Why it's dangerous for a woman to have more than one 'sponsor'

Brace yourselves and put on your thinking caps because I will be using a lot of NGO language in my address today. Every business engagement has its ethos. There is a way certain things must be done.

There is a code of conduct that stipulates how business transaction will be handled. That is the ethical way of doing business. The young girls who have signed up for ‘sponsorship programmes’ should know that being in such a programme is a contractual arrangement. You deliver on the contract without betraying the trust of the parties.

There is no where you can hold two or three jobs and perform them concurrently. No way! Similarly, you cannot run two parallel ‘sponsorship programmes’. But it’s apparent that a number of college girls and young working class women have fully embraced the ‘sponsorship module’, but they are not too bothered to stick to the rules of the game. The end result is the tragic clash of territorial turf wars.

This need not be the case. Just like in the NGO world, you can run a programme for three or five years and once funding dwindles you wind up the programme. It’s a common practice world over. Even during hiring by NGOs and big UN organisations, there is always a disclaimer that extension of the programme is subject to satisfactorily performance and funding.

SPONSORSHIP PROGRAMME

Just tell your ‘sponsor’ that for the services he expects to be rendered bearing in mind the harsh economic climate and the rise in crude oil in global markets, there is need to review the ‘sponsorship package’. If the ‘sponsor’ is well oiled, you go ahead. But if you cannot come into agreement then just agree to disagree and move on.

Good people, if a ‘programme sponsor’ is having difficulties with cash flow, invoke the ‘release clause’ in the contract and that leaves you free to mingle and evaluate your proposal writing criteria. What happened recently in Nairobi where a man shot dead his rival (a married man) after he found him in his girlfriend’s house was needless. With a proper project management and with the right instruments in monitoring and evaluation, the ‘sponsoree’ should have moved fast to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest between parties.

Whoever said that where two bulls fight, it’s the grass that suffers is long dead and that saying no longer holds water. We now know that when two bulls fights one suffers, and the extent of suffering can be a simple bruise to fatal scenarios. In an African set up, it is the man who is allowed and actually expected to keep a bevy of beauties around his place. Africa is no place for two-timing women.

That is why polygamy earns you a front row seat during village barazas and polyandry earns you nothing, but an outcast status in the village! If you have been doing proposal writing for long, you can tell an affluent ‘sponsor’ from a young man or a miser who should be subjected to nothing but kukula na macho(salivating).

So this is to the girls in the ‘sponsorship programme’. Do not confuse your ‘programme’ with your self-sponsored degree course at the university. There is a reason why you have a ‘sponsor’ and he fully expects return on his investment. By the way, these ‘sponsorship programmes’ are an investment just like buying shares in Nairobi Securities Exchange, only that the dividends are paid in kind.