Background: The Gambia’s youth population is estimated at over 60% of the total population and all below the age of 30 years. There is the very urgent need to engage with them and awaken them to the great potential at their disposal, thereby shifting their paradigm from aid dependency and the Backway syndrome to entrepreneurship. Most are convinced that there is no alternative to the Back way and would risk life and liberty despite the numerous tales of woe. Successive governments have promised to empower the youth but with little to show for it. The urgent need is to create hope by pointing them to the ultimate Source of every blessing, God, and training them on the principles that govern life generally, and wealth creation in particular.
Our strategy is a bottom up community development approach.
We shall engage with the youth at the community level for the creation and control of a largely self sustaining economic ecosystem; the foundation for true economic prosperity.
Core values: We uphold the inherent dignity and worth of every person. Therefore, we shall value and continually seek to add value to everyone involved in our work.
Mantra: Build the people… build community.
Our key objectives are to:
- Develop the spiritual awareness and belief system of the youth as the master key to their success in life.
- De-mystify wealth creation by building Small and Medium scale Enterprises, SMEs, with the youth, from incubation to maturity.
TARGETS
Overall target: 1000 millionaires x 2020
(Our definition of a millionaire is a person who serves a million people.)
Desired Outcome: A 40% market share of all consumables stocked and sold on supermarket shelves in The Gambia x 2020
Outputs: Intensive 1-week onsite training for 100 PHDs (Poor, Hungry and Driven youth) in batches of 10-12 max… 2018-2019
(Each trainee shall commit to empower 10 mentees over the course of one year.)
Inputs: 100 Home based or Diaspora Gambians willing to invest financially in a trainee/enterprise and provide on-going mentorship through the gestation period of the business until fruition. We do not seek grants or loans!!
Strategic outline:
- Adopt a town to model our development approach. Sibanor, a town less than 100km from Banjul with good access road, electricity and pipe borne water has been chosen. We have 16 Hectares of land for the Academy.
- Partner with affluent Diaspora and home based Africans and Black people to invest in SME startups to mitigate the lack of access to capital often faced by startups.
- Develop real estate on the site for Development Tourism; Black Aliyah. Private developers to be encouraged to build, own and time-share their property on site. These properties shall be used commercially by tourists, visiting faculty and the owners. The land shall be leased out to developers for free along with requisite legal documentation. (A master plan to be developed ASAP)
- Develop a mixed farm essentially for training on value addition at site but also for supplementary revenue.
- Engage with the Village Development Committee, VDC, to:
- Set up an informal stock exchange for capital mobilization.
- Set up a model health care insurance scheme for the entire community.
- Upend the Sibanor Health Center as a hub for holistic medical care.
- Replicate same in all the districts in the 7 regions of The Gambia.
