The Youth-In Business Organisation

A psychosocial community organisation, developing African youth through training, exposure, and opportunity provision to develop sustainable businesses, skills and projects.

Methodology

The Y.I.B. operates in simple terms using three-headed modus operandi:

1. Live & Virtual Events
A variety of programs, conferences, trade shows, and competitions provided with the intent that members gain access to opportunities, guidance, resources, applicable information, and mentors. These events have and will be graced with the presence of a handpicked array of seasoned professionals and sponsors such as SOLVE.

2. One-on-One Sessions 
Whether on zoom or in person, our founder sits with community members whose ideas, existing businesses, current projects and behaviour stand out. These sessions seek to assist with planning out their ideas, predicting possible obstacles and redundancies to pre-assign resource solutions that enabling them to execute or improve on their projects and businesses.

3. Networking & Resource Person Provision
In addition to the founder-member consultancy, we aim to introduce community members to one another to connect idea developers with skilled members who have the prerequisite abilities to enable execution using social media, virtual conferencing technology or physical meetings depending on their location in the country or diaspora. Thereafter we will provide this team with the necessary professionals and corporations with the support, investment, guidance or employment they may provide to bring such ideas to fruition.

The Youth-In Business Community aims to address the issue of the prejudice and the resultant lack of access to support that exists antagonistic to the multitudes of young people who want to take up businesses and projects in addition to their education or as a means of sustenance. This lack of access is due to many forms of prejudice and bias which are now resulting in a rise in youth involvement with criminal activities such as internet fraud, ritualistic killings, Ponzi schemes, and more, not for wealth, but in most cases simply for financial stability.

In addition nepotism in African economies, and in governance exacerbates the problem of youth unemployment, a growing one. Africa has the world’s youngest population, with a median age of 19.7 years. According to the African Development Bank, in 2015, one-third of Africa’s, 420 million young people between 15 and 35 years old were unemployed, another third were vulnerably employed, and only 1 in 6 was in wage employment. The gross uptake of fraudulent activities, is harming economies globally due to illegal online means of 'making money'. Please note Africa’s youth employment problem is a global problem, and foreign investors can’t be assured of peaceful business climates in Africa, as poverty and inequality fuel looting, insurgencies, and terrorist activity on the continent.

Description
The youth in Africa, are often left for last, disenfranchised, undervalued, undertrained and left lacking the necessary opportunities and avenues for idea presentation, skill and work experience acquisition, investment sourcing and so much more.

Who are they?
These youth range from bright prodigious 13/14 year olds all the way to well educated, hungry and willing 20-30 year olds who still have their whole lives ahead of them and no way to get ahead.

How are they underserved?
Employment as I earlier referred to is poor and lacking leaving the continent's  biggest segment of workforce under-utilised. In addition the education system is lacking, as many well educated graduates are unable to find jobs due to lack of understanding of what the "on-the-ground" work requires. 

Address Needs?

We do this through our keyword, 'practicality'. Avoiding projects, events, and speakers that are simply flamboyant and wordy and sticking to people with practical advice and applicable guidance to offer as well as our opportunity series. We are aiming to work with organisations at home and abroad that will force the youth into a new season where the only option is to do, because a series of workshops, internships, scholarships, job opportunities, partnerships and competitions will be offered that provide or help them provide for themselves all the foundation they have been lacking. We are giving them their start.

Our conference sign up forms always employ questions designed to truly understand the expectations of young people going into each event, thus we sit with each speaker to tailor their topics to the request and needs of the youth.

Our charitable branch has partnered with other startup charities, influencers, churches, and a member of parliament to host our charity projects, these are organisations and entities already functioning off an understanding of a specific communities needs.

Through our founders consultancy option for our members, he has met and worked with young people to develop their ideas and business and come to understand the needs and questions commonly posed by many of our youth.

In the social spheres of our team members each person has come to interact with and understand youth who engage in the aforementioned untoward activities and analysed their justification as a mean of attaining financial stability more often than get-rich-quick scheme's.

The Y.I.B Organisation has hosted a number of events that justify our selection, namely:

1. The Youth-In Business Conference: The first event held by the organisation hosting over 200 Ghanaian youth at the British Council's Auditorium in Accra, Ghana in July 2019.
2. Ghana Must Go Help Project (GMGH 2019): The story of how the bags, known as the Ghana Must Go Bags, is a reference to a period of shame for any Ghanaian, however we set out aiming to repurpose the bag, through charity as a way to support two orphanages with over 40+ kids in Prampram, Ghana.
3. Y.I.B-Virtual-Summit: A virtual entrepreneurship summit bringing youth in Ghana and the diaspora together.
4. Y.I.B-Prayer-Summit: In a primarily christian nation inclusion of faith in any endeavour to change mindsets is quintessential.
5. GMGH-2020: Orphanages in Prampram. 
6. GMGH-2021: Aided a village known as Aveyime, in the Volta Region.
7. Many partnership projects, including renovating a school with HUGS FOUNDATION, The Samaritan project, two youth entrepreuenlrship conferences with international startup organisations, and helped start a charity providing scholarships to junior high school girls.

Although simple our solution does require a lot of basic technology in a number of areas including but not limited to:

1. Marketing 

To get our speakers and facilitate discussions with our opportunity partners, we must find them and discuss with them via zoom meetings, email, direct messaging and more.

In marketing our events, projects, programs and more we rely on social networking and online mass media solutions such as the technology behind radio, television and more.

