Join us!
Partners
Twestival Global London is set to Raise Money for Concern Worldwide
Thursday March 25th 2010 will see people meeting in cities across the Globe, ‘Using Social Media for Social Good’. Now in it’s second year, the event, which uses the power of Twitter for marketing, aims to bring people together offline at locally held events in an attempt to improve education, have fun and create awareness.
With this year’s theme of Education, all (and they mean 100% of) ticket proceeds go to Concern Worldwide, which aims to make education accessible to the some 72 million children across the world that presently have no opportunity to go to school.
Last year saw:
- Involvement from 202 cities
- 1,000 volunteers
- 10,000 donors
- Funds raised of over $250, 000
As those involved gave money to improve access to safe and clean water for the 1 billion who currently do not have this.
Concern Worldwide Read more
The Clinton Global Initiative is Empowering Girls and Women Through Information and Communication Technologies
![Laptops for children in Africa cc: Flickr Lil[Kristen Elsby]](http://thenextwomen.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/laptop_flickr-LilKristen-Elsby.jpg "laptop_flickr Lil[Kristen Elsby]")
Laptops for children in Africa cc: Flickr Lil[Kristen Elsby
Since 2005, CGI has:
- Brought together more than 100 current and former heads of state, 10 of the last 16 Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, hundreds of leading CEOs, heads of foundations, major philanthropists, directors of the most effective nongovernmental organisations and prominent members of the media.
- Made more than 1,400 commitments valued at $46 billion
- Improved the lives of more than 200 million people in more than 170 countries
- More than three million people have better access to information technology
- More than $600 million has been invested in or loaned to small and medium-sized enterprises
- Almost three million micro-entrepreneurs have been empowered through microfinance
The 2010 CGI ation areas include: Empowering Girls and Women; Strengthening Market-Based Solutions; Enhancing Access to Modern Technology and Harnessing Human Potential. Of the 12 new initiatives/commitments in place to empower girls and women, 4 focus on the advantages of information and communication technology:
Plan USA and its Partners
___________________________________________________________________________
Commit over the next three years to:
- Train 140 adolescent girls from Ghana in media production and journalism skills, Read more
Jobortunity: A Sustainable Way of Educating Young People in Tanzania
This is a guest article by Kamilla Hensema, one of the supporters of Jobortunity, the project of the 1% Club that is promoted by The NextWomen during the 24 hours campaign on December17, 2009.
The 1%Club 24 Hours Campaign takes place today, where 24 known Dutch bloggers, entrepreneurs, and others will call upon their network for 24 hours to fund 24 1%Club projects. The campaign starts December 16, 2009 7.00pm and ends December 17, 2009 7.00pm.
The NextWomen have chosen to support the following project: The Jobortunity Training Institute in Tanzania that trains vulnerable youth aged between 15 and 23 from the slums in Arusha to get a job and to keep it. Its about giving practical training through mentors. The project is set up by Kim Groeneweg and in her team are a lot of local people.
Jobortunity needs all the support it can get to start and build a top quality training institute! It needs €4.775,- in order to train 14 mentors to educate these young people, to buy 5 computers for the life skill program and to buy bikes. If you want to donate CLICK on JOBORTUNITY
In Jobortunity business professionals Mentor Young People in Tanzania. Why?
Kim Groeneweg, a Dutch trainer with broad experience in developing countries, is the initiator of the traininginstitute Jobortunity in Tanzania. After having trained farmers all over the world, she felt the need to settle down in Tanzania and to build up a training facility that would teach young people to think and act independently and become self reliant.
After two years of preparation in the Netherlands, Kim moved to Tanzania in August 2009. Jobortunity opened its doors and started training its first 40 students in October. These youngsters live in the slums of Arusha, Tanzania, and don’t have access to regular education to prepare themselves for a job. Mostly they don’t have parents or caretakers who would normally pass on the minimal skills to find a job and be self-reliant. That’s why it is important to get business professional to teach these teens.
Girls need Help with Education in Tanzania
Especially for girls it is still hard in Tanzania to educate themselves properly. Read more
Poverty Reduction 2.0: The 1%Club 24 Hours Campaign starts December 16, 7.00pm
The essence of Poverty Reduction 2.0 is self-organization. You participate not by doing what you are told to do, but by doing what you can and want to.
