News from A'dam - Events all over the place!

The students from the Amsterdam New Business School are full of creative ideas. At the moment they are performing as real event organizers to support the projects of the MeleyaFoundation.

A team of four motivated students (Roger Streng, Randall Smit, Dominique Gloudemans and Max van Eck) organized a fundraising Dinner Event in The Netherlands to raise finance for the ‘Meleya Business Idea Competition Awards’ of last November. The 5th of February, friends and Family of the students had a wonderful evening at Delikeet.

Two other NBS teams are preparing two other up-coming events. We’ll keep you posted about that at our blog. The expected results from the Amsterdam events are optimistic:

Acquisition of Fund that will be used as loan for the Setup of Businesses conceived by young Entrepreneurs in Ethiopia.

In 2011 the first fund will be used to support the 3 entrepreneurs who won The Meleya Business Idea Competition Award.

During the years that the MeleyaFoundation is active in collaboration with St Mary’s University College (SMUC) and The New Business School (NBS), the contribution of the students was very important. Are you curious about the situation two years ago and what the plans and expectations were back then, see the interview with a part of the NBS class of 2009 in the video below.

Training for trainers - from ideas to business

One of the latest projects of the MeleyaFoundation is the development of a Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Addis Ababa. Last month we made some major progress, so it’s time for an update.

From 25 to 29 January, a training was offered for people who are going to support 45 young aspiring entrepreneurs who would like to set up their own business in Ethiopia. The training was a huge success since the initially planned 4 contestants turned out to be 9 professionals. The training was offered by MeleyaFoundation in cooperation with St Mary’s University College (SMUC) in the location of the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Bole Road - Addis Ababa.

The training

The motto if the training, given by RaoulChong, was “Translating Ideas to Concrete Business”. The five days of training were all about enable the 9 attentding professionals to train and coach entrepreneurial coaches, to translate ideas into business plans and to coach young entrepreneurs. This entrepreneurs were winners of the ‘Meleya Business Competition Awards’ who were organized last November. The 3 aspiring entrepreneurs, all SMUC Alumni, are Efrem (Tourism), Awel (Advertisment) and Adhenet (Honey). They’re introduced in this video.

Trainer RaoulChong, finance professional, business advisor and ToTtrainer, worked with the team of 9 education professionals for 5 days:

Day 1: Introduction and planning for the next 5 days

Day 2: Process of coaching, toolkit, local issues

Day 3: Entrepreneurs pitch, interview and feedback

Day 4: Coaching 101 (7 trainees) –in parallel the team worked to develop a business idea into pitch and business plan

Day 5: coaching 101(2 trainees), real case and round-up with trainers certification.

The Centre

The Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is still in progress, but with ambitious plans for the future. As a Business Development Center, main tasks are supporting and coaching entrepreneurs, consultancy service, training of trainers for entrepreneurial coaches, project management trainings and organizing and promoting events. Support from local and international institutions is contributing to the success of the centre. The centre has access to local and international consultants and experts, to a strong business network in Ethiopia and Holland and to institutions and resources. Also strategic partnership with different institutions and businesses in a diverse range of sectors is a major strength of the centre.

Major stakeholders

Meleya Foundation                The Hague:          Empowerment Through Exchange

St Mary’s University College   Addis Ababa:       Investing in Youth

New Business School              Amsterdam:        Responsible Business

Alterego Marketing               The Hague:         Creation of Identity

Meskel –Mouvements d’Art    The Hague:         Building Bridges

Funding and Support

Pilot project financed by Oxfam Novib

International Organization for Migration supports the project through the TRQN program(Temporary Return for Qualified Nationals).