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ALA student sets up Moroccan entrepreneur project | Tunde Folawiyo

With support from the African Leadership Network, an organisation with the help of members such as Tunde Folawiyo, the African Leadership Academy has been nurturing the minds of young leaders for several years now, supporting them as they pursue their entrepreneurial goals.

A prime example of the effectiveness of the ALA’s approach is the REC (Rabat Entrepreneurial Challenge). This was launched by a student of the ALA. The student in question, a girl named Jihad Hajouji, invited four of her peers at the ALA – Salma Ait Hssayene, Kaoutar Raj, Kamelia Lechani and Hafsa Anouar, to collaborate with her on a project she wished to launch. They accepted, and in December of 2009, work on the REC began.

Tunde FolawiyoEssentially, this project is a summer training programme, which enables high school students to learn more about the basics of entrepreneurship, a subject which is covered in great depth at the academy. Jihad hopes that, by educating young people about business and encouraging them to set up their own enterprises, she can help to address one of Morocco’s most serious issues – high unemployment rates. Businessmen such as Tunde Folawiyo understand just how important a project of this kind is; unemployment can have a devastating effect on a country’s economy.

Setting up the programme required a great deal of work; members of the team had to organise fundraising events, design the curriculum and recruit participants. Moreover, because there were two teams carrying out these preparatory tasks – one based in South Africa, the other in Morocco – each group had to maintain near constant communication with the other, so as to ensure that the plans went ahead as smoothly as possible, without any confusion or delays.

The programme was launched the following summer. Over the course of the last three years, it has expanded, and is now run in several different parts of Morocco. Hundreds of young people have participated, with many of them becoming so inspired by the experience that they went on to set up their own entrepreneurial projects. During an interview about the project, Jihad discussed her thoughts on its success, explaining that whilst the project was certainly challenging at times, all of the hard work paid off, and she was very glad to have been involved. She spoke of expanding the project even further, provided there is sufficient funding to do so.

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