Hello and welcome back to 'Inside
Value' with me, Siya Mdingi It's great to have you here! This episode is our first instalment of
'Value in Practice', where we invite a guest to speak about their understanding
of value in their area of expertise, and today we've got Mercury Duma as our guest. Mercury is the founder and managing director
of the Duma Literacy Foundation, or DLF. DLF was formulated in 2020 together
with amazing volunteers they help children from grades 1 to 9 with language
s
kills and basic mathematics skills, and to date more than 30 children are currently
having their learning skills sharpened and are being actively guided for future prospects
for their learning skills and development. Mercury is also a board member of an
international youth-led organization called the Youth Coalition, which focuses on
sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR), body autonomy and meaningful youth engagement. In addition to this work, he has
also undertaken toolkit developme
nt, digital activism and facilitation on the international stage in collaboration
with many other youth-led organizations. His biggest call to purpose?
Collaboration with various organizations for the betterment of children's
learning skills, and spending days being a kind individual spreading positive
vibes through his spiritual growth. Siya: Thank you for joining
'Inside Value' Mercury! Mercury: Thank you, thank you for having me!
Thank you for having me, been looking forward to this conve
rsation for
a while now, so good to be here. Siya: Wonderful! All right, so let's
start off with your origin story. How did you come to realize that
these learning skills were sorely lacking amongst the children in your community? Mercury: It was during COVID; it's so
funny because this was during COVID. Kids were just lying around and no one
was paying much attention to the children, so like the human being that I am, I
asked them to read for me, you know. I wanted to hear how their readi
ng was,
their writing, how their writing was, because no one was paying attention to them.
We were concerned about the fact that we might be dying at any moment as a country, and I was
concerned about the kids, so I started working with them, started hanging out with them at first
and being their friend and I'd bring a couple of books to them for them to read for me,
and I realized that they couldn't read. And it was sad for me that the kids around
me can't even read a full sentence without
making a wrong pronunciation of the sentence or
actually understanding what the sentence means, so for me it it hits home, I was like "ah!"
and the kids were sitting around at the time. Siya: Cool, so you described having grabbed some books and you know gone to the kids directly
in your community, so my follow-up question, actually you partially answered
the follow-up question, which is "how did you start it", but did you start, for example
in your immediate community or was there specific
community
that you started out with? Mercury: I've been on a roller coaster for a while that I literally had a
moment where I had to reflect, and thank God I'm reflecting now
and to go back to your question, I started with my immediate community but the
community was not really paying much attention to it until the kids went back to school,
so there wasn't a gap for me to actually get into it at that point; there was no
need for the reading and writing sessions it was not important. The mos
t important thing at
the time was people were sick, dying and everything that was happening around us. So for me working with my immediate
community, which were the kids that were around me at that time, because
remember the movement was also restricted, we couldn't just get into spaces as much as
we wanted, so the kids that were around me those were the kids that I started with and it was
not only the children, but also the older people I would give older people some books to read; go
del
iver it in your home and then take it back, if you don't want to give me my book,
I'll tell your mom and then your mom will have to do something about
you so that you can receive, like, because books for me they mean
so much more than anything and then working with the children at that
time, it wasn't something intentional it was just me helping the kids at that point, it wasn't like "oh my God, I'm going
to make so much money out of this, oh my God I'm going to be so into this", but it was
more like "ahhh, it's COVID times, don't have much to do, right,
might as well just help the kids" because I think I've always been passionate about
helping children, with their reading and writing but I've never had the opportunity and
COVID handed the opportunity to me. Siya: Okay, that's really really
noble work to have done in a time where everybody was in crisis
mode as you have described. So my next question is can you
tell us a little bit about what you're most responsible for in y
our role as the
managing director of Duma Literacy Foundation? Mercury: I'm breathing because these
title they make us look so cool! Like, the titles make it look
as if everything is just in line and like you're in tune with everything. I think I'll just go back before answering
the question I'll go back a little bit When I started I was alone, right, I was alone so that means that I,
kind of hold the vision together. (laughs) I hold the vision together of what
I'm doing, so when I started
it was, when I really really started getting into it,
it was about just helping the kids, seeing if I can try and make some money
out of it and then going back home, right like no strings attached, nothing attached, no paperwork involved, no
interviews, no social media, it was just me, the child, the
parent, and then that's it, right But then during the course of everything,
I think it's funny how the Duma Literacy Foundation has grown, because we have literally
grown with the digital age
of social media so I kind of realized that if
I'm going to do this fully and effectively and completely, I need a team, right, and in meeting the team, I need the right people but my worry is "I don't have
the money for the right people!" Siya: Yeah, which kind of comes on
its own, but at this point you're kind of left like "oh okay my job is
everything and nothing at this point" Mercury: Exactly! Exactly, and it's like, so how am I finding these people and
we can't afford them but I need t
hem! So through the work that I do, one of
the most important things that has made me now embrace the title managing director,
because I've never seen myself as a managing director, hell I've never even thought about what
this title is about until recently, you know, and I've started being comfortable with this