1% Club Actie
Anna Chojnacka and Bart Lacroix are the founders of the Dutch 1%CLUB, an online marketplace where projects aimed at poverty reduction and those willing to support them with 1% of their expertise, time or money, can find each other. We interviewed Anna in March 2009 on Internet tv Blueshots.
The 1%Club has achieved great results since 2008; through its members base it has funded more than 50 small scale entrepreneurial projects in developing countries, from buying bikes in Africa to setting up ICT resource centers in India. They are about to start the…
1%Club 24 Hours Campaign: and The NextWomen promotes the Jobortunity Project: Donate and Retweet!
This week, on December 16th, the 1%Club 24 Hours Campaign takes place, where 24 known Dutch bloggers, entrepreneurs, and others will call upon their network for 24 hours to fund 24 1%Club projects. The campaign starts December 16, 2009 7.00pm and ends December 17, 2009 7.00pm.
The NextWomen have chosen to support the following project: The Jobortunity Training Institute in Tanzania that trains vulnerable youth aged between 15 and 23 from the slums in Arusha to get a job and to keep it. Its about giving practical training through mentors. The project is set up by Kim Groeneweg and in her team are a lot of local people.
Jobortunity needs all the support it can get to start and build a top quality training institute! It needs €4.775,- in order to train 14 mentors to educate these young people, to buy 5 computers for the life skill program and to buy bikes.
We call upon our dear Next Women supporters and network to donate £ 25 pound to our chosen project as follows:
People with a Dutch account: Through the Jobortunity Project at the 1%Club
People with foreign account: through the website of Jobortunity
Start-up Interview: Female Entrepreneur Jenny Buccos of ProjectExplorer.org
Providing cross-cultural education without the cost of a flight is invaluable to children across the globe. With the recent launch of Brightwide – YouTube for Social and Politcal Cinema – we look at what is offered to children in an attempt to make the world a smaller place. Here, The NextWomen talk to female Entrepreneur Jenny Buccos of ProjectExplorer.org about the strengths of being a non-profit organisation, the effects her exposure to many cultures has had on her attitude to business and wishing she had founded Pandora.com Read more
Enter the Business Plan Competition for Women Entrepreneurs in Emerging Markets
There are still 6 weeks to participate in the “Women in Business” Challenge. Initiated by the BiD Network from the Netherlands, the challenge is a business plan competition that aims to support women entrepreneurs in Africa, Latin America and Asia who are seeking finance for their business. They will get assistance, templates, contacts and financiers to get their business started. The deadline for female entrepreneurs to enter the business plan competition is January 15th 2010.
The BiD Network engages thousands of entrepreneurs, experts and investors from all over the world to stimulate entrepreneurship and economic growth in emerging markets. The BiD Network sources and selects business plans of small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s) in emerging markets. It offers tools, contacts and coaching to the best entrepreneurs, paving the way for them to access finance and start their business. The BiD Network actively seeks investors for growth SMEs with a financial need of $10, 000 to $1 million. Currently 23% of BiD Network’s business proposals come from women entrepreneurs.
Since 2005, BiD has organised 5 business competitions worldwide called BiD Challenges. It organises competitions on different themes such as nature or agriculture, and its most recent and specific of which is the: Women in Business Challenge.
Submit your application now and get support from a coach in writing your full business plan. Read more
Businesses Meet CSR Requirements whilst Helping Teenagers
Jo Roberts (wild.org)
Through Corporate Social Responsibility, businesses with both large and small turnovers can make a sustainable difference to project and charitable work both locally and nationally.
A project winning awards in Essex – twice winning an award from the High Sherriff of Essex, and last year the eastern region Nationwide Community and Heritage Award for community volunteering – is TurnAround, which works with vulnerable youth and community mentors.
TurnAround is the brainchild of CEO Jo Roberts, a South African who has now been living as long in Britain as in South Africa, and who has captured the heart of some remarkable projects from the developing world, that have been freshly innovative in the field of working with young people at risk.
The project works with youth who are excluded from school, in trouble with the police and simply not coping with life. Most have chronic anger management issues as a result of high personal frustration levels and little self control, which can lead to more of the same in their adult lives.
