My Lemonade Day

Unemployment is the root cause of many problems South Africa is facing today, such as crime, poverty, and poor mental health.  South African youth unemployment is at an unacceptable 61.3%.  South Africa’s poor education system does not equip young people today with adequate skills to create their own employment. 

Introducing you to My Lemonade Day (MLD). A proven youth entrepreneurship programme that has already engaged and empowered  1 million youth in America.  MLD is a free-to-use, fully digitised and practical (hands-on) 6-week learning programme aligned to the curriculum.  Kids learn to start, own, and operate their own business.  They buy ingredients, make and sell their own lemonade in their own stands all while participating in digital learning.  

MLD has been designed and built as a fully scalable solution that can be localised for language and culture, and has potential to create a spirit of entrepreneurship amongst young people globally.

South Africa’s youth unemployment rate is at an unacceptable 61.3%, and 72% of teens are worried about getting a job when they finish school.  South African scores second last in the world for mathematics, and students are not well equipped with sufficient financial education and life or business skills.  Unemployment is considered to be the root cause of many problems South Africa is facing today including crime, poverty, and poor mental health. 

We believe that youth entrepreneurship is the way out forward.  There is much work to do, and we believe the existing and proven My Lemonade Day (MLD) programme provides an innovative  way for young people to develop a culture of entrepreneurship and problem solving.

Lemonade Day is a fun, experiential programme that teaches youth how to start, own and operate their own business - a lemonade stand. Kids learn how to set goals, make a plan, and run their own stand, and get results.  They go through 4 modules accompanied by practical real-world activities.  

Lemonade Day is curriculum-aligned to maximise engagement and learning, and comes with materials for teachers, mentors, and parents.  

Lemonade Day has successfully empowered 1 million youth in America so far.  Sea Monster has designed and built the digital platform for Lemonade Day, called My Lemonade Day (MLD), available in English and Spanish.

Africa needs an impactful entrepreneurship programme.  We are looking to scale MLD starting in South Africa where we have already understood how the programme must be adapted, localised, and delivered.

MLD consists of a mobile application for the learner and a web application for the mentors. Both  communicate with a single back-end service which supports all required functionality.   MLD is built using Amazon Web Services.

We are committed to empowering today’s youth with financial and business skills allowing them to consider entrepreneurship in the future.  We will impart life skills such as negotiation, communication, teamwork, goal-setting, and more.  

We have already mapped the complementarity of the My Lemonade Day (MLD) programme to the South African curriculum, and have found very strong alignment with the learning objectives for pupils in grades 4 to 6.  Youth in this age group are in one of their most influential life stages and are starting to take responsibility and develop independence. They can understand cause and effect and form foundations and clear thoughts.   

Currently teachers are struggling to find meaningful ways to deliver the curriculum learning objectives and are looking for innovative practical activities that can stimulate learning and engagement. MLD will encourage usability in schools as it will be part of lesson outlines, provide a practical component to lessons, and become part of the lesson plans and classroom activities. 

Parents and guardians will be encouraged to participate as there are practical elements that may need to be undertaken out-of-school hours.  

As we look at the practicalities of bringing this programme to South Africa, we are undertaking human centered design research to ensure that the programme is appropriately localised and adapted.  We are also engaging with curriculum design experts who have intimate knowledge of the school curriculum and challenges teachers have in delivering quality learning. These experts will support us in the design and development of classroom and parent material to support the My Lemonade Day programme, and in signing up schools to participate in the programme. 

Through our partner YDx, we will be able to leverage 20 years of experience engaging schools to amplify their ability to deliver learning objectives aligned to the curriculum.

We have already seen through My Lemonade Day in America, some incredible results and impact on participants who were surveyed pre and post to measure their entrepreneurial beliefs and behaviours.

Critically, Lemonade Day youth run their own businesses at a level that is now 3x more than the average US student (according to research conducted by Gallup).  And....

• 67% paid back their investor

• 20% opened a savings account

• 70% saved a portion of their profit

• 66% “shared” a portion of their profit (ie with a charity or someone else in need)

A survey to Mentors shows the % who saw personal improvements in their youth who participated 

• 91% saw an improvement in resourcefulness and problem solving

• 91% saw an improvement in seeing a project through to completion

• 92% saw an improvement in communication skills

• 90% saw an improvement in self esteem and sense of purpose

The same survey showed improvements in financial literacy and mathematics

• 87% saw an improvement in knowledge of financial vocabulary

• 87% saw an improvement in ability to set financial goals

• 88% saw an improvement in understanding of savings and philanthropy

• 88% saw a correlation between math and the real world

We believe that My Lemonade Day has the ability to deliver similar if not better results with South African youth, and that the programme can be scaled within South Africa and across African countries, and beyond.

We would benefit immensely from Solve’s network of partners and access to further funding to truly ignite this programme on the African continent. 

We believe that My Lemonade Day aligns with the Equitable Classrooms Challenge as it:

• Is an innovative technology-based solution that engages primary school learners 

• Increases the engagement of learners both digitally and practically in the real world

• Provides strategies and tools for parental support and guided independent work

• Enables access to quality learning experiences in low-connectivity settings (as long as the educator has access to a smartphone and can download the app)

• Provides hands-on learning by encouraging users to actually design and build their own stand while learning about business

We believe we can adapt and localise the current programme to deliver significant transformation to today’s African youth.

Lemonade Day is an 11 year old programme that to date has focused on American youth.  The Lemonade Day programme has been designed, refined, and implemented over the years to deliver maximum impact across the United States.  

 With the recent introduction of Spanish, we have been able to show how readily the platform can be adapted for language localisation.