title sometime last year, late last year, yeah now we managing, we are directing,
seeing how things are done, because there's a team now
which is a team of volunteers so with the gro
wth of the Duma
Literacy Foundation has come with different spaces being created
in for other people to tap into Siya: All right Mercury: Yeah, but for me being a managing
director, it kind of means that I do everything but at the same time I stopped myself from doing
everything because now there's relevant people, but almost every day I make sure that
everyone kind of knows what they need to do if there are things that need to be followed on,
we follow on those things, confirm few meeting
s, make sure that the parents are still with us,
make sure that the kids are still with us, ensure that the potential stakeholders
we approaching they're approachable, run around meetings if I have to, you know, but generally we are in a good space, because
now I'm really just getting into the field of managing people and it's pleasant because
everyone just knows the role they need to play. Siya: Cool, all right. So that effectively sets
our context quite nicely and it's very good, it's ver
y interesting, that you
mentioned the team and we're going to circle back a little bit on that in
a moment, but before we even get there, and before we can even really start
talking about how it is that the Duma Literacy Foundation creates value, and before
we can even start talking about value creation, we need to first understand your value
definition and your value context, which is something that I'd
mentioned in previous episodes, so if you were to describe the value
that the Duma Li
teracy Foundation delivers to its stakeholders, so that's
the kids, the parents, your volunteers, prospective donors etc., what
would you say that value is? Mercury: I'm taking my time because
it's in different layers for me, but the value that we are creating and that we have created has essentially
been the importance of education the importance of education, the
importance of reading and writing, the importance of "why your child should do
well, why your child can do well, and how your
child could do well if they know how to read,
if they know how to write, speak and listen" because the language development
is very important for the children, along with the counting skills of course, so our value creation has been largely about,
first of all, making people aware of the fact that there's nothing wrong with the kids,
they just need a little bit more in terms of the learning skills development and then
the kids need you the parents, the sister, the brother, to help them with
homework
effectively and not write their answers and then do their active reading, listening activities with them so that
they can continue developing their skills and essentially it's a team effort, yes!
Bringing team effort elements in our value creation and inspiring the kids while at
it and helping also the parents see the value of why it's important for their
children to be part of the organization because we have worked with children
since 2020 and we still have those kids within the
program and much of them they
in high school now, which is interesting so for us the value has been about the
importance of education but breaking it down into different layers because because
every child is different from another child and figuring out what needs to be done
together with the parents, the school, the teacher, ourselves, our advisors, also
and then moving from that to a point where now the parent can literally see the child
improving their school work and then doing more e
ffective ways to making sure that we are
building on this child's educational journey so basically it's a group project
we can all see, we can all touch, we can all feel, and we can all add value on. Siya: That's brilliant! That is such a wonderful
holistic value statement and the one thing that pops out to me is that there are so many people,
SO many people, who are involved in the creation of this value and there's so many stakeholders
that you kind of have to engage with as the Duma Lite
racy Foundation as we mentioned, of course
the kids, the parents, the schools, the libraries, and as one might imagine having all of these
stakeholders to consider in your value definition kind of brings a level of complexity to it,
because you have to consider their value needs, for example the parents are going to say "oh you
know, I'm cost sensitive or I'm time sensitive", the kids are going to say "I want
things to be engaging and fun", the schools are going to say "we have a syllabus"
so how did you, and how do you, take into
account all of these value needs and how did you come to eventually settle
on saying that "this is the value that we're delivering" and having taken
all of everyone's needs into account? Mercury: For me, it has always been
about the essence of why we exist, right, we can have everyone joining in, stakeholders, everyone being part of it, looking
all cute, but what do we stand for? And we stand for helping children read and write; helping children bec
ome better in
their learning skills development. If a child cannot read, they can't do well;
if they can't write, they can't do well; if they can't count, they can't do well;
if they can't speak they can't do well okay cool. So with all these different stakeholders
that are coming on board or that we have, we will have to create programs
with them that will help the children within the organization get better
because it's useless to have stakeholders, lots of them, but not having an impact
that is needed by the stakeholders towards the
organization in delivering their value. I'll make an example for you: much of the children
that work with, they struggle with reading and writing a lot, and with the struggles of reading
and writing we look into going to their schools we go to their schools, speak to the teachers, "how can we help the child get
better, from your perspective?" because the teacher is the expert at this point, because they spend much of
their time in the school, a
nd then from there we go to the library, create
library cards for the child so that the child can come back and be able to read these books
that have been recommended by the teacher if these books are not in the library, we go and buy them together with the parent
because it's teamwork, a team effort. So the stakeholders that we work with, they need
to understand our vision and our mission first, look into the programs or the projects that
they have going on, align ourselves with those proj
ects if they are in tune with ours
because for us it's about learning development if you're not touching on either
that, then there's no need for us to actually exist with the stakeholders.