Working with these young people for two years, Jo says,
‘It is always incredible to see the fast track progress these young people make, given the simplest of support which is endless time and attention, a genuine affection for their age group and a keenness to understand their issues and perspectives. This costs almost nothing but personal time, and yet is worth its weight in gold bars if one considers the cost of these young people having to be put in Youth Offending Institutes or going into care. Just one year in an Institute costs a minimum of £47,000 to the tax payer.’
The focus of the programme is wilderness therapy, led by psychotherapists, wilderness guides and the mentoring team. Two extended wilderness trails take place on the programme at the beginning and the end, with community mentors taking part in the first. This is a challenging experience heading up into the Scottish highlands for ten days with simply a pack on their backs, all their food and equipment for that period, and the young people!
TurnAround is a project that believes young people need the support of a community, particularly when parents, for whatever reason, seem unable to cope. This is found through community volunteer mentors who work with individual youth for a year initially and then by choice, into the future.
Mentors seem to get as much from the programme as the youth. One mentor, Zoe Cranley an artist working in the film industry said:
“I just feel so privileged being trusted by these youngsters, many who have no reason to trust anyone at all after their life experiences. It humbles me to see how well they have coped with their life issues and it puts mine into perspective! I am now doing my second year with TurnAround because I love the work.’
Another mentor, Ali Moran, an employment law specialist was heard to say: Read more
Enternships connects Graduates with African Startups
We aim to become the world leading site for start-up and SME work
placements and full-time roles in the graduate market
That’s ambitious and rightly so. Rajeeb Dey, 23, who graduated last year from the University of Oxford and was President of student society – Oxford Entrepreneurs, launched Enternships in May 2009, the first online platform to successfully recruit graduates for roles in start-ups and the UK’s leading small businesses. The focus may be on small businesses, the ambition is however big.
From the start it has developed an international management team to cover the UK, US, Egypt, Emirates and India. Leah Magoye, is the Africa Representative & Business Development Manager.
Enternships and African Startups! Tell us more about that?
Growing up in Kenya, wherever I went I noticed that nothing is wasted! The people are incredibly innovative and creative with what they have, old rubber wheels become shoes and broken bicycle spokes become toys – I have always known that with the right attitude of investment (rather than aid), and business education these minds can create great companies. It is important to me to find and showcase companies in Africa that will inspire the students and graduates within African countries to do similar things, and to show potential Enterns outside of Africa that it is a place of great entrepreneurial spirit.
Over 60% of the population of Africa is under the age of 24, so the focus must be on job creation. This can only be achieved in a sustainable way via entrepreneurship. Initiatives such as Enternships that increase the visibility of African start-ups to African students and graduates may encourage them to either stay in their home countries and build these companies – or to start their own. I have tried to increase the profile of Enternships to start-ups in Africa by building relationships with bloggers in Africa
What can you do to exchange entrepreneurial ideas between the UK and Africa?
To further build my networks, I attend conferences, such as the Africa Day held by the London Business School a few weeks ago. I was very fortunate to meet there people like James Wanjohi, head of the Branson School for Entrepreneurship in South Africa and Ebe Essoka, CEO of Standard Chartered South Africa – as well as several other people from organisations such as the Africa Legal Network (ALN). Also, I met some Private Equity and Venture Capital funds that are very excited about the growth prospects in Africa and particularly in investing in SMEs that have huge growth potential.
Leah and Waren Buffet
Which African Startups need enterns?
We are slowly building up the numbers of companies either based in Africa, or focussed on Africa as a market. Currently the majority are from South Africa, but we would like to branch out to countries like Botswana, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Namibia and Nigeria where I have strong networks. They need Enterns for the same reason as start-ups and SMEs based anywhere else in the world – to have talented, young, creative minds helping them to remain innovative and to succeed.
These are some of those companies:
We just did a placement for a fashion company called Lalesso
The fact that I grew up in Kenya and Namibia has been very useful in terms of spotting new African start-ups who think globally but act locally. Lalesso, a clothing company, started by one of my school friends from Pembroke House in Kenya is the perfect example of this. I was only made aware of this inspirational company due to my strong links with the country.
Lalesso was launched in Cape Town 2005. The inspiration behind the brand came from the remote island of Lamu off the coast of Kenya. The Lalesso founders, Olivia Kennaway & Alice Heusser, felt it was necessary to involve a socially responsible method of manufacturing and so set up their own workshop in Diani Beach, Kenya. Starting out with just two seamstresses they now have a team of 22. All tailors are paid over three times the average manufacturers wage and provide very generous benefits such as creche facilities and personal loans.
