Submitted by Zach at IBecome on Sun, 12/14/2008 - 22:02.
Last updated on Sun, 07/12/2009 - 16:05.
There are 53 million orphans living in sub-Sahara Africa. The mortality rate is 1 in 10 before the age of 5 and there are over 93 million primary school-aged children who receive no education. In response to this glaring problem a number of churches and ngo’s have launched orphanages and children’s homes to help provide basic food, shelter and education, but unfortunately they often fall short of preparing these children for life beyond the orphanage. Since these homes are located in low-income areas, the local schools are often incredibly underfunded and the children do not go onto to receive any form of higher education. In economies of 15-30% unemployment in the formal sector, these children emerge woefully uncompetitive and have no family support network to fall back on. Often these children leave the orphanage and go right back to the street or wherever else they came from – older, but no better off.
Where the care provided by the orphanage ends is where we pick up. Building on the orphanage base of food, shelter and a public school education, and we provide the next step – a practical course teaching recent high school graduates about business and entrepreneurship that prepares them to start a small business.
Classes include topics include concepts such as basic marketing, competitive differentiation, and finance (both personal and managerial) as well as concepts such as capital and risk management, and our students are recent high school graduates in the gap year between after college entrance exams. The timing is an ideal moment to provide this training as these students are at an appropriate age (old enough to grasp and understand the concepts being taught) and they have time to devote to training (a major barrier in providing business training to working adults). They are being fed and housed leaving them able to focus on this new course of study, and often high school graduates living at orphanages are acutely aware that they face a somewhat uncertain future and thus there is an additional sense of urgency that the timing and approach bring as well.
The program emphasizes on case-based learning that helps fill an important gap in critical thinking and problem solving skills that are almost totally neglected in the majority of East African public schools, and the class is also highly focused and practical – everything that is not taught through cases is taught through local examples (interest as borrowing ears of corn, competitive differentiation through a field trip to the 5 kiosks across the street selling the exact same thing).
Additionally, we have made scalability a high priority. This program is not about one person teaching this class at one orphanage this one year, but rather about developing a curriculum that can be handed off to trained local teachers and taught at multiple locations at a fraction of the cost.
We began by validating the idea of such training, and found that nearly all major organizations that work with entrepreneurship in the youth population have studies that demonstrated the opportunity (USAID, World Bank Street Kids International). We found that a number of microfinance institutions had begun supporting youth-run businesses and reported no increase risk for youth vs adult clients (i.e. youth can run businesses as efficiently as adults), and upon completing our lengthy research process, we had found no other programs doing quite what we were proposing.
With the business model validated by the literature, we began developing our curriculum by combining successful aspects of other business-training programs run by MFIs and NGOs along with knowledge of the unique challenges faced by orphans in the area. We utilized contacts at NGO’s serving a similar audience like the to confirm our ideas and then built out the details – lesson plans, activities and cases. As of now we are excited to be in the third week of the initial class!
As the three month curriculum is still in its early phases we have not been able to measure anything conclusive yet, but the initial feedback has been very positive. Students push back if we try to reschedule a class, they are responsive in the class itself and unemployed graduates from previous years have enrolled in the course as well. At the same time we have received formal statements of interest from community members, the church the local farmers union who are interested in receiving similar training.
stdClass Object
(
[nid] => 332231
[vid] => 332236
[type] => project
[status] => 1
[created] => 1229306533
[changed] => 1247429137
[comment] => 2
[promote] => 0
[sticky] => 0
[revision_timestamp] => 1247429137
[title] => Training Tomorrow's Leaders
[body] => How many people are directly involved in your project? :
How many people has your project helped? :
Location(s)
See map: Google MapsWhat's the problem you are trying to solve?:
There are 53 million orphans living in sub-Sahara Africa. The mortality rate is 1 in 10 before the age of 5 and there are over 93 million primary school-aged children who receive no education. In response to this glaring problem a number of churches and ngo’s have launched orphanages and children’s homes to help provide basic food, shelter and education, but unfortunately they often fall short of preparing these children for life beyond the orphanage. Since these homes are located in low-income areas, the local schools are often incredibly underfunded and the children do not go onto to receive any form of higher education. In economies of 15-30% unemployment in the formal sector, these children emerge woefully uncompetitive and have no family support network to fall back on. Often these children leave the orphanage and go right back to the street or wherever else they came from – older, but no better off.
