghana. So she went back, she's from Nigeria, went back to Nigeria, went back to I coast. We kept in touch ly over the years. She kn. She had, she had two beautiful children and then, you know, her husband left her and then she's, she's not a single mother. She has to take care of those two kids. So she was a teacher in Nigeria making 30 to $40 a month. Extremely low for, for that, for that country. When it's very low, it's difficult to survive on this while she has to pay for, you know, all of her expenses, pay for children's school fees and, and all that kind of thing. So, so she comes, she comes to me and over the years, hey, could you help me out and all that. And I was like, yeah, yeah. And then at that time, you know, we've made a couple one, one time help to like sponsoring the children's education and you know, at some point when, when the elevate, you know, Karen's vision as was developing, I was like, hey, like I think she, I think actually she reached out to me first and she was like, hey, like would you mind, would you have a job for me? You know, would you have something I could do that could help? And it was like, you know what? Maybe I do actually, I do. And you know, we, then we were just working Ivory coast and we, you know, we expanded from that and I hired her from Nigeria and so she's, she's, she's, she was teaching elementary school then and then on in the evening she just took clean. She clean to, to make enough money.

Dr. Rob Harder (23:55)

Oh, I love that. Thanks for sharing that story. You know, maybe that's one of the last questions I was going to ask you is you grew up in this country, obviously you're coming back and you're serving and helping to really invest in this next generation. What's giving you hope from the work you're seeing there in the Ivory Coast? And particularly I'm thinking majority of my audiences, Americans, although we have people from all over the world that tune in, give us a, a sense of what's Going on the Ivory Coasting and what's giving you hope, specifically?

Stefan Akoki (24:20)

Yeah, I. I would say me. Let me think through this. So the first thing is what we're seeing, the change we're seeing in those people. I think it. It makes a tremendous difference. You know, I'll give you the story of Roots. I have other stories I could share. Seeing how they're changing, see how. What they. Then. What it enables them to do, you know, with friends on social media as well, check out their stories or the things that they're doing. It's just incredible to see, like, the freedom that has. They. They've gotten and then the empowerment, you know, from being able to do all the things that they wouldn't have been able to do otherwise is just incredible. It gives us hope that there's a. There's, like, there's goodness there. There are people that are willing to work. And as I. As I visit there, and then I keep always checking, you know, I like to do my little research and like, hey, we. We have this thing, like, we. We could train you, we can help you. But, like, tell me, what are your dreams or aspiration? And it's just incredible to see that regardless of, you know, what the. The challenges they're facing, you know, people still dare to dream big. They. They say, you know, I don't know if I'll ever be able to get these things. I never, ever be able to, like, not worry about food and shelter, but I would love, you know, to have my own place. You know, I would love to have, you know, to be able to have a good education or, you know, to be able to. To, you know, over there, it's like, it's important to, like, I can get my mother something. It's important to, like, bl. Bless our mothers or, like, do something big for our mothers. Like, that's important for people. And I want to be able to, at least when my mother is still alive, I want to, you know, shower with gifts and all. But if I could get the income to. To get to do those things, and it's incredible to see that the people are still dreaming and they. They want. All they need is an opportunity to be able to get. To get to that. To that dream. So that. That really excites me. And our population is young. It's very young. I think they've seen 50, 60% of the African population is, like, you know, I don't know, under 20 or 25. I can't remember the statistics. There is a young population. It's a Vibrant population that's willing, they're willing to work and they're willing to put on the effort. But all they're looking for is an opportunity. And many of them think that opportunity has to be abroad. I have to leave because they feel like they can't find that opportunity. And I had to. But I want to tell them, I tell the youth over there, like, look, not everybody will have that chance to leave as much as you want to. It's difficult. So how. How about we bring you the dream that you're trying to live abroad to your. To. To the country. And that's what L is all about. We want to bring you that dream. You know, I came and live the American dream. You know, I came with $50 and, you know, in my pocket, did all the things and it's incredible, you know, good job, invested in real estate, did all those things. And I'm like, if I could have stayed there, you know, and I would have loved to have that opportunity to be able to realize those dreams in my community. And that's what that was. Gets me excited the most. And. And not just to. For individuals and family, but for the entire country. How can I serve my country better? And there's so much to do there in agriculture, in, like, education. There's just so much work to do.

Dr. Rob Harder (27:11)

Well, again, love your energy. Thanks for taking time to be on the show and thanks for all you're doing to really make a difference in people's lives.

Stefan Akoki (27:18)

Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Have a fantastic day.

Dr. Rob Harder (27:21)

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