Then we are able to see who is for the project and who is not for the project, so in
this way we do not waste each other's time and we ensure that the children literally are the
beneficiaries of whatever that we're bringing out so that makes us easier to be identified
and seen as a space in which childre
n grow in because we are looking intentionally at
their learning skills development, that's it. Siya: And actually that's a wonderful way to
approach your stakeholders and making sure that, you know, at the end of the day
you're not getting dragged off of your own value statement, your own
value offering by your stakeholders, which sometimes tends to happen
you're trying to keep everyone happy You kind of almost forget that hey,
there's a value statement that we have, there's a value offer
ing
that we have, it was specific So that deals with the stakeholders
themselves, so then how have you gotten your team and any incoming volunteers up to
speed with what the DLF's value offering is? You've described quite in detail how
it is that you manage the stakeholders, so how do you manage your internal stakeholders,
which is your team and your incoming volunteers? Mercury: That has been one of the
easiest things to do, ironically, has been the easiest things to do, because for me
I
've always thought and I've always known that if I get this right, I'll get the right people,
and I've been getting the right people, so how how are we getting them right?
How are we getting the right volunteers? I'm a person that is very much spiritually
aligned, I work a lot on my alignment I'm a person that is very much in
touch with who I am and what I do, and what I bring to the table so that
makes it easier for people to approach me and that makes it easier for people
to be drawn towar
d what I'm doing because when I started I started alone, but at this
point we have more than 25 volunteers or more How we have done that is by being honest with
everyone about what we doing first of all, and two, being in touch with each person that
say they're a volunteer, get to know the person: they are giving you their time so you might
as well just get to know them you know, it's not only about you
volunteering, we also care about you. The Duma Literacy Foundation space is
very progre
ssive and it's one space where where you tap into and you're
guaranteed that you're going to grow. People want to contribute where they
see growth and people see growth in the Duma Literacy Foundation and much
of our principles as the organization and growing the volunteers and everyone
else in it is that we engage with you. Siya: Okay, so it sounds like there's
a very holistic involvement in getting everybody to grips with the value
offering but in itself Duma Literacy Foundation has a va
lue offering that it
offers to its volunteers and its team which is which is very interesting
and actually really really cool So we'll circle back a little bit more on
the value offering aspect of it in a moment, but first you had mentioned, I had
mentioned rather, in your intro that you developed toolkits so go ahead and tell
us a little bit more about these toolkits: what are they, who are they
for, that kind of stuff. Mercury: Last year, I developed
the Funding and Fundraising toolkit
for the Duma Literacy Foundation.
The most funniest thing ever about that toolkit is that what I had set out to be a basis
for the toolkit didn't make sense on the ground: "look for funding, apply for funding,
approach different stakeholders for money", that didn't work, like THAT? Didn't work. I'm not saying it's not working, but for me
and for the organization, it didn't work. So what did I find? (chuckles) That should be a question, what did I find out? What I found out is that maybe I don
't
need funding, I just need resources. Maybe we don't need funding, maybe
we need resources at this point so from the Funding and Fundraising toolkit, the main idea now is the resources:
"how are we getting the resources?" The resources are important, they
are important yes, but money is also important you might argue, yes,
so we need to create streams within the organizations that are
going to give us the money right? And within those streams, if we can't get
the money we need to get the
resources! Fair! Fair trade. So we have looked into being a resource-based
organization also, we are moving into that a lot, rather than being a funded organization we're
looking at being a resourceful organization because funding runs out eventually, so
by being a resourceful organization means that we're going to need to have skills that I
going to make sure that the organization keeps going regardless of whether we are making
money or not making money at that point because the toolkit i
s just there,
it's a kit, it's there to help you figure out what needs to be figured,
like how we have figured out that funding is currently 5% chances in South Africa
currently with the state of economy so we need to be a resourceful organization and by
being a resourceful organization, we can have skills that we can offer to other organizations
or businesses that they can pay us for, right?! Siya: Right! Mercury: Yes! And with these
services that we are skillful on, we can take the money
that we get here
and put it back into the organization and now developing our own funding service
toolkit, if you may put it like that, so for me and the organization and the toolkit,
it's about looking at what is working at this current moment in South Africa and then also
looking at what is not working and what is working for us so well within our Funding and Fundraising
toolkit is the mere fact that we are resourceful. Siya: That's actually very interesting, because
then now what you've
effectively described, well to me as a value strategist, is
yet another way that the Duma Literacy Foundation has created value: having a spread of
services that go beyond or outside the service offering that the foundation itself
offers which is children's literacy, but now the Foundation has allied services or
connected services that they can offer that sort of work as a fundraising generation
engine or funds generation engine, which ultimately makes you look quite attractive
to prospec
tive donors, to prospective partners, because it shows a level of independence
and I find that quite interesting. Now to circle back on DLF's value offering,
your specific target market is kids and subsequently their parents, who live in
peri-urban and rural communities and are naturally on the lower end of the income scale,
so as we might see as we might imagine after school tutoring is not always an accessible...
