 There are so many people out there, whenever they hear the name Africa, the first thing that comes into their mind is poverty. I want to know from you, when you hear the name Africa, what comes into your mind? Positive dreams, legends, legacy, that's what comes to me. And Africa is the source of life. And when you see all over the world, now Africa is taking over. The best growth in the world, in terms of economy, is in Africa. People in the western countries say the future is in Africa. It's my responsibility to get it better and to get it known. And that is why you started the movement of stock congo bastion? Absolutely. I had to get people to understand that congo is not only good for minerals, it's good for agriculture, it's good for music, it's good for art, it's good for so many things. And we need to tell people that we're here at the heart of the continent. Back to the YouTube channel, it's your favorite village boy Mr. Ghani baby right here. I'm still here in the richest country in the world. I mean, that's what I've been hearing, but since I'm here to interview a man that everyone is telling me to interview, my first question will be, why is it that congo is known to be the richest country in the world? But since I came in here, I'm not seeing rich people on the land. And this will be my first question. And I hope and believe that it will answer me the right way. My name is Alti Tenghi. I'm a strategist and an economic promoter. And I'm a serial entrepreneur. And what I did in my life was working for a company called Unilever first. And then I started my own different companies. I've created more than 10 companies, sold some of them and some of them are still working and working very well for now. You don't sound like somebody who was born and raised in Congo? I've been born in Congo. I went to school in Congo. Then I went to the UK and the US. You've lived only in the US or you've lived everywhere? Oh, I've been all over the world. Just to tell you about me, I'm an ex-Africa champion of karate. I'm a national karate champion. So I've seen it all around the world. And after all your journeys around the world, what brought you back to Congo then? I think, as I said, it's my responsibility to do my part of the progress of the continent and the country. I decided to release everything and come back here and start doing things to promote youth in entrepreneurship. What I tell people is that we do not share poverty because poverty comes to us without even any permission, but we share wealth. But the only thing with wealth is that we have to create it before we share it. And my job is to try to educate the young people how to invest and how to invest together and create wealth and share it. The youth of Congo accepting this initiative? I'm lucky enough. I'm a karate champion. I speak on different TVs and radios and they listen to me. And I say things that I do. So they respect my integrity. That's exactly why I'm trying to teach our people how we can consume what we produce and produce what we consume. That's the reason why we created this Mabeli chain. What is the inspiration behind it? The inspiration is that you cannot be a serious person if you're not responsible for what you're producing and what you're eating. Otherwise, you are an economic slave, which means that you are eating the things coming from all over the world to become kind of a dump. What I'm saying is that we need to be very serious about what we're doing. We want jobs. We need to promote economy in the country and in the continent. I have a problem because I'm a guy who promotes Africa and is doing something in Africa. But when I got to Congo, I realized that so many staffs are owned by Congolese. Do you know that? It's absolutely true. That's exactly why we need to end that slavery. Because it's economic slavery. We need to get out of there. We need to repossess our own economy. But the only way is not by chasing people. It's by working hard, working together, promoting high quality products and we've decided to start with food. How are you doing this? We have created a cooperative with more than 2,000 people and we are rolling out 50 supermarkets. We've started with one, the second one is coming soon and the third one is coming soon. But in the next three years, we'll be having 50 supermarkets in the Kinshasa. And the only aim of that is that we create a powerful network of distribution to be able to empower people to transform and then produce and organize the intelligence logistics in the local food. Otherwise, they will keep sending us food from all over the world. So you mean things that have been sold in that supermarket are probably made by Congolese? 80% of the products in that supermarket is probably Congolese. Made from local resources, made by local people. Coming back to Congo, what are the major challenges that you've faced so far since you've been here? It's just to make a good and different mindset. Bringing a new message to the people is a change process you need to convince. It took me to go from university to university and speak to the young people in different conferences and now it's a very positive narrative. People look at me like an inspirational point and I'm a hotspot of new thoughts and innovation and that's how I'm perceived and I try to play my role as a legacy. I now understand why everyone is telling me that you're actually making a change in here and I need to speak to you. How does this change that you're impacting in people's lives make you feel? I feel very proud of it because I say if I had to restart my life, if I had the chance to become younger these are things I would have done. The only way to do that is to get young people to do it and I'm very close to young entrepreneurs. I give trainings, I give coaching. I'm a mentor to the men of them and they are very successful. I'm very proud of it. So I really want to know what is the name of the company itself? The company is called Mabeli Cooperative It belongs to more than 2,000 people. 