2. Resource provision & Branding

The technology behind branding and printing comes into play with our banners, onsite branding, and workbooks, booklets and other information and flyers shared on site.

3. AudioVisual Media

For both in-person and virtual conferences, town halls and seminars, prerecorded content is often shared and event stored online (cloud/google drive) to be accessed by members for the sake of reusability and post-event education. Microphones and speakers, powerpoint presentations and other media are always used in some fashion in line with our events.'

4. Crowdfunding

Our charity project often opens a gofundme page for fund raising.

5. Drones

  Sometimes used for the recording of content and marketing materials.

6. Web App

Our team is currently attempting to design a web app as our website to enable community member communication, account making and tracking, streamlining consultation and opportunity provision and so much more.

We've had events over the past three years that have totalled over 500+ youth having benefitted from or attended our events, partnered projects and charity events. Specifically our founder's consultation service for members has seen in-person or virtually to the aide of over 30 specific people and projects in the past year alone.

In the coming year we intend to impact 1000-2000 youth en masse, and groom directly over a 100 youth-induced, youth-inclusive and youth-interdependent businesses, ideas, and projects.

In the coming year we intend to impact 1000-2000 youth en masse, and groom directly over a 100 youth-induced, youth-inclusive and youth-interdependent businesses, ideas, skilled persons or projects.

We also intend to aid 100 young people to formally register themselves for a skill training course or register their idea, or project as a business for operation.

We lastly intend to award and publicise 10 notably innovative youth and their solutions to help them garner investment, support, publicity and more to operate.

Every event signup form will ask about the attendee, or applicant and the skills, or business they have involved themselves in developing and a team dedicated to sifting through the mass and selecting, interviewing and presenting at least 200 youth to the executive team will be put in place to meet, guide and groom a lower end target of 50% of them to see a 100% growth in their clientele, business revenue, charity's ability to raise funds, or in the case of skill gaining, a request for self-assessment and assessment of the impact of the YIB on their ability and effectiveness of their training will be given.

We aim to host a trade show and measure our success against the percentage of YIB-induced or directly supported businesses, projects and ideas present there against the entire host of youth owned businesses, projects and ideas present.

The SDGS Indicators we measure against (where the group referred to, is replaced by "YIB-Members")

SDG-8

Proportion of adults (15 years and older) with an account at a bank or other financial institution or with a mobile-money-service provider.

SDG-4

Participation rate of youth and adults in formal and non-formal education and training in the previous 12 months, by sex

Proportion of youth and adults with information and communications technology (ICT) skills, by type of skill

SDG-9

Proportion of small-scale industries in total industry value added

Proportion of small-scale industries with a loan or line of credit

SDG-17

Amount in United States dollars committed to public-private partnerships for infrastructure

- Financial sponsorship for external non-corporate entities is low in value, and rare to acquire due to both a nature of companies handling C.S.R internally and stopping at that, as well as nepotism. The finances goes towards, space rentals, branding content, marketing, hired/contracted personnel, competition rewards, logistics costs to expand access.

-Technical support for marketing, we would require more national and international media partnerships to help with marketing, marketing content, and event coverage for the benefit of sponsors. Access to international speakers, writers and leaders simply to provide some course material for our workshops and events could become a possible technical obstacle.

- Legal barriers, costs of registration as the organisation has been running as a project under our founder's company Lynchpin Global. Although it is not a problem here we would like it to be a stand alone entity. 

-Market barriers are also financial, as costs of running our organisation and campaign this year are relatively high compared to the past 3 years(bootstrapped). Ghanaian organisations tend to follow international support. Other youth organisations have not done so well in terms of truly benefitting the youth thus creating prejudice.

The team is composed of university campus leaders, young business owners, youth who have trained themselves to lear a skill specific to their craft be  for example a videographer, motion graphics designer, static graphics designer, youth political strategist, animator, comedian, e-commerce platform founder, online jewellery business owner, public speakers, branding & marketing business owner, a business consultant, as well as older partners who are established lawyers, entrepreneurs, national leaders, and more. 

My team has been groomed by myself and resource people, some for more than the 3 years we've been working on the Y.I.B. in project management, public speaking, marketing and team coordination, customer-acquisition (in our case member). Thus every team member directly embodies the exact image of the youth we are trying to create, young people who through interacting with myself, one another and the Y.I.B, have become the embodiment of our values of youth-induced, youth-inclusive, and youth-interdependent businesses.

Design & Technology Institute: Provides a practical, hands-on approach to help students hone their design, welding and handiwork talents in a conducive environment filled with art and design.

Diaspora Network Television: A Media partner that aides us in marketing, coverage of our events, and publicity for our soon to IGNITE 2022 campaign youth products.

Lynchpin Press: Branding Firm that offers discounts or delayed payment options on marketing materials for our members businesses.

LP Consult: The founder's consultancy firm that offers first-free, then discounted business consultation sessions online with our members.

The White Group: A real estate company that helps us give our youth first hand experience at being in the real estate space as a realtor or developer.

Purple Rain Decor: A interior decor, design, and landscaping firm that helps us give our youth first hand experience at being in the interior design space as a procurement manager.

N/A

We will use it to fund our Ignite 2022 campaign, and these events that compose the project will enable many young people receive the support, sponsorship and guidance to start business and project to sustain themselves, go to school, feed their families, simply better their society, or learn important entrepreneurial and life skills, especially for our female membership in a continent that is still coming to terms with the simplicity of gender equality in business and the corporate world.