According to the African Development Bank Group, Africa as a continent, has the largest number of social enterprises with many opportunities for funding from different sectors. Unfortunately, most of these social enterprises lack the critical elements for scaling and sustaining their enterprises including mentoring support.
LEAP Africa has been at the forefront of empowering and equipping young Nigerian social entrepreneurs through the Social Innovators Programme (SIP). It provides knowledge and skills for organizational sustainability. With the support of Union Bank of Nigeria, LEAP Africa has equipped about 120 young social innovators, changing Africans’ narratives and improving the lives of people in the last 7 years.
In 2020, the maiden West African cohort of 40 social innovators were inducted into the fellowship programme during the annual SIPA 2020. The first level of engagement in the programme is the Enterprise Sustainability Workshop. For the first time in 2021, and in line with present realties, LEAP Africa has transitioned from a residential workshop to an entirely virtual experience for all the fellows from January 25th – 4th February 2021.
For the latest cohort of the SIP fellows, the workshop is the first step in their journey to building sustainable enterprises and transforming Africa. At the end of the 2-week workshop, it is exciting to hear about the experiences and learnings from the fellows and how they intend to integrate the new knowledge into their initiatives and the energized commitment to continue to solve social problems using innovative solutions.
