Change Has a Ripple Effect

Over the next several years, the “Going Beyond – Partnering for a Youth-Led Future” project, a collaboration between Digital Opportunity Trust and the Mastercard Foundation, will equip 300,000 young Africans with the skills and mindset they need to thrive as entrepreneurs in a digital world. 

But that kind of generation-altering transformation does not happen overnight. It starts with a single act. In this case, the first ripple in our wave was to partner with six inaugural, and remarkable youth-led and youth-serving organizations in Malawi and Tanzania. These organizations then recruited Going Beyond’s first cohort of young women and men, and trained them as Youth Leaders to impart critical technology and business skills to their peers. 

The Youth Leaders are then embedded in their communities to create the next, bigger wave of the ripple, here’s a look at what they’ve seen and learned along the way. 

Partnership is a leap of faith: With Going Beyond, DOT is applying more than two decades of experience in training young people around the world in digital business skills. Our partner organizations, meanwhile, arrived at the table with their own track records of creating change for young people in their communities. Working together demanded each party adapt the way they worked, which required both trust and courage. DOT worked alongside the partners to strengthen their organizational capacities, and then both groups  teamed up to adapt DOT’s digital business curricula to their local realities. For both groups, the payoff was significant. “One plus one is not equal to two – one plus one is equal to three,” explains Neema Walter, co-founder of Sheria Kiganjani, a partner organization in Tanzania. “When you and I both bring our ideas, it creates new ideas that are much richer than what any of us started with.”

There is no shortage of passion for change among Africa’s youth: Over the last few months, each of the six Going Beyond partner organizations recruited 20-30 recent graduates to become the program’s first of many cohorts of digital business facilitators. This process was met with great excitement, with some organizations receiving as many as 1000 applications. “Most of them were very qualified, so it was an incredibly hard decision,” says Elijah Lumbani Mkandawire, CEO of mHub, a partner organization in Malawi. “The number of applications speaks to the appetite that young people here have to make change in their communities.” The deep pool of applicants also allowed each organization to recruit young people ready to live up to the project’s name. “We chose youths who are problem solvers, capable of going beyond the challenges they face,” Neema Walter explains.

At the same time, our partners saw that inclusion doesn’t happen without intention: At the end of the selection process, each organization had assembled a remarkable cohort of Youth Leaders from diverse backgrounds, ranging from trained social workers to activists for youth with disabilities to the owner of a small bakery specializing in cinnamon rolls. But none of that happened by default. Organizations had to make deliberate efforts to seek out Youth Leaders who would reflect back the diversity of their communities. For instance, Hakizetu, a partner organization in Tanzania, said they were at first concerned by how few applications they received from young women. But instead of throwing up their hands, they went to work. They visited women’s groups at local universities and pitched the project, and created new posters that showed women leading the trainings. “Sometimes women are scared, they just don’t feel they can do it,” explains Lydia Ibrahim, the Monitoring and Evaluation Manager at Hakizetu. By the end of the recruitment process, Hakizetu had more applications from women than men!  

Similarly, Songambele, an organization that works with young people with disabilities in Tanzania, made a point of recruiting Youth Leaders who were themselves living with a disability. “What excites us most is to see youth with disabilities getting the opportunity to be the change agents for their communities, because a lot of Tanzanian society still sees them as incapable of doing anything,” explains Happiness Manjuu, Program Officer at Songambele. This deliberate effort at inclusion allowed the Youth Leaders to also view their backgrounds as a source of strength.  “When I teach my peers, I am going to start with my personal story,” says Murshid Kinje, a Youth Leader in Tanzania. “Each of us has our own story.”

Knowledge flows in every direction: After they were selected, the Youth Leaders came together for a ten-day training hosted by the organization that had selected them. The goal of those two weeks was to prepare them to facilitate their own trainings on digital business skills for young people in their communities. Many participants remarked on the practicality of the skills they learned, which set the program apart from much of the traditional classroom learning they had received in the past. “Traditional education often falls short of creating the skills people need to thrive in the real world,” explains John Shayo, a Youth Leader from Tanzania. Also unique in the program’s approach was the idea that everyone in a classroom – from the facilitator of the session to the participants – has valuable expertise to share. “One highlight for me was the idea that when you’re working with youth, you’re going to learn together, unlearn together, and relearn together,” explains Generose Oscar, a Youth Leader from Tanzania. “I look forward to learning from them too.” 

Making waves: In August, the first cohort of more than 120 Youth Leaders finished their training and were deployed to their communities. Over the next six months, they will lead a series of six-week facilitation sessions on digital business skills for local young entrepreneurs. Youth Leaders expect these training sessions to be life-altering for many participants. “It’s something many of us take for granted, but when people learn to use a computer or smartphone for the first time, there’s a certain glow that comes over their faces,” explains Banji Sinoya, a Youth Leader in Malawi. “They begin to understand how much is out there that they didn’t know before.” That, in turn, could turn their lives in a new direction. “I am excited to get to know everyone and be part of their story of success,” says Nyanzobe Makwaia, a Youth Leader in Tanzania. “I love to leave my footprints in someone else’s life.” 

You can join the journey: At every stage of Going Beyond, the project’s impact multiplies. “DOT has engaged us, the youth-led organizations, and then we are engaging the Youth Leaders and they are engaging their peers,” explains Elijah Lumbani Mkandawire, CEO of mHub in Malawi. “At every level, more and more young people’s lives are being changed.” You can be a part of this movement by investing in the future of Africa’s young people, partnering with DOT to expand the organization’s impact, or simply sharing the stories of these dynamic African changemakers to inspire others. Every action contributes to transforming the future of the continent’s young people. Together, we are going beyond!