We are very excited to bring this transformational youth entrepreneurship programme to South Africa and other African markets where the need is significant.

My Lemonade Day South Africa is innovative in the way it dovetails with the existing curriculum, provides support to teachers and parents, and delivers transformative learning experiences that are fun, engaging, practical and hands-on.  

Kids learn how to start, run, and own their own business within a matter of weeks.  Learning is practical, hands-on, and supported through the digital app.  There is no formal “learning academy” nor is there any formal “testing”. Children learn by doing.  

Teachers are crying out for ways to bring the curriculum to life.  My Lemonade Day has been mapped against the South African curriculum, and has been vetted by curriculum design experts who will aid in development of school posters, classroom posters, teacher support materials, and parent support materials.  

In addition, the digital platform allows for interaction in low-bandwidth contexts allowing for increased accessibility and reach.  

We all learn through stories.  Kids are taken along an exciting and fun visual journey with Lemmy the lemon who helps tell the story of Becky who runs her lemonade stand in order to save up for a guitar to play in a band with her friends. 

We have seen dramatic results in America, across financial literacy and mathematics capabilities, and softer skills such as problem solving, communication, and self-esteem.  Over 1 million youth have already been empowered in America.  We intend for this programme to be catalytic on the African continent starting in South Africa where we hope to empower 1 million youth in the next 3 years.  

Lemonade Day has served over 1 million youth since 2007.

We intend to bring the programme to South Africa.  Here in South Africa we plan to start with 500 schools (average 375 learners per school), for a total of 187,500 learners in Phase 1. We are aiming for Phase 1 to commence towards the end of 2021. 

Our plan is to scale our reach to 3,000 schools over 3 years, which will enable us to reach over 1 million young kids in South Africa, and in 5 years to 5,000 schools (1.8M learners).

As we have not yet started the Lemonade Day programme in South Africa, we are not currently using any measurable indicators here.  However, once we do start, in Phase 1 we will be looking to generate meaningful data from schools, teachers, parents, and learners themselves about the impact of the programme.  We will be drawing on many of the same indicators as outlined in the Theory of Change.

As we have not yet started our South Africa programme, the number of people on the solution team may evolve.  For now we anticipate the following:

 Sea Monster:  Part time - 3

YDx:                  Part time - 2. Contractors 2-6

The Sea Monster team has significant expertise in designing and building apps including the My Lemonade Day digital platform. We already know the platform, we have helped design the digital programme and all the animated explainers and assets that contribute to the childrens’ learning journey.  Sea Monster is also headquartered in South Africa, and we are intimately familiar with the challenges youth are facing here.  We have significant experience delivering programmes with youth here in South Africa and will be bringing that expertise into this programme. Sea Monster takes a human centered design approach in all of our work and have already mapped out how the digital platform needs to evolve and adapt in order to be suitable for the South African context. 

YDx is our partner and they have over 20 years of experience in engaging youth in South Africa, Kenya, and 2 additional African markets.  YDx works with curriculum design experts who have already evaluated the Lemonade Day programme and are incredibly excited to bring this programme to South Africa.  They have already mapped out the curriculum alignment, appropriate grade levels, and are already developing an understanding of the nature of materials that would need to be developed in order to support the teachers to deliver this impactful programme in their classrooms.

Sea Monster is 100% committed to diversity.  We are a 51% black owned business, and have a representative management team that is >50% women, and has management from a variety of religious, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. 

We believe Solve can assist us with catalysing our funding goals so that we can scale this programme in South Africa, and take My Lemonade Day to additional African markets at pace. 

 We also would benefit immensely from the Solve community to access mentorship and strategic support particularly as we look at building sustainable business models that allow us to scale effectively. 

While we are locking down our understanding of the cost of practically delivering this programme via schools in South Africa, we know it is critical that we understand and develop a considered business model that will place us on the path to financial sustainability and ensure that it continues to be a financially meaningful endeavour.  

We need to be able to start and scale this programme within South Africa and also to extend to other markets such as Kenya for example.  

 We believe that the nature of the programme is unique and innovative in the way that it aligns with curriculum, enables teachers to deliver learning more effectively, is fun and exciting for students which allows them to learn while “playing”, and in that it has been shown already in America to deliver significant results a propos soft skills, financial literacy, and more.  We would benefit from PR advice and support in order to shine a light on My Lemonade Day.

We are already working with YDx who have expertise in youth engagement and significant experience in the education sector in South Africa, Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria.   

We would be seeking partnership with a similar organisation who can help us activate My Lemonade Day in geographies beyond those 4.  

In addition, we would be keen to partner with organisations who can support us with the development and refinement of our business model, and can support us with access catalytic funding.

Although we are looking to bring My Lemonade Day to Africa, the Lemonade Day programme already exists in America.  The team there may certainly be interested in applying for the ASA Prize as it is a very strong fit for the programme - ie primary and secondary classroom, provides for experimentation, project based learning, develops teachers, and more.

My Lemonade Day has the potential to create sustainable communities through innovations in STEM education.  Learners who participate in the programme can go on to establish their own businesses, and mentor other young people to do the same.  If we can address the significant issue of youth unemployment by fostering a spirit of entrepreneurship, then we have some hope of sustainable communities.  

We would be keen to apply as long as the prize is open to solutions that appeal to Grades 4-6 students.

Women and girls are often the most marginalised in society, and with such high levels of youth unemployment, women are suffering significantly in South Africa.  My Lemonade Day empowers boys and girls alike. Empowering girls to become entrepreneurs will have significant positive impact on their quality of life and the quality of life for those around them (families and communities). We have some wonderful stories of young female entrepreneurs who started their entrepreneurship journey with Lemonade Day.