Why is it important to you?:
Where the care provided by the orphanage ends is where we pick up. Building on the orphanage base of food, shelter and a public school education, and we provide the next step – a practical course teaching recent high school graduates about business and entrepreneurship that prepares them to start a small business.
Classes include topics include concepts such as basic marketing, competitive differentiation, and finance (both personal and managerial) as well as concepts such as capital and risk management, and our students are recent high school graduates in the gap year between after college entrance exams. The timing is an ideal moment to provide this training as these students are at an appropriate age (old enough to grasp and understand the concepts being taught) and they have time to devote to training (a major barrier in providing business training to working adults). They are being fed and housed leaving them able to focus on this new course of study, and often high school graduates living at orphanages are acutely aware that they face a somewhat uncertain future and thus there is an additional sense of urgency that the timing and approach bring as well.
The program emphasizes on case-based learning that helps fill an important gap in critical thinking and problem solving skills that are almost totally neglected in the majority of East African public schools, and the class is also highly focused and practical – everything that is not taught through cases is taught through local examples (interest as borrowing ears of corn, competitive differentiation through a field trip to the 5 kiosks across the street selling the exact same thing).
Additionally, we have made scalability a high priority. This program is not about one person teaching this class at one orphanage this one year, but rather about developing a curriculum that can be handed off to trained local teachers and taught at multiple locations at a fraction of the cost.
What's your plan of action?:
We began by validating the idea of such training, and found that nearly all major organizations that work with entrepreneurship in the youth population have studies that demonstrated the opportunity (USAID, World Bank Street Kids International). We found that a number of microfinance institutions had begun supporting youth-run businesses and reported no increase risk for youth vs adult clients (i.e. youth can run businesses as efficiently as adults), and upon completing our lengthy research process, we had found no other programs doing quite what we were proposing.
With the business model validated by the literature, we began developing our curriculum by combining successful aspects of other business-training programs run by MFIs and NGOs along with knowledge of the unique challenges faced by orphans in the area. We utilized contacts at NGO’s serving a similar audience like the to confirm our ideas and then built out the details – lesson plans, activities and cases. As of now we are excited to be in the third week of the initial class!
As the three month curriculum is still in its early phases we have not been able to measure anything conclusive yet, but the initial feedback has been very positive. Students push back if we try to reschedule a class, they are responsive in the class itself and unemployed graduates from previous years have enrolled in the course as well. At the same time we have received formal statements of interest from community members, the church the local farmers union who are interested in receiving similar training.
How many people are directly involved in your project? :
How many people has your project helped? :
How many people are directly involved in your project? :
How many people has your project helped? :
Location(s)
See map: Google Maps
[#printed] => 1
)
[body] => Array
(
[#weight] => 0
[#value] =>
[#printed] => 1
)
[group_explain_your_project] => Array
(
[field_essay_see_it] => Array
(
[#access] => 1
[#value] => What's the problem you are trying to solve?:
There are 53 million orphans living in sub-Sahara Africa. The mortality rate is 1 in 10 before the age of 5 and there are over 93 million primary school-aged children who receive no education. In response to this glaring problem a number of churches and ngo’s have launched orphanages and children’s homes to help provide basic food, shelter and education, but unfortunately they often fall short of preparing these children for life beyond the orphanage. Since these homes are located in low-income areas, the local schools are often incredibly underfunded and the children do not go onto to receive any form of higher education. In economies of 15-30% unemployment in the formal sector, these children emerge woefully uncompetitive and have no family support network to fall back on. Often these children leave the orphanage and go right back to the street or wherever else they came from – older, but no better off.
Why is it important to you?:
Where the care provided by the orphanage ends is where we pick up. Building on the orphanage base of food, shelter and a public school education, and we provide the next step – a practical course teaching recent high school graduates about business and entrepreneurship that prepares them to start a small business.
Classes include topics include concepts such as basic marketing, competitive differentiation, and finance (both personal and managerial) as well as concepts such as capital and risk management, and our students are recent high school graduates in the gap year between after college entrance exams. The timing is an ideal moment to provide this training as these students are at an appropriate age (old enough to grasp and understand the concepts being taught) and they have time to devote to training (a major barrier in providing business training to working adults). They are being fed and housed leaving them able to focus on this new course of study, and often high school graduates living at orphanages are acutely aware that they face a somewhat uncertain future and thus there is an additional sense of urgency that the timing and approach bring as well.
