Written on April 30, 2009 by worldeshipday
“This has been an experience we will never forget for the rest of our lives”
(Contributed by Omar Diaw, WED Senegal Host Organizer – picture below)
On World Entrepreneurship Day, we were looking for the opportunity to change the paradigm in Senegal, to change not only the way young girls here think, but also the way our culture feels about what African women can do. We have started a cultural revolution in SENEGAL against how girls are perceived in our culture. We SIFE students believe that one of the world’s most important resources is its young people. Education not only gives them a greater voice in their own lives, but ensures a brighter future for themselves and their communities.
Therefore, on World Entrepreneurship Day, we educated 192 young girls (aged 15-22) in Senegal (Africa) on the skills of entrepreneurship. The results were remarkable.
We followed this dynamic curriculum:
- Course 1: How to Be an Entrepreneur?
- Course 2: The Challenges of Youth Entrepreneurship
- Course 3: What is Leadership?
- Course 4: How to be a Leader in Your Community
The most important lesson we shared with these girls was: ”Every entrepreneurial project requires preparation, discipline and teamwork”
After we finished our training we asked them to assess our courses and their feedback was amazing. Aida, a 14 year old girl, said:
“This freely given training will change my life forever cause I couldn’t imagine it was possible to learn such things like how to create a company and run it successfully!”
The impact on the young students was remarkable. Imagine some of them already have ideas of creating an enterprise with the help of their parents. We awarded them certificates co-signed by SIFE and USAID.
Community Awareness
A society that wants more entrepreneurs to ensure its survival and long-term growth must work to develop an entrepreneurial culture in its community because entrepreneurs contribute to greater wealth creation. The effectiveness of government policies to support the creation and the resumption of business will only bear full fruit if all the actors of economic development – among which are the educators in our country – work together to develop creativity and new attitudes of young people who are feel unsafe to take risks or make change… With our help, these young people will be better prepared to create sustainable businesses.
(our SIFE team with the School Principal)
Our personal success
With the precious support of the school administration and the teachers we were able to train the young girls in a very comfortable atmosphere. The training sessions we did with the young girls had a very profound transformational change on the young girls and on us as well. Overall, we have inspired these young girls and they have inspired us as well. We were kind of role models for them and as a result, felt a profound personal growth and transformational change within ourselves…
“This has been an experience that we’ll
never forget for the rest of our lives.”
– Omar Diaw, Senegal WED Host Organizer.
Nothing yet.