it's not always as accessible as a priority to them, so how have you been abl
e to
communicate the value of your offering and formulate an accessible value offering
to a cost sensitive group of individuals? Mercury: People don't have
money generally (chuckles) Siya: Right?! Mercury: Generally people don't have
money and because the work that I do is not taken seriously, um so we need
to make it look serious first of all We need to create a sense of urgency
that's the second thing, right, like we need you to know that if
your child is not going to do well, you're no
t going to get, you're not going to rest, because when you look at much of the things,
there's been a lot of urgency around them, those things were also created
to have urgency around them. Making example for you: data, right?
Some people think data is an essential, essential thing to have, some people don't really take
it as something that is very essential to have, so it's about knowing who to
speak to, that's number one. And then also, we have something called social
media nowadays and e
veryone is on their phones so with everyone on their phones,
that's for us becomes our playground How? We are able to interact with different
people through our social media pages, but also we interact with the people
that are in our age group first, right, much of the time, so I'm always in the
street, that's another thing about me; I interact with the people on the ground,
I'm not somewhere with the chair in the office and saying "hey do this",
no no no no no no, I'm on the ground Someone
yesterday sent me a text and said "I've never seen a managing director that
is always on the ground", and I'm like "hhe? Kanti (so) what do managing directors do?" I'm always on the ground, because that's
where I get to understand what is important, what is not important, and I've made it so
important for the children to be able to read and write because we constantly speak about it and
we are constantly producing great results, right, and we are working with children
from grade R to grade
nine, and our best achieving learner was in
grade one last year with the 94% average. Siya: Wow! Mercury: You see? (chuckles) Just get your
kids in the program! Just get the school, just get your child into our Foundation projects
so that your child can start doing so much better! So we have children that when we speak
about, people can see it's like "oh my God that's so-and-so's child", what's so funny
Siya is that it starts being a chain, right, we create a chain; we no longer
make too
much noise now online I used to make so much noise especially in
2021: "Heeey! Does your child need homework, needs homework to be done or any of those things?" 2023 we are even more quieter now; why? Because we understand how parents work now;
so Siya's mom will help Siya with homework, right, we'll help Siya with homework and Siya
will start doing so much better in school, and then the first term will end and then
Siya's mom will tell her aunts about Mercury or Mercury's DLF and then someo
ne will call
me and say "hey can you help us with this?" you see, it becomes a chain because also
the work that we producing is quality, we not taking chances here, we are making
sure that we deliver up to our best standards We create value because remember,
once you create value off something, then it becomes easier for people
actually to be drawn to it. They will know they're guaranteed: "I'm not
going to be wasting my time in doing that; rather I'll be investing in whatever" Siya: Let's
now take a zoomed out view of
non-profits in general, and value creation. From the work that you've done with the
organizations that you've done it with, what are some of the biggest opportunities that you see on
the horizon for emerging non-profits specifically? Mercury: Ooh! (snaps fingers) Comprehensive
sexual education, that's the first one. I don't see a lot of organizations
touching on that, I don't see a lot of organizations touching on that
especially here in South Africa. Also, m
eaningful youth engagements: I
think that one can be worked around on There a huge, because like, South Africa is a country that has leaders
that are questionable currently, right, our leadership structures
everywhere it's just questionable, so if there's an organization that
can bring that back, you know, like how they were doing it, the
Nelson Mandelas, Oliver Tambos, you know those veterans man, the struggle veterans I feel as if there's there's a need
for that to come back because much
of us we don't really believe in
leadership now and all of that so there's a need for that to come back
and then also skill, SKILL Siya, skill Organizations they need to offer, they
need to be a skill-centered organization, whether it's in beadwork, whether
it's in, I don't know arts, fine arts or anything, but there's a huge
market for skill, all types of skills, if an organization can focus on one skill, build
on it, certainly then that organization will be destined for greater things b
ecause they will
focus on something that no one is looking at, because we're all looking for skills but no one