The program emphasizes on case-based learning that helps fill an important gap in critical thinking and problem solving skills that are almost totally neglected in the majority of East African public schools, and the class is also highly focused and practical – everything that is not taught through cases is taught through local examples (interest as borrowing ears of corn, competitive differentiation through a field trip to the 5 kiosks across the street selling the exact same thing).
Additionally, we have made scalability a high priority. This program is not about one person teaching this class at one orphanage this one year, but rather about developing a curriculum that can be handed off to trained local teachers and taught at multiple locations at a fraction of the cost.
What's your plan of action?:
We began by validating the idea of such training, and found that nearly all major organizations that work with entrepreneurship in the youth population have studies that demonstrated the opportunity (USAID, World Bank Street Kids International). We found that a number of microfinance institutions had begun supporting youth-run businesses and reported no increase risk for youth vs adult clients (i.e. youth can run businesses as efficiently as adults), and upon completing our lengthy research process, we had found no other programs doing quite what we were proposing.
With the business model validated by the literature, we began developing our curriculum by combining successful aspects of other business-training programs run by MFIs and NGOs along with knowledge of the unique challenges faced by orphans in the area. We utilized contacts at NGO’s serving a similar audience like the to confirm our ideas and then built out the details – lesson plans, activities and cases. As of now we are excited to be in the third week of the initial class!
As the three month curriculum is still in its early phases we have not been able to measure anything conclusive yet, but the initial feedback has been very positive. Students push back if we try to reschedule a class, they are responsive in the class itself and unemployed graduates from previous years have enrolled in the course as well. At the same time we have received formal statements of interest from community members, the church the local farmers union who are interested in receiving similar training.
What's the problem you are trying to solve?:
There are 53 million orphans living in sub-Sahara Africa. The mortality rate is 1 in 10 before the age of 5 and there are over 93 million primary school-aged children who receive no education. In response to this glaring problem a number of churches and ngo’s have launched orphanages and children’s homes to help provide basic food, shelter and education, but unfortunately they often fall short of preparing these children for life beyond the orphanage. Since these homes are located in low-income areas, the local schools are often incredibly underfunded and the children do not go onto to receive any form of higher education. In economies of 15-30% unemployment in the formal sector, these children emerge woefully uncompetitive and have no family support network to fall back on. Often these children leave the orphanage and go right back to the street or wherever else they came from – older, but no better off.
Why is it important to you?:
Where the care provided by the orphanage ends is where we pick up. Building on the orphanage base of food, shelter and a public school education, and we provide the next step – a practical course teaching recent high school graduates about business and entrepreneurship that prepares them to start a small business.
Classes include topics include concepts such as basic marketing, competitive differentiation, and finance (both personal and managerial) as well as concepts such as capital and risk management, and our students are recent high school graduates in the gap year between after college entrance exams. The timing is an ideal moment to provide this training as these students are at an appropriate age (old enough to grasp and understand the concepts being taught) and they have time to devote to training (a major barrier in providing business training to working adults). They are being fed and housed leaving them able to focus on this new course of study, and often high school graduates living at orphanages are acutely aware that they face a somewhat uncertain future and thus there is an additional sense of urgency that the timing and approach bring as well.
The program emphasizes on case-based learning that helps fill an important gap in critical thinking and problem solving skills that are almost totally neglected in the majority of East African public schools, and the class is also highly focused and practical – everything that is not taught through cases is taught through local examples (interest as borrowing ears of corn, competitive differentiation through a field trip to the 5 kiosks across the street selling the exact same thing).
Additionally, we have made scalability a high priority. This program is not about one person teaching this class at one orphanage this one year, but rather about developing a curriculum that can be handed off to trained local teachers and taught at multiple locations at a fraction of the cost.
What's your plan of action?:
We began by validating the idea of such training, and found that nearly all major organizations that work with entrepreneurship in the youth population have studies that demonstrated the opportunity (USAID, World Bank Street Kids International). We found that a number of microfinance institutions had begun supporting youth-run businesses and reported no increase risk for youth vs adult clients (i.e. youth can run businesses as efficiently as adults), and upon completing our lengthy research process, we had found no other programs doing quite what we were proposing.
