I noticed that many of my readers are not aware that I have been having a monthly entrepreneurs grant.

Many entrepreneurs, young inventors and upcoming business people are most of the time restricted by the availability of funds or credit.
The Kenya government has come up with many credit programs most of which are still channeled through the same banking system and are therefore being subject to the normal bureaucracy and red tapes that surround the banks lending procedures.
In view of this fact I am giving out between Kenya shillings 50,000 and 100,000 every month from my earnings for a deserving Kenya development project on capital for investment.

The project to be considered should give out returns, create jobs opportunities and advance the life of any one of my readers. One condition is one should have a bank account.

What are the qualifications and the procedure? That your project should be profitable, create jobs and be either a going concern or a new venture.

How can one apply for this grant? Just go to my Esther Passaris site complete the form and submit it online.

Once the applications are in, a team of mentors will look into them and come up with one deserving project for that month. Right now we are working on the July entries and I will meet all the applicants where I will announce the winner of the grant for our first month which is July 2009.

Monday this week I attended the talk by CK Prahalad on the Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. This talk was quite an eye opener but the government role is key to its success.
Today the government of Kenya went a step ahead and launched the water irrigation project to address food shortage by making Kenyans less dependent on rainfall.
By the way only 30 % of the viewers on Kenya Television Network ( KTN ) had confidence in the government’s intentions. I celebrate a step in the right direction and I want to believe good is possible?
On a sad note Lake Naivasha is drying up, lets pray for rain? Most of our rivers are drying up and this is truly a situation we need to start addressing and fast!
What is your take? What can we do to reverse this trend

I want to apologize to the Grant applicants for July, 2009 for the delay in reverting back to all of you. I shall be contacting you for a get together to make the award via mail to your respective addresses.

For those Kenyans interested in being assisted in their project via a grant please continue to visit Esther Passaris website and complete the application form. There will be a cut off on 31st August, 2009 for the August applications. If you have applied you need not apply again as all applications stay in the pool.

Shortages, Shortages, Shortages. That is what we are beginning to experience as the the drought lingers on. Last night the electricity was not back at 6 pm as they had promised. The excuse was a transformer had blown. I went to bed before power came and woke up to no water to bath. This is a sad affair and if you take it a notch higher and you find many people don’t have a home, land, job or food and poverty is everywhere! We as a country need to address these shortages.

When there are shortages, no one is immune to the suffering it causes. When a Nation like Kenya or a society is mismanaged not even the leaders or rich are immune to the effects of the suffering. Looking at crime, road carnage, aids, etc when all hell breaks loose it knows not class… or status. It gets everyone, the degree and speed will vary, but let no one think its not affecting everyone me included. WHY LIE ? To me it is a WAKE UP CALL?

The media does set the mood of a country. From my own experience the media fuels perceptions that lead to talks which people then run with or without even knowing the person they are talking about.

Is it me or is the media is still stuck on warlike utterances like we were in election mode?
They need to set the tempo with topics that are very much in the hearts of most Kenyans. The direction should be one of change, forward planning.

Time is precious and the reason Kenya lacks behind is all the booze and wasted talk. One thing you note is a constant battle of divide and rule with politicking while Kenya people want change, hope and a positive way forward.

We need to rally and infuse a sense of Patriotism to cope with the myriads of issues we are facing and will encounter in the future.

Yesterday I met the Nairobi City Town Clerk Philip Kisia. I have known Kisia from his days at the Nairobi Central business District Association (NCBDA) . Then he defended Adopt A Light.

When we sat to talk I admired his professionalism as he got an internal lawyer to give him an opinion on the matter at hand between my company and the council.Then he called in the other employees and for the first time it was my pleasure to hear an employee of the council being bold enough to stand up and say, “we are wrong, we have treated this lady and her company unfairly while breaking the law”.
Wow, This definitely made my day and a Hope for Justice!

Kenyan tribes tribe tribe – Kikuyu, Luo, Kalenjin happens to be the mother of tribalism in Kenya and if we are not careful it will add other children Kamba, Luhya etc. We Kenyans have to guard against this. We should be proud of our heritage and culture but leave it there.
When the census comes knocking can we all be KENYANS. I have seen diverse people who speak fluent Kamba, Luo, Kikuyu etc and to me it should be a language, that’s it. Lets not be divided? Do you think we should fill in our tribe slot when the census people come to count us?

I have been through an ironic court moment. The application was meant to lift the order that Justice Khaminwa issued to Magnate Ventures stopping the arbitration.

This arbitration was meant to be stopped while my competitors continue with their hostile takeover and Nairobi City Hall continue to destroy us.
The court declined my request however the end was achieved in that the court of appeal interpreted the ruling to not have stopped the arbitration in the first instance.
Hence we won while we lost. Gods hand at work?

While en route coming home I decided to stop in Dubai at the Atlantis Hotel. It is amazing how many young Kenyans are working and earning a living that pays them double if not triple of a similar job back home.
But more than that it gives them an opportunity to work and earn an honest living. This is the resilience you find with Kenyans.
It is nice that they are so happy to see fellow Kenyans which reaffirms to me that our bond as a people is being Kenyan. It is not in our tribe or party? That is the patriotism that we should preach and practice back home, that we are one people united by the same values each of us hold dear in our heart!

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• Grace Wanjiku : Kenya (kiva.org)

I visited Bangalore, India for a franchise exhibition where my hope was to sign up a few franchises for our youth and also for other hard working Kenyans.

One of the areas that Driving Kenya Foundation will embark on when I come back home is to start the drive for 1 million jobs. This will not come easy, for success we have to work hard to transform our mentality & attitude to help us derive work ethics within us that can drive and see us dedicate & commit ourselves to reach our goals of a perfect Kenya by 2015.

One thing we need to cultivate are debates on issues that will serve the best interests of our people, whether The Hague, Local Tribunal, TJRC, Mau Forest or review of land tenure systems & jurisdictions. The best discussions are those that will help us transform ourselves individually and also collectively.