On June 18, 2019 together with Sunlight (a product of Unilever) and So Sure (a product of AFRIpads), we launched a collaborative, youth empowerment project known as “The Edupreneurs Project”. The project aims to economically empower youth by supplementing their incomes with the commission-tailored sale of home commodities, with an emphasis on lifestyle and health goods. The project will use RAHU’s large network of peer educators. It will provide a livelihood for these young people and also allow the local communities to easily access hygiene products and health information.
“The goal of the whole project is to empower youth with soft skills, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship. The project is a clever merge [between the companies and RAHU]. The pad and the detergent will allow girls to have safe and hygienic menstruation cycles.” said Wanyama Paul, the Innovations Analyst at Reach A Hand Uganda.
The term “edu-preneurs” is derived from the principal aim of the project to empower peer educators to educate the public on products and sell them within their respective communities. Peer educators will educate the public and then drive business from these interactions. When they sell products, the peer educators will be entitled to 70% of profits as commission thereby enabling them to make a significant margin of profit from their sales.
Speaking on behalf of Unilever, Joanita Menya, the Country Lead said, “We are happy to rely on RAHU’s ever-growing network of peer educators, who will bring their services and our lifestyle and hygiene products closer to their grassroot communities, to not only earn from them but also improve peoples everyday lives.”
The project will be piloted in the southwestern district of Mbarara where RAHU’s network of volunteers are actively engaged in community-centered mobilization efforts focusing on Sexual and Reproductive health.
According to Gertrude Adeker Emojong, Communications Officer of AFRIpads, “Through this project, we are not only empowering young people to become self-reliant and financially accountable but also enabling communities to access basic household commodities, services and health products that they would otherwise move distances for”.
Peer educators will undergo training on product knowledge, marketing techniques and customer benefits with the support from the teams at Unilever and AFRIpads. The educators will receive commodities at subsidized costs, after which they will educate the public and sell in their rural communities.
Humphrey Nabimanya, our Founder & Team Leader, is proud and excited for this partnership with So Sure and Sunlight, and he hopes that the project will expand into other districts as more partners are brought on board. “Since 2014,we have been training peer educators and one question that we have always asked ourselves is; how can we empower them economically to earn a living out of the voluntary work that they are doing?”
Your Reaction