REIGNBOUGH
Building a dynamic ecosystem to slove the economic/ education crisis of sexual minorities
in the context of sexual minorities, we mean (Women and LGBT+ persons) it is also the underrepresented groups amongst these communities, these include (those who live with disabilities and mental illnesses) over 5 million young women and LGBT+ persons live below the poverty line and are prone to sexual and physical violence because they continue to be criminalized and cannot seek redress in the law court. people hide behind the country's hateful laws to perpetuate inequalities in these communities. the consequence of this problem is that many young LGBT+ are at risk of dying, contracting different illnesses and suffering because there is no economic empowerment. many of them cannot make the right choices regarding their health because they are economically at a disadvantage, they cannot advocate for better laws, live their truths and be happy because the system was designed to never see them in the first place. the digital economy is changing most people's lives, especially in Africa, so we want more young women and LGBT+ people to be part of the burgeoning Tech landscape in Africa and Nigeria.
we are building a dynamic ecosystem to help our target audience be part of the Tech Ecosystem by creating a cohort-based learning platform. our cohort-based learning platform will provide accountability and feedback through instructors, coaches, projects and a community of peers. our goal is to stay with them for life by helping them first learn key digital and tech skills, then connecting them to employment, closely monitoring their journeys, inspiring some of them to found Tech startups and be employers of labour, connecting our community founders to potential investors, being their venture studio helping them scale their businesses and staying with them throughout their whole digital and Tech journey. our solution uses software tools and community TECH
our solution serves young sexual minorities which include (women, LGBT+ persons) and the underrepresented groups among these communities (people living with disabilities and mental illnesses) most of them are out of school, have been ostracized by their families and cannot get employment based on their outward appearances. most of the interventions that happen for LGBT+ persons are only focused on their health, but we cannot achieve the overall health and well-being of these communities if they are not empowered. our solution is breaking down the barriers to earning by equipping them with the relevant skills to become Tech giants and be financially free, allowing them to make better choices
our team are better focused to undertake this task because we have lived experiences and have had to pay certain prices and become who we are not to escape the problem. we want to change the narrative and bring about a new perspective to community building and engagement. our team are also experienced digital and business professionals that are focused on the authentic retelling of our narratives.
community engagement is the benchmark for everything we do at REIGNBOUGH. we focus on empowering communities and engaging ourselves in an impact-oriented activity, this is to say we are constantly asking questions and talking to our community, we do this through opinion polls, surveys, mappings, partnering with service delivery centres and organizing events. we have also rolled out our solutions in smaller phases, worked with some organizations to see the gap and have results from our pilot testing
- Improving financial and economic opportunities for all (Economic Prosperity)
- Prototype: A venture or organization building and testing its product, service, or business model
too many interventions regarding sexual minorities, especially the LGBT+ have focused on fixing the same thing; HEALTH. our solution brings a new perspective to solving this problem. we are reimaging what it means to be young and LGBT+ in Nigeria. like Umran Beba said "Today's leaders are expected to be inclusive. if you are an alpha leader to start with, you need to be alpha also about inclusive" this defines everything we are set to achieve with REIGNBOUGH. we want to "meaningfully" resource LGBT+ young persons, so they can authentically tell their own stories, we are tired of seeing them portrayed as the victims waiting to be saved by the system, so we wish to empower them to take up space and be powerful; because power is political, power is the only way to get meaningful results from engagements, so we want to open up a new horizon that sees many of them take up space and stand against bureaucracies and binaries
we plan to train 300 young LGBT+ persons in the next year and get over 200 of them employed at different companies. we plan to achieve this by entering into partnerships with various technology companies worldwide. then organising jobs clinics and hackathons to put them out there. we have already started sending out partnership letters to various companies and securing compiling a list of sponsorship directories we also plan on raising over $2,000,000, (we are already in talks with some Venture capitalists and Venture studios worldwide) for starters we plan on investing in 7 LGBT+ founded startups, writing a cheque of 200,000- 400,000 and targeting a 10% ownership. we are targeting this ownership as part of our sustainability plan in making sure we are continuously involved with them and also for future investments
we are creating an app called TIMEFACE. timeface is the platform our community will use to connect with one another. it is a mixture of FACEBOOK, QUORA and LINKEDIN. and the sole aim of Timeface is to give our community exclusivity they need to express themselves and not be bothered about online harassment. Timeface is also where our online classroom and the communication channel for the REIGNBOUGH community. people can tag themselves on topics, start an opinion poll, connect to their instructors, start their DEMO days, see their skills score and get general knowledge on important topics.
- Software and Mobile Applications
- Nigeria
our solution aims to serve over 3000 people next year
the biases of the mainstream media regarding sexual minorities. the rigidified laws and culture that see these people as outcasts.
we are currently partnering with CHEVS a community based organization to test this on a smaller scale of 25 people
it all starts with our community, building a brand and a network, providing them with a platform to learn digital skills, land jobs and launch startups. we also promote solutions to meaningful resource mobilization for the LGBT+ community in Nigeria and then our activities will include providing seed funding and targeting a 10% ownership stake. finding jobs for our participants and charging a "sustain fee" of $3. our revenue model includes donations, partnerships and events ticket sales, whales and venture funding
our path to financial sustainability includes advertising, whales, and subscriptions. ticket sales from events, consulting for enterprises and our venture fund