2,000 people? Absolutely. Congolese people, African people living in Congo. I just want to know how did it all start? We all know that you are ex-caract, moved to Congo what came into your mind to start something like this? You told me that's the inspiration behind it but the journey, how it all started? Very simple. Most of the time they say African people can't work together. Most of the time they say Congolese people cannot put together and be successful and I say I'll prove that is wrong. What I did is I gathered 300 leaders from different angles, male and female and we tried to make sure that we understand the same thing. We cannot be the one buying goods from all over the world and be able to produce our own food. I saw that thinking to the people and the 300 people understood it and then we gave the responsibility to these 300 people to invest the first seed cups, which we did and then we said can we use our influence and our leadership capacity to bring more people? That's how I went to 2,000 people. Our objective is to go to 30,000 people to be able to be the owners of the supermarket chain. Was it really difficult putting the 2,000 people together? It's all about leadership. It's a multilevel leadership. It's a crowd leadership, which means that the 300 people that are convinced personally had to convince the other people as well. So these 2,000 people is the total of the people put together by the 300 guys and we are aiming to go to 30,000 people. One of the things that we do well is that we don't only bring in people and get money and open the shops. We also develop the people and the value chain in the suppliers. They need to be controlled. They need to be helped so that they use the right quality, the right processes and we have safe and good food. We also support with funding from different angles and then we support them to improve their quality and the quantity of goods that they bring to the shop. Do you have any initiative that support the community? Absolutely. One of the things we do right is that we have a food bank. We work for all people. We collect food and then provide it to the people and then we are also putting up a new initiative with the neighborhood of the supermarkets. Cleaning the shop is given to the young people of the surrounding. There are so many young Africans who have actually given up on Africa. Some of them don't even believe that it's possible to make it in Africa. I mean, as a mentor, so many of us are looking up to you if you have something to tell young Africans, what would that be? And also do you think there are opportunities in Africa for young Africans? One of the things to tell them is that stop watching these international television that is Africa bashing. Come down to the land and touch base. Talk to the people, see the successful stories and be part of it. There are huge opportunities. If we don't catch them, Indians are going to catch them, Chinese are going to catch them. Do you think our problem is always complaining without finding the right solution underground? Easy things are easy things that we can lose very quickly. So if you really want to be successful for a long time, please be part of a team, move forward, keep going. That's really brilliant. I would love to see one of the supermarkets. If you don't mind taking me there to check it out. Absolutely. I can take you there right now. Here's one of it and then you can see we have things like this one. There's a Congolese telling the story of Congolese so that little kids can identify themselves into this. Not playing with toys where they don't even see if there is anything like themselves. You know, someone told me that you actually stopped from bashing Congo but I feel like you're actually stopping so many Africans for complaining about Africa all the time. And starting writing the history of Africa from ourselves. It's absolutely important that our narratives become very responsive and we do it with our own words. So what are the things that can be found in this shop? Can I see things like, you know, these, instead of buying from Indians, they're all produced here. They're all produced here? Absolutely. All these are produced here. And I can take you to things like this. All produced locally. And we have things like all these eggs coming from... Oh, sorry. It's all right. Yeah, from different places around. It's a red oil, man. It's a red oil. Well packed. And you can come and see some cosmetics. All these products. New cosmetics responsible. Made in Congo by Congolese. So is it like the majority of the things that have been sold in this supermarket are made in Congo? 80% of the goods sold in this shop are all made in Congo by Congolese. And we still import some but we have a strategy of swapping. Something we cannot produce, we import. But as soon as we can start producing locally, we swap. And you can come and see some other good things. This is produced Congolese. Chips of thyro. And we've got peanuts. Well done. And all these small things. Good for eating. All made by Congolese. We've got fabrics. Fabrics are produced by Congolese people. Congolese people. And are Congolese really embracing it, knowing that this is made in their country and they have to like consume it. They are becoming very, very proud of made in Congo, made by Congo. And they are now becoming part of the game because this shop is not made by me. It's a cooperative. We are actually putting people together, put small money together and set up this so that we start building the channels of distribution. You know that if you control the channels of distribution then you can control the backward until the production. What is the inspiration behind this shop? Because I've never seen anything like this before. This is my first time. It's called Mabeli. Mabeli means the land. We are saying let's own our own lands. Let's get back our economy from foreigners. You know the economy in this country is dominated by Indians and Lebanese. We don't complain about that. But we say we need to be responsible. We need to take back our economy. We need to take back our destiny. This is what Africa needs to be. We are creating the African market in Zleka, what is called the African market. We need to make sure that we produce something to be sold. Otherwise it would just be a dump where people come and dump things and then they go. And the good thing is you don't find dirty things. I mean it's well prepared. Packaged properly, yeah. Oh, see now I believe it. Because I interviewed the lady behind us. Absolutely. And she is Congolese. Tisha is one of the ladies we met in this. She is producing this coffee in Kinshasa. That's