By Simeon Mihinga | Director, MAWA
KUWEZESHA is a Swahili word meaning empowerment. This is a project geared at improving entrepreneurship awareness among youths in Tanzania.A large percentage of graduates do not have the skills required by employers. This has left many young people on the streets with certifcates but no jobs.
Kuwezesha Project enables at-risk students in Tanzanians with skill disabilities to improve the quality of their livelihood by building competencies to become employable or be able to start micro-businesses of their own. This will be done by conducting entrepreneurship training through workshops, hackathons, debates, exhibitions, and competitions to stimulate and foster meaningful, associative, and active learning methods.
Hence, between January and June 2021, MAWA had conducted fve different programmes related to KUWEZESHA project namely; (1) college and secondary schools students (2) primary school Students (Tanzania and Pakistan) (3) Cultural exchange (Tanzania and Pakistan-school students) (4) Youth entrepreneurship webinar (Entrepreneurship and Innovation among learners) and (5) Promoting entrepreneurship start ups among youths and Girls in Tanzania.
i. For College And Secondary Schools Students
On April 1-2, we conducted entrepreneurship awareness and skills training to 105 students from 6 different secondary schools and colleges in Mbeya city Tanzania.
Goal:To train the students with entrepreneurship skills and training which help them to generate income from various projects such as tailoring, fruits and vegetable cultivation, chicken rearing and other types of retail businesses.
Achievements:In the workshop ,the participants discussed the various challenges the youth faced from entrepreneurship and the way forward.
ii. For Primary School Students (Tanzania and Pakistan)
Tanzania joined hands with The Roots Millennium School from Pakistan as connected by Ms Fakhra as part of the British Council project. On April 29th 2021, we conducted an online entrepreneurship nurturing class among students.
Goal: to make students learn about entrepreneurship and its characteristics as well as how entrepreneurship becomes fruitful for the children.
Achievements :Both kiswahili and English language were used to make the class more understandable.learners were happy with the classes and had understood the lesson. They demanded that we should continue such classes for the beneft of children. Sisimba primary school from Tanzania was also involved in this project.
On April 22, 2021 MAWA successfully conducted an online webinar named “Entrepreneurship and Innovation among learners” .Almost 70 participants from different countriesincluding Tanzania, India, Australia and USA attended the webinar.
Goal:To discuss and share experience to the school and college learners about how they can engage in successful entrepreneurship by tapping into innovative ways.
Achievements:The themes covered were related to the Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs). The topics 1included were as follows:
(1) Why and how learning institutions as well as the community should support student entrepreneurship ambitions?
(2)SDGs and Student Innovation
(3)Importance of entrepreneurship as a career.
Participants:The webinar was co-chaired by Simeon Mihinga (Tanzania) and Akshara (India), (MAWA Director and a Masters Student Volunteer from UNISA respectively).Volunteer presenters namely Sameen Fatma, Abhishek Bhardwaj and Akshay Kapoor were able to clearly stipulate how the students in schools and colleges can build their present and future lives by courageously embracing entrepreneurship and innovation in the SDGs world. The webinar has become a backbone for youth engagement in entrepreneurship.More than 10 of the participants decided to start their own entrepreneurship journey by starting various ventures.
v. Promoting And Mentoring Entrepreneurship Start Ups Among Youths And Girls In Tanzania
As part of its mission, MAWA continues to persuade youths to begin self-run income generation projects. Currently, there are more than 20 youths with various startups such as chicken rearing, fruits cultivation, dairy cattle rearing, Cloth and Carpet design, maize crop cultivation, ornaments and personal beauty items, clothes and shoe retailing, butchery, vegetable cultivation and also singing and dancing.
They are mentored and nurtured through school/college innovation clubs under the custody of MAWA and they meet every Wednesday after school/college hours.
This project organizes entrepreneurship awareness and skills training in Tanzania via a variety of events - workshops, seminars, classroom sessions, start-up partnership programs, innovation hubs to college and university youths who are at risk of falling into poverty because they are not equipped with skills for employment or for entrepreneurship. The youths are unable to fnd and or start jobs after graduating as they fail to catch such skills while at college
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