Aae article For Fundraising Activity November 24, 2012 Global Giving Open Challenge 2012



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AAE Article For Fundraising Activity

November 24, 2012



Global Giving Open Challenge 2012
Nurture Ghana’s Entrepreneurial Mindset:

Establish A Literacy Service Centre and An E-Coaching Center

Dreamers cannot be tamed”. So goes a line in “The Aleph”, a book by world-renowned writer, Paulo Coehlo.


This sentiment is very true of the entrepreneurially minded people in Ghana who chase after their dreams of uplifting their standard of living and in the process help alleviate poverty within their community with the assistance of the Association of African Entrepreneur’s (AAE) programs, as it is of AAE in its unrelenting pursuit of its dream to empower entrepreneurs by providing access to resources like education, training, mentoring, knowledge sharing, networking and linkages services ever since it started operations in 20041.
The Challenge. Ghana’s economic growth faces macro and micro-economic, social, and political obstacles. Considered as a low to mid-income country, these inter-related factors provide the backdrop to how its economic development may be accelerated by accelerating private sector participation to bring its economy to the mid-income range and out of poverty levels. The World Bank has identified 3 main areas of focus in providing aid to the country – improvement of private sector competitiveness, human development and improvement of basic services delivery, and strengthening good governance and civic responsibility practices2.
Looking closely at these 3 main areas of focus, one can see that what cuts across them is an underlying theme of fostering sustainable growth by providing access to education. AAE’s previous efforts have already been geared in support of this theme. It developed and launched an Entrepreneurial Online Course in 2010 which provided an alternative training program including apprenticeship and self-study for young people from low income families who are unable to afford traditional classroom education, linkages to enable members of the AAE community to learn from each other and gain business insights or even prospects, plus coaching and mentoring especially for those who are of the entrepreneurial mindset.
This 2012, in furtherance of its developmental goals in the area of education, AAE commenced development of an informal learning system and proudly introduces its E-Coaching Center project.
Nurturing An Entrepreneurial Mindset. The World Bank 2012 report on the impact of its assistance strategy program for the country, lists access to educational services as a requirement to help children from low-income families improve their lives in the long run3.

As a response to this need and in pursuit of our organization’s objectives, AAE started a project called the “Literacy Service Centre” sometime in 2011. The main idea behind it is to build human resource capacity by boosting management and learning skills in MSMEs by providing a venue where technical and operative capacity is readily accessible to support the informal sector operatives in Ghana. Our goal is to complete all phases of the project by the end of 2013. Though this project, we hope to achieve the following:



  • Engage 10% of informal sector operatives

  • Reduce illiteracy by 30%

  • Enlist 50% of educational institutions to offer educational and training courses tailored for financially disadvantaged working sector

Likewise, by establishing an “E-Coaching Center”, we hope to provide Ghana’s entrepreneurial private sector with appropriate and necessary equipment to participate in a free online mentoring program meant to provide aspiring entrepreneurs the knowledge, skills, training, and understanding of the concept of sustainable business growth. The E-Coaching Center will be a 20-seater infrastructure with a free training course to enable those so inclined to share training information and a forum to support each other in their respective business projects. Reliable and free access to the Internet equals access to education and promotes human development as a whole. With a business focused program like that to be offered thru the E-Coaching Center, this opens up a whole new dimension where entrepreneurs have within their reach, valuable information, training, and mentoring of how they can start or grow their businesses.
Private Sector Growth Equals More Employment Opportunities. We at AAE have identified that Ghana’s Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) employ between 1 to 5 people, accounting for roughly 70% of the Ghanaian labor force. Given these figures, we deem is our top priority to improve competitiveness in this area. AAE continues to make things happen by providing access to education and technology with a view to opening new horizons to Ghanaians.
With the support of volunteers, we have already made available online, an entrepreneurial course which garnered a total of 652 unique page views and e-publications which were downloaded 96 times. The course and the e-publications served to enable entrepreneurs to make educated and informed decisions based on the prevailing social, economic and political climate in their respective countries of operation. One of our main premises in continuing on with what we do is that with education comes better understanding of how one can improve one’s circumstances in life – an improvement which no matter how small it may seem in the beginning, creates a positive ripple effect within the community. AAE’s latest projects, The Literacy Service Centre and E-Coaching Center, were designed in support this premise.
A Message of Hope. To dream is to hope. And hope floats. Funding for AAE’s current projects require at least $30,900.00 as seed money. If you want to help us keep our dreams and the dreams of our members and other African entrepreneurs afloat, we urge you to click on this link. It will take you the Global Giving page where you can search for our project under the name Build E-Coaching Center in Ghana to Mentor 100/year and help us successfully raise at least $5000.00 from 40 unique donors so that AAE may qualify to become a long-term member of the Global Giving community - this would help us expand our reach globally and as a result we can continue with our mission of supporting your African brothers and sisters in following their dreams and hopes for a better future.



1


 AAE is registered under the Ghanaian Companies Code, 1963 (Act 179).



2


http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:22897408~menuPK:141310~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html



3


 http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/ghana/overview





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