incredible. Absolutely. And we've got flour, cassava flour as well. And I'll give you a good example. There is wine produced by nurses. Produced by nurses? Yeah. They work for a Catholic church and then they do this for surviving and putting money in their baskets. Can you imagine that? And then it's totally... Is it a wine that they give in churches? No, no, not really. This is wine you can have at home. It's actually made for anyone. Anyone? Yeah, sure. Yeah, but I think the pastors can also buy this and then, you know, we have something we call the lost supper. Have lost supper with this one so that the money will stay in Congo. Thank you. We're going from this traditional... the traditional shikwang that's made of cassava. But Brilliant Congolese is doing this now. Well packaged, safe. It can stay longer. So we're actually educating people to accept moving from this to this. Yeah. This is like a sausage package which looks so good. Because I've been eating from this one. But I guess I can even put this in my bag and take it to Ghana. Absolutely. That's incredible. Yeah. Where do I put it back? Yes, there. It's okay. And we have all this. No, this one. And I feel like Congolese are so proud that everything that is made in Congo, they put their flag on it. Absolutely. But it's not like it's really made in Congo. Yeah, absolutely. And the thing we're trying to do is to create value chains so that people can understand that instead of bringing things just roughly from the field and bring them here, you clean them, you cut them, you put them in bags, and then you put them here. Because competition is actually imported products and they're all well packaged. Yeah. And these are dry vegetables so that they can be exported and they are safe. They are very stable. They don't get destroyed and you don't need to chill them. They are all right. So these are made in Congo? Made in Congo, yeah. That's incredible man. They're coming from Goma in the east of Congo. These sausages are coming from Goma. This one as well. Some of these are made locally. How many of these shops do we have in Congo? The plan is to roll out 50 in the next three years. This is the first one and we're setting up a second one very shortly and then we have another plan for the third one. And the plan is to roll out 50 of them so that we can have a serious footprint in the Kinshasa city. You said it's a cooperative... Absolutely. People put money together and then we move forward together. Is anyone can join? Anyone can join. You can become one of our shareholders. It costs you $100. Costs you $100? Yes. It's going to be proud of... I would love to have a share in it even though I'm not from Congo. You're African. I'm African before Ghana. Absolutely. So I'll do that. But you know I have a lot of people who watch my videos so you have to let them know if they can also be shareholders. They can become shareholders of this place and they can become shareholders of what we're doing. And how do they reach out to you? We have a website that gives everything and I can give it to you and then it's Mabeli.org it's okay and then we move forward with interaction and distribution as well as logistics. After $100, what next? When you've put your $100 you become a shareholder. You receive a certificate of investor and then you become a part of this company called Mabeli Cop it's just like your HSBC investor starts it and then you start following how we move forward and then you get paid by the dividends. All these you get chocolate from Ghana and it's all made from cocoa from Congo processed in Congo and packaged in Congo and then we're distributing this and our aim is to make this an international brand and we're going to reach that as well. Where is the factory? It's in Goma Goma is in the eastern part of the Congo so it doesn't only tell the story of the war and all these different negative things they also produce first quality chocolate 70% of cocoa. Please I'm an African on a journey to celebrate African excellence and always talk about positive stuff that are being done by Africans so since it's made in Congo I would love to do a story on them I'm actually going to Goma from here so I hope you can let me have their contact as soon as I get there I will let them know. Oh I've already interviewed her that's money tech right? If you watch the previous episode you know that I've interviewed her so much and send me a picture with Maya and money tech definitely she'll be proud. Maya from Ghana and I'm so happy to see you as a Congolese shopping in a Congolese shop knowing the fact that everything is made in Congo how does it make you feel? the things that you buy knowing that it's made in Congo Ok, thank you I'm Mr. Kami I'm Congolese I live in Kinshasa It's really a good honor for me to see that there are Congolese who have thought to offer to their compatriots as well as to all those who live here in Kinshasa and the Congolese democracy quality products from Kinshasa and from the inside of the country the products that are organic the products that are preserved in methods that are not chemical and that are not usable in long-term health. How often do you shop in here? Yes, often I'm used to doing my shopping here I have to buy what is really organic. So what will you tell your fellow Congolese people about this shop? And to all the foreign residents who are here in the Congolese Kinshasa the consumers the products that are well preserved the products that are of good quality the products that are natural and that are the emanations of fruit of a compatriot who gave himself and who really accepted to invest in his country for the well-being of his compatriots. I want to say thank you so much for talking to me. Okay, thank you. It's me who thank you. The reason why Africa is failing and the reason why Congo is being a very rich country but very poor people is three pillars. One is corruption. Corruption has been a killer for this country. Second is political incompetence wrong people in the wrong place that was a second killer. Third was lack of commitment of Congolese to the Congo itself which is coming now and we're in a kind of revival the country is changing very fast and the people are getting their place in the network of changing the things they're taking responsibility on the Congo as their own country.