My Organization

Organization:

Educate! 

www.experienceeducate.org

What We Do:

Educate! works to transform African secondary education to be relevant for life after school. We create the future of secondary education--an education that develops youth to take leadership initiative, create small businesses, and improve their livelihoods.

Why It Matters:
Long-term sustainable development in Africa can only happen if the next generation is driving it. We believe the only way to develop this generation and create grassroots development is to reinvent education to do it.

Personal Story:

I grew up poor and ambitious in New York City. I knew my only chance for bringing myself out of poverty and helping my family was to be the first one to go to college. Luckily, there were over 12 non-profit organizations committed to bridging the opportunity gap, including a full-tuition scholarship program. The salary of my university internship—internship now-- was the same as my mother’s salary and she worked hard for over 25 years with no degree. The U.S. delivered on the promise of higher education as a pathway out of poverty. I am not sure if it still can deliver, but it did then, for me.

Uganda, like much of Africa, and like many places around the world now, cannot deliver on the promise of education as a pathway out of poverty. I have dedicated my life to changing this!

Problem:

There are over 300 million unemployed youth around the world, largely due to the fact that education is mismatched to life after school. This problem is most acute in Sub-Saharan Africa. Africa is the world’s youngest continent, with tremendously high unemployment, but formal jobs don’t exist. 90% of African youth are going to work in the informal sector, so starting a business is the best option. Yet African education systems deliver a false promise – designed for the 1900’s, just years of schooling alone do not lead to employment and higher incomes.

Solution:

Educate! delivers a relevant model of education, comprised of entrepreneurship and leadership training, mentorship, and experience starting an enterprise, all delivered by a practically trained teacher to secondary school students.

This model develops young leaders and entrepreneurs!

Systems Change Strategy:

We deliver our model directly while we build capacity of teachers and administrators to deliver our model independently, and we advocate for education system change for the long term.

Impact

• We incorporated our curriculum and student business club into Uganda’s Education system, and changed the exam to evaluate what students do in the business club. This curriculum now reaches 25,000 plus youth annually
• Have seen a 160% increase in youth income and 34% increase in business creation
• Scaled up our program in 2014 from 54 schools to over 200 school, with schools contributing $200 to the program

10 Year Plan:

By 2023, impact one million students annually and scale into 10 countries: direct program roll out in four countries and government advocacy in six.

How We’re Different:

1. We are the only organization advocating to integrate such a youth development model into a national education system.
2. We are the only social enterprise in the youth space in Africa – working to find an impactful, scalable, and replicable solution for youth in Sub-Saharan Africa.