is creating a a skill-centered organization. Siya: All right, and then in terms
of value creation specifically, what advice would you give to smaller
non-profits or non-profits that are just getting their footing right
now in terms of creating value? Mercury: Speak to Value creation experts,
we don't know it all, we don't know it, we need the other person to speak for us, right, l
ike you need someone, we
need someone to speak for us I'm not very good in in the terminology that you
have, I'm not very good in speaking the language that you speak, but I'm very good in articulating
the language that you speak (chuckles) right? Siya: (laughs) Right! Mercury: (laughs) So there needs to be balance,
there needs to be balance, because also, what you find about people that create
organization is that that passionate man! They're passionate about something, they have this fire
,
but we need people like yourself that can contain the fire for us and say "listen, you're going to
burn yourself if you go there, here a workbook, go through it tell me what you think when
you're ready to have a conversation, let's go" So that's something that the people really need
to tap on, especially those that want to tap into NPO spaces and those that are already
within the NPO spaces or the NGO spaces, because with the Duma Literacy Foundation what
we have been saying and what I'l
l continue saying is that we don't want to run the organization
like how every other organization has been run, we want to be different: we want to
be innovative, we want to be new, we want to be fresh, we want to sound like a
corporate, a corporate firm somewhere, right, and then you're like "what?!
it's a whole NGO or a whole NPO!" Because remember, NGOs and NPOs have been looked at as organizations that are needed
to save the community, you know, so now we want to tap more into that,
lo
ok beyond that and look beyond what you have been told about NPOs and NGOs,
and start putting or start having the relevant right people within your corner to
help you actually make the organization run look for a finance person; if you can
pay them, make a deal with your friend, help them with whatever that they are working
on so that they can also help you, right, look for social media managers, like literally negotiate your way around
in order for you to get what you need, because if you
don't then, you run a risk of not
growing the organization because you're all alone. There's nothing harder than being
alone when you're doing something, because everything is looking at you. Siya: That was incredibly wonderful
advice and I'm absolutely certain that anybody who is starting out an
NPO or within the NPO space would find those insights really useful in
supporting them run their enterprises So all right, now we are closing!
We've got two rapid fire questions now, because one o
f them was pulled forward! The first one: what single podcast or
video or book or article (just one!) have you listened to or read that shifted or
changed your perspective on the work that you do? Mercury: It's called, it's by Simon Sinek,
I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it right, 'How to Build Trust with People Around You". Siya: Ah okay all right, and then for closing
remarks: do you have any closing remarks, any last things that you want to
mention before we close the episode? And also,
where can people find you and the
Duma Literacy Foundation on the internet? Mercury: Just be a good person. Just be a
good person; try to be a very kind person, try to be a person that really really
goes all out to help the other person in this day age you kind of need that,
and then closing remarks from us: please follow us Instagram or
Facebook (Duma Literacy Foundation) our marketing team will be so happy Duma Literacy Foundation on Facebook Instagram: Duma underscore Literacy
underscor
e Foundation underscore, and then you can catch me on Facebook
or Instagram on 'Mercury Duma' and then also if you would like to get in touch
with us just drop us a DM on Instagram, and we're looking for collaborations,
looking to work with more young people in Africa and also the rest of
the world. Ngiyabonga (thank you). Siya: Wonderful, thank you so much Mercury for
your incredible insights it was so fantastic having you here and I'm incredibly
honoured to have spoken with someone with
such a vested interest in developing
the young growing minds of South Africa. Mercury: It's my pleasure Siya, thank you for
the conversation, very very much insightful also. You got me thinking a lot, ngiyabonga (thank you). Siya: Wonderful! And that
does it for this episode! If you enjoyed this episode, be
please be sure to give it a like, and subscribe to 'Inside Value' on
your preferred podcast platform. Be sure to follow Vivre Consulting on LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube and visit
our
website on vivre.co.za that's V I V R E .co.za for more insights on value creation,
Value Innovation and Value Strategy. This has been 'Inside Value' with me,
Siya Mdingi. See you in the next one!
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