During the weekend, a team of two young Rwandan entrepreneurs and other entrepreneurs from other African nations were announced as the winners of this year’s Mastercard Foundation venture challenge.
Rwandan-based Marie-Aimée Nirere and Nadine Iradukunda created ‘ Healthy Us, ‘ a social venture that seeks to improve orphans ‘ well-being in Rwanda through a program of dietary awareness.
The program seeks to set up a kitchen garden in a local orphanage to grow fruit and vegetables, particularly mushrooms that are rich in protein and simple to grow.
Mushroom sales revenue will provide food, toiletries, and school equipment to orphaned kids.
That’s the concept that saw scholars from the Mastercard Foundation secure seed funding and mentorship to further pursue their concept.
They are among 31 scholar competing teams for a Resolution Fellowship to obtain seed funding, mentoring, and access to a network of young global change makers to pursue impactful initiatives in their societies.
The Mastercard Foundation works with The Resolution Project to host a Social Venture Challenge Resolution, a competition that offers a path to action for young leaders with social responsibility who want to produce change that matters in their societies.
Six teams won the challenge in 2016, followed in 2017 by 10 winning teams and in 2018 by 15 teams.
Many scholars are creating projects inspired in their societies by problems they have experienced first-hand. Scholars activate their thoughts for change with humble resources to make a difference in their communities and on the continent
This year, the 2019 Mastercard Foundation Social Venture challenge has obtained 15 teams. The teams came from Cameron, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Senegal, Gambia, Kenya, Kenya, Lebanon, and Malawi.
Each team will receive seed funding to scale up their projects and a lifetime membership in the Resolution Fellowship to assist them continue to receive advice and membership to develop their projects.
According to Ashley Collier, Mastercard Foundation’s Manager of Youth Engagement and Networks, each group will receive up to $5,000 and training for business development.
“The funding is important but it is not the most important aspect for individual development. The mentorship is key and that is why we set up one to one mentor to every scholar,” she noted.
Collier informed the media that their faith was to invest in individual human development because their thoughts might not necessarily flourish, but people will always be ready to drive change.
