Microloans for Edupreneurs

In cooperation with Opportunity International, education entrepreneurs and their school initiatives, so-called “microschools”, are supported in their development and expansion through microcredits and corresponding training.

We support this initiative, as the federal education system in Ghana is massively overstretched. A lack of state funding for the expansion of school networks, weak management, overcrowded classes and low teacher salaries lead to very ineffective level of education. Many children can barely read, write or do arithmetic after the third grade and have very inadequate English language skills.

To counteract, we promote the qualitative and quantitative improvement of schooling opportunities in Ghana’s rural regions.

GIVING YOUNG PEOPLE A PERSPECTIVE THROUGH TRAINING & APPRENTICESHIP

In the Youth Apprenticeship Programme (YAP), unemployed young people in Ghana receive three years of vocational training in a skilled trade. The graduates of the programme come from poor families: young people who had to drop out of school early due to lack of money or who were unable to do any training after leaving school. Without vocational training, the young people have no opportunities and no hope for a good future. With the official final examination, the young women and men receive a state-recognised vocational qualification.

Since 2011 we have enabled around 3,400 young people to get an education. Many more are waiting for this chance. Please help.

Promotion of Start-Ups to fight one Cause of Migration

With a start-up program in northern Ghana, we want to combat the cause of flight, namely the lack of economic prospects for many young people. Over a period of two years, 20 small entrepreneurs received training as well as intensive advice and business coaching. In the start-up phase, they were supported by us with a microcredit program specially tailored to their needs.

We are convinced that in an industrially weak region with few jobs, the development focus must be on promoting small and medium-sized enterprises. This is the only way to establish middle class structures, that are indispensable for social growth.

Social Enterprise Support in collaboration with Social Entrepreneurship HuB, Ghana (2020)

As a strategic further development of already existing initiatives in the country, this project is intended to ensure sustainable networking and entrepreneurial synergies of individual start-ups. It is about the creation of jobs as well as the development of markets (local and international) in order to get globally competitive.

The project will empower start-ups in Ghana’s formal and informal sectors to help themselves. By teaching innovative design thinking and important management skills, the young entrepreneurs learn to work successfully with the resources that are available to them.

STEPPING FORWARD Documentary

Geographically located between African and European mainland, Malta is a symbol for any European member state dealing with a steady flux of migrants arriving at its shores. The island state struggles to administer and integrate the people who are fleeing from war, persecution and poverty.

STEPPING FORWARD accompanies three young people on their way to supposed peace and shows the humanitarian challenge Europe is facing today. A follow-up project brought the film into German classrooms to critically question popular clichés about asylum seekers and to awaken empathy for them and their daily struggles.

ECO VILLAGE in TOGO

Poverty reduction, climate change and energy supply pose an enormous challenge for many rural regions in Africa. Water shortages cause droughts and traditional farming methods such as slash-and-burn and clear-cutting of forests have led to the destruction and depletion of scarce soils and a great impoverishment of biodiversity in the savannah. The energy needs to maintain and improve living standards can hardly be met by fossil energy sources and forest over-exploitation.

Therefore, since 2016, we have been supporting a pilot project in Natoung/Togo – close to the borders of Burkina Faso and Benin – to develop alternative and sustainable sources of energy.