Navigation menu
Business and Entrepreneurship Development(BED)
The Business and Entrepreneurship Development (BED) Program is meant to scale up enterprise formation, growth and promote an entrepreneurial culture among the youth.
This is in line with YES Rwanda’s two main objectives:
- To Build the Capacity of Young People to Create Sustainable Livelihoods.
- To Establish an Entrepreneurial Culture where young Persons and Youth Work towards self Employment.
The BED Program links up with other YES Rwanda programs -- it collaborates with the PORA Program on how to improve business environment to start- ups and with the YLE Program to transform the livelihoods of very disadvantaged young people by equipping them with skills relevant to the labor market.
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is a set of skills, knowledge, attitudes and values that can generally increase employability of youth, whether seeking self-employment and operating a micro or small enterprise, or working in the private sector, public sector, an NGO or any combination as part of a productive livelihood pathway. There is, therefore, need to promote entrepreneurship in the country. We endeavor to promote change in attitudes and values, policy and regulatory environment, education, finance and business support.
Currently BED is running a business incubator
A Business Incubator is a facility designed to nurture and support emerging businesses (start –ups) to become established and profitable, while creating jobs and wealth in playing a major role in socio-economy of a country.
The main objective of this project is to establish the potential and practical mechanisms that will help get youth succeed in businesses and equip themselves with skills.
The goal is to create an entrepreneurial culture among youth aimed at taking the lead in sustainable development as compared to just economic development by using the initial assistance from the public and non-profit donors to leverage long-term solutions. The overall long-term plan is to have the incubator in major towns funded by investors who expect a return on their investment and who have a financial stake in its success.
Duration
The duration of incubation for start-ups will be approximately three years but this will also depend on the level of needs of the incubated business or company, some can grow from a period of between a few months to three years. Incubatee companies then graduate and leave the incubator to go out to expand their businesses.
Services under the Business Incubator
- Provide office space at subsidized rental rates in Kigali - The office space will be a walk-in and work office with already furnished work-stations, front office and back office services.
- High-speed internet connectivity- The incubator will connect internet to all offices throughout working hours.
- Consultancy services, such as in business development, management, marketing and legal among others. This value-addition will serve to counter the culture of outdated ways of doing business.
- Provide regular information on advertised tenders – Information about open tenders (from both the public and private sectors) will be sourced by the business center and shared to all companies in the incubator.
- Business club networking- This will be done every first Tuesday of the month for business in the incubator to network over a cocktail afternoon and share ideas and find clients. Successful business will be used as role models to share with the incubatees their success stories.
- Work with service industries in Rwanda helping them integrate smaller businesses into their supply chains as suppliers and contractors.
- Arrange for a business exhibition in Rwanda and across East Africa and develop partnerships with regional and overseas young entrepreneurs.
Justification
Statistics from both developed and developing economies show that incubation increases the chances of survival for a new business initiative by about 80% where as the likelihood of survival for a business success for a start-up outside an incubator stands at about 20% or lower.
The formal job absorption rate in Rwanda is low and there is need to encourage MSME's who in return will create more jobs for the growing and young population.
Youth Livelihoods and Education (YLE)
Imagine a country where the majority of youth is neither in school nor employed in the formal economy, where the growth of the country’s economy has trouble keeping up with the rapid growth of its youth population, where there is a clear mismatch between the skills provided by schools and universities and the ones that employers want, where youth unemployment rates in the formal economy is very high , where educational opportunities is very limited cannot be accessed by half the youth population, where the number of orphans and vulnerable children is increasing . Such would describe the plight of today’s youth in many developing countries, particularly those in countries emerging from conflict or genocide, ravages of HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases likewise Rwanda. Youth Livelihood and Education is one among four response program developed by YES Rwanda to respond to this dilemma.
The youth livelihoods and Education program provide youth with opportunities to master basic employability and life skills by investing in formal and non formal basic education offerings, in vocational and technical skills training opportunities, and in programs that focus on employability and the development. This program put much focus on young people aged 18–35 from impoverished and vulnerable backgrounds. From March 2009 up to date YLE under its pilot project called Aspire have trained 30 CHH youths from Kinyinya in Hospitality 10 of whom have got permanent Job. The training in Hospitality for 30 CHH youths from Nyamata is in progress. In YLE program we are not only investing in training, but also in Internship and Job placement. Our expectation is to train and place into jobs 180 youths within 3 years.
