Global Cooperative Entrepreneurs (GCE) Youth Ambassador Training Program in Africa.
The Global Cooperative Entrepreneurs (GCE) Youth Ambassador Training took place in Kampala-Uganda from the 25th to 28th November 2019. The GCE program once again is an experimental mentoring program aiming at providing support to youth ambassadors interested in setting up a cooperative. The program builds on a 3-steps methodology of mobilizing youth and together solve community needs by setting up cooperatives. It is framed within the ICA-EU Partnership (#coops4dev) and inspired by Cooperatives Europe’s CoopStarter 2.0 Erasmus+ funded project.
The training was officiated by Uganda Cooperative Alliance General Secretary Mr. Ivan Asiimwe acknowledging that the GCE program initiative will indeed support young cooperative start-ups in the region. Africa has the youngest population in the world with 60% of the entire continent population aged below 25 years. Mr. Asiimwe highlighted the role and importance of cooperatives in helping young people take their lives in to their own hands thus a great potential for further development. “By having such training in place, our young generation will fully take advantage of the cooperatives enterprise model option in solving a number of challenges that they face”, he added.
This training saw participation of six youth ambassadors from Uganda and Zimbabwe helped by eight mentors from the same countries. The mentors had received a training earlier in August and they are significant in the program since they will be giving the ambassadors a continuous support on - how to start a cooperative and how to mobilize youth around their ideas.
Different sessions on Coop-Starter, knowledge base, basic business management skills, customer relations management, action-based approach, business canvas model approach, financing cooperative enterprises and many were delivered by the mentors assisted by the ICA- Africa Youth Network President, Hilda and Dr. Rose Karimi, the Project Manager ICA- Africa. On the third day the participants had an opportunity to visited two cooperatives for a field trip as an eye opener to the ambassadors just to appreciate how a cooperative function. One of the cooperatives visited was Nazigo Savings and Credit Cooperative a financial cooperative and thereafter visited Kangulumira Area Cooperative Enterprise (ACE) that does solar drying for fruits like pineapples, Jackfruits and also wine processing.
As stated by some of the ambassadors (watch video), this was indeed a unique opportunity for them thus very excited about the program. Moving forward, the youth ambassadors are now expected to mobilize youth around a cooperative start-up idea by planning and delivering 3 multiplier events with the support from their mentors. This means that we shall be monitoring and following closely the ambassadors action plans.
“This article has been produced with the assistance of the European Union. The contents of the article are the sole responsibility of ICA-Africa and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.”