Lalesso also tries to involve the community – The Crochet Sisters are a group of nuns who make all the crochet by hand. Local Masaai tradesmen make the beaded bracelets used on the swing tags and unemployed beach boys are commissioned to hand carve buttons from decaying coconuts.
In March 2008, Lalesso launched in all JOY and by May 2008 they were stocked in Topshop’s flagship Oxford Circus store, London. Both Sienna Miller and Estelle have been spotted wearing Lalesso.
What are the challenges to grow Enternships?
The main challenge is time! Enternships is still in it’s infancy so we are working hard to make sure that the core product is running smoothly. However, as my passion lies with changing the perception of Africa as a place to start and do business, I find the time. So this involves things like writing blogs and growing my networks as I mentioned above:
Another challenge on the student side is that they are not as centralised as, say start-ups, when it comes to looking for work experience. That is the gap that Enternships is going to fill, but it will take time to build brand awareness. However due to my networks, many students in Africa became aware of Enternships and are interested in using the site to do virtual placements with companies based all over the world.
What does it mean: General business development?
During the day-to-day running of Enternships I focus primarily on Entern outreach. This will involve building relationships with Entrepreneur Societies in universities and Careers Services. We are very committed to maintaining a high calibre of Entern on our site and we’ve discovered the best way to do this is to make sure our marketing is targeted to the types of students and graduates that have some understanding of what it means to work in a start-up environment. As a start-up ourselves we know that we need to attract individuals with a strong work ethic, willingness to learn and a spark of innovation/creativity that leads them to think outside the box.
The launch of Enternships will be welcomed by students, as research published last month by the National Union of Students (NUS) found that 80 per cent of current undergraduates were “concerned” or “very concerned” about their job prospects. Not only has the site a focus on small businesses and thus a challenge to the stereotypical ‘graduate milkround job’ and traditional internships in large corporations, Enternships also focuses on startups and graduates in developing countries, such as Africa. Enternships has partnered with mayor world players such as Younoodle, and received support from entrepreneurial societies such as Oxbridge, London School of Economics and Stanford University. Also, it was endorsed by many serial entrepreneurs, such as Martha Lane Fox, lastminute.com co-founder and CEO of Lucky Voice:
“One of the greatest luxuries of being a student is having the time to think about ideas. One of the best things about being in a start-up is that it is all about ideas. An Enternship will give you a great opportunity to experience life in an entrepreneurial environment.”
Women in Business International Connects UK Business to Businesswomen in the Middle East and North Africa
Women in Business International is a B2B programme with a difference. Established as part of a UK Government Initiative to connect businesswomen and invited businessmen in the UK with influential businesswomen in the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and Iran, it is a non-for profit company run by volunteers to promote women’s economic empowerment. By exchanging and sharing knowledge and skills, WiB seek to provide premier business networking throughout the world for investment and trade opportunities whilst altering the views of women held by international leaders and decision makers.
Designed to appeal to both ends of the business spectrum, the initiative welcomes those at the very top of large scale global companies to lone founders of ethical commerce. The site provides a platform for women to read about relevant news and events from across the world, whilst providing a one-stop shop for business resources including how to start a business, e-mentoring, workshops and scholarships. Read more
Web 2.0 international development guru talks in Blueshots (internet TV)
Young social entrepreneur Anna Chojnacka of the development aid platform THE ONE PERCENT CLUB talks in She, the Dutch internet programme of Blueshots, about her ambition to change the world of development aid with a web 2.0 way of thinking. Started only in April 2008, Chojnacka has managed – with no-budget marketing -to launch the website, get people in the developing world involved with 57 projects, attract personal donations of its 1300 members of 60.000 Euro, and involve even Ruud Lubbers, former Prime Minister of The Netherlands and High Commissioner for Refugees at the UN. The government has backed her idea with a grant of almost 1 million Euro; her 600 page booklet was the most impressive and soon the 1%Club goes international. Watch and listen to the Dutch ‘Angelina Jolie’!
SHE, (a programme of Blueshots) sponsored by Bizner Bank, features interviews with women entrepreneurs, female internet heroes and also discuss marketing to women cases. It is presented by Marianne van Leeuwen of Sisteract and Simone Brummelhuis of TheNextWomen.
- br/>
Extras
-