In supporting formal education YES Rwanda through YLE program is supporting 30 orphans from Kinyinya Village with schools fees and school materials ( Primary schools, secondary, and 1 in University )
HIV AIDS Mainstreaming
YLE also put much focus on Gender Justice
Policy Research and Advocacy (PORA)
The Policy Research and Advocacy (PORA) Program is dedicated to researching and understanding the soft infrastructure, existing policies and practices and other issues contributing to the difficulties the youth population faces when attempting to enter the labor market.
YES Rwanda’s PORA Program understands that youth in Rwanda face economic, social and political barriers that limit their participation not only in the labor market, but also in accessing opportunities for earning and for learning. One of the priority action areas for YES Rwanda is to lobby for the removal of the aforementioned barriers and for the adoption of policies and strategies that facilitate the development of youth employment and entrepreneurship. To this end, YES Rwanda seeks to research and generate a body of knowledge on issues relating to youth employment as well as institutional responses to this problem. YES Rwanda’s aspiration is to become a leading organization in initiating research on youth employment in Rwanda and articulating innovative and progressive measures and programs, as well as advocating for appropriate government and institutional responses to each measure or program.
YES Rwanda strategic axes of the Policy Research and Advocacy are as followed:
- Partnering with other organizations such as: local, regional and international NGOs; the academia; private sector and other institutions to research, lobby and advocate for specific policy issues.
- Substantial research on specific issues to develop position papers used to advocate for policy change. The objective of the position papers is to present a well– researched and balanced perspectives on current policy issues affecting youth and provide corresponding recommendations to relevant government ministries in order to lobby and advocate for policy changes that benefit youth entrepreneurs and create a more favorable environment more to increasing youth development and employment possibilities.
- Engaging in soft, silent or backdoor diplomacy to advocate for policy change relating to youth and youth employment issues.
- To empower youth as a first step to deeper and more participatory advocacy for issues affecting them. This will be accomplished through activities, workshops and seminars that will increase the flow of conversation among youth and to make them feel more directly and actively involved in the resolution of issues affecting them.
The YES Rwanda PORA Program strives to assist the focal points for advocacy, liaison and research coordination at the national level in effective execution of the priority programs and projects set out by the government of Rwanda within the framework of the EDPRS as well as youth employment and development, among others.
Rwandan youth need a strong voice and platform to articulate their interests, concerns, rights and needs in various arena and forums that could have an impact on their livelihoods, from government policy to donor programs to others. As a membership organization, YES Rwanda seeks to organize and strengthen grassroots youth associations to engage in effective self-representation. This will entail building the capacity of youth organizations to organize, identify key policy issues affecting their livelihoods and advocate effectively for change. Linking youth with the democratic process will not only create a demanding body for accountability, but will also help ensure that policies are relevant and responsive the youths’ needs.
To facilitate these objectives, PORA is currently developing and implementing a research program that will facilitate a holistic approach to youth employment creation in Rwanda. The program area also facilitates institutional and technical capacity building for YES Rwanda members for them to fully engage in youth employment creation activities and advocacy.
Communication and Outreach (CO)
Communication and Outreach program addresses the gap that exists in Rwanda regarding access to relevant employment information. Through a comprehensive national data gathering process Mapping aims to gather and profile information from both Rwandan youth groups and potential donor/support groups and present an online data base of all, with cross referencing search tools. This will provide a forum for research, communication and information dissemination. Specific outputs such as a recruitment website and a job desk has been set up and used as tools to practically address unemployment amongst profiled youths.
YES Rwanda recognizes the socioeconomic diversity of the Rwandan Youth, and the related need for an all encompassing community and outreach program to ensure inclusiveness.
Description and purpose of the job desk:
- Access to employment by Rwandan youth has been an uphill task for many years now due to employers who do not know where to recruit qualified, motivated and well trained employees. Inadequacy of information for job vacancies has also been another setback as well as employers’ inability to trace the quality of persons that they require.
- Establishment of the job desk is a strategy by YES Rwanda to promote accessibility to employment for unemployed young professionals in the country.
- The services are targeted at all unemployed young professionals from all working disciplines who are unable to find jobs especially in their areas of qualifications.
Visitors
We have one guest and no members online