With the business model validated by the literature, we began developing our curriculum by combining successful aspects of other business-training programs run by MFIs and NGOs along with knowledge of the unique challenges faced by orphans in the area. We utilized contacts at NGO’s serving a similar audience like the to confirm our ideas and then built out the details – lesson plans, activities and cases. As of now we are excited to be in the third week of the initial class!
As the three month curriculum is still in its early phases we have not been able to measure anything conclusive yet, but the initial feedback has been very positive. Students push back if we try to reschedule a class, they are responsive in the class itself and unemployed graduates from previous years have enrolled in the course as well. At the same time we have received formal statements of interest from community members, the church the local farmers union who are interested in receiving similar training.
How many people are directly involved in your project? :
How many people has your project helped? :
Location(s)
See map: Google MapsWhat's the problem you are trying to solve?:
There are 53 million orphans living in sub-Sahara Africa. The mortality rate is 1 in 10 before the age of 5 and there are over 93 million primary school-aged children who receive no education. In response to this glaring problem a number of churches and ngo’s have launched orphanages and children’s homes to help provide basic food, shelter and education, but unfortunately they often fall short of preparing these children for life beyond the orphanage. Since these homes are located in low-income areas, the local schools are often incredibly underfunded and the children do not go onto to receive any form of higher education. In economies of 15-30% unemployment in the formal sector, these children emerge woefully uncompetitive and have no family support network to fall back on. Often these children leave the orphanage and go right back to the street or wherever else they came from – older, but no better off.
Why is it important to you?:
Where the care provided by the orphanage ends is where we pick up. Building on the orphanage base of food, shelter and a public school education, and we provide the next step – a practical course teaching recent high school graduates about business and entrepreneurship that prepares them to start a small business.
Classes include topics include concepts such as basic marketing, competitive differentiation, and finance (both personal and managerial) as well as concepts such as capital and risk management, and our students are recent high school graduates in the gap year between after college entrance exams. The timing is an ideal moment to provide this training as these students are at an appropriate age (old enough to grasp and understand the concepts being taught) and they have time to devote to training (a major barrier in providing business training to working adults). They are being fed and housed leaving them able to focus on this new course of study, and often high school graduates living at orphanages are acutely aware that they face a somewhat uncertain future and thus there is an additional sense of urgency that the timing and approach bring as well.
The program emphasizes on case-based learning that helps fill an important gap in critical thinking and problem solving skills that are almost totally neglected in the majority of East African public schools, and the class is also highly focused and practical – everything that is not taught through cases is taught through local examples (interest as borrowing ears of corn, competitive differentiation through a field trip to the 5 kiosks across the street selling the exact same thing).
Additionally, we have made scalability a high priority. This program is not about one person teaching this class at one orphanage this one year, but rather about developing a curriculum that can be handed off to trained local teachers and taught at multiple locations at a fraction of the cost.
What's your plan of action?:
We began by validating the idea of such training, and found that nearly all major organizations that work with entrepreneurship in the youth population have studies that demonstrated the opportunity (USAID, World Bank Street Kids International). We found that a number of microfinance institutions had begun supporting youth-run businesses and reported no increase risk for youth vs adult clients (i.e. youth can run businesses as efficiently as adults), and upon completing our lengthy research process, we had found no other programs doing quite what we were proposing.
With the business model validated by the literature, we began developing our curriculum by combining successful aspects of other business-training programs run by MFIs and NGOs along with knowledge of the unique challenges faced by orphans in the area. We utilized contacts at NGO’s serving a similar audience like the to confirm our ideas and then built out the details – lesson plans, activities and cases. As of now we are excited to be in the third week of the initial class!
As the three month curriculum is still in its early phases we have not been able to measure anything conclusive yet, but the initial feedback has been very positive. Students push back if we try to reschedule a class, they are responsive in the class itself and unemployed graduates from previous years have enrolled in the course as well. At the same time we have received formal statements of interest from community members, the church the local farmers union who are interested in receiving similar training.
Get some cash to get your project to the next level. Weekly grants are available.
Comments
You must Login or Register to post comments or replies.
love the idea! good luck in the future!