Empowered, Enlightened, and Entrepreneurial
by Anna Mercer
In the Kyela region of Tanzania, students crouch together to examine their latest project: a thriving vegetable garden. These students, members of the Empowered Girls and Enlightened Boys clubs, are experiencing something magical. They are witnessing the results of creativity, patience, and collaboration, brought to them in the form of a beautiful garden.
Much like their well-maintained garden, these students are producing fruit. This is more than just vegetables, though—it is the fruit of independence, climate awareness, and equality. The topic of income generation has been a fundamental lesson since the beginning of the EG Kyela clubs in 2014. For the past two years, EGEB clubs have taken a more active approach to education and entrepreneurship. Rather than just hearing about entrepreneurship from teachers and club leaders, students are fully engaged in the process of enterprise, from ideation to planning to practice.
Each school–Mababu Primary, Matema Beach Secondary, and Mwaya Secondary–has their own project within the entrepreneurship program. The projects change as club membership changes. Projects have included flower and vegetable gardening, goat, rabbit, and chicken keeping, and even cocoa seedling production. All of the projects are deeply collaborative and have a focus on environmental sustainability. Every participating club member, whether they are a part of Empowered Girls or Enlightened Boys, must work together to make the projects succeed.
Emanuel Chikoti, executive director of Empowered Girls & Enlightened Boys in Kyela, Tanzania, has been developing entrepreneurship lessons since their inception. He recognizes a deep personal investment from students, saying that particularly with younger students, they don’t want “to sit down for an hour being told about entrepreneurship, but they love to engage, to act. They love to say ‘Hey! Can you bring some of the cocoa seedlings so we can work on that?’ They love it because it’s an activity, and it doesn’t need them to just sit down and listen. It’s there for them to work on, and they take charge of the whole activity.”
This ability to take charge extends beyond the designated time to work on the projects after school. Many students carry the knowledge home with them and use their new skills to start gardens and farming endeavors at home. One EGEB club member, Tide, uses her entrepreneurship knowledge to generate a little bit of income. She uses this money to buy her school supplies, taking an active role in financing her education. Chikoti said that Tide’s personal investment in her future shows the program is working as it should, and “makes you see the bright future of that student. When a student does that, it gives you the sense that she really wants to study, she really wants to fulfill her academic dreams, because she took that charge on her own.” She is invested in her future.
The entrepreneurship program supports an important goalof the EGEB clubs: to help students achieve their individual visions of greatness. Visioning, the process of writing a description of yourself in your ideal future, is a core aspect of the EGEB curriculum. Many students expressed a desire to become entrepreneurs in their visions, such as wanting to keep chickens at home or start a rabbit farm. Thanks to the entrepreneurship program, Chikoti is seeing these visions brought to life. He said, “When you see those things happening in their lives, they are making their visions, and their dreams, come true. We are pushing them to not only be better students, but also better citizens tomorrow.”
The incredible results of the entrepreneurship projects are only possible because of the collaboration between EGEB students. Every project requires all participants, regardless of gender, social circle, or year of school, to treat each other as true collaborators. Each student values their peers’ ideas, and each student plays an active part in bringing a project to life. Through hard work and a deep belief in their ability to succeed, students grow alongside each other, as varied as the plants in their gardens.
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