Teaching Business Skills

The most innovative venture in which the N4A team participated was a business project implemented at a local secondary school, where Roz Gater was given the opportunity to teach a class on any subject of her choosing.

Roz divided the class into groups that became companies, identified by an original name and logo. Each company participated in informal seminars in which they were taught business vocabulary, how to write a business plan, and ultimately how to turn innovative ideas into practical business enterprises. Each company was then given a small amount of capital (about £5, or $10) and a further two weeks to make a profit from their capital and their company’s business idea. If they made a profit, it was the company’s to keep. If they made a loss, they had to repay the initial capital. At the end of the two week period, every company had made a profit, one making three times the amount of the original investment.

During the last seminar, the class reflected on the companies’ successes, as well as what they could have done better as a company and what makes a successful business. Considering the slim employment opportunities available in Rwanda, this project encouraged young people to identify the possible profitable gaps in the market and act on their instincts and ideas with a small amount of money behind them.

It is hard to overstate the importance of this type of project in Rwanda. While Roz and her team were teaching in Kigali, a N4A assessment team was working in Ruhengeri, in the north of Rwanda. They independently came to the same conclusions as Roz; that basic lessons about business and capital are one of the most effective ways to nurture community development. N4A hopes to replicate this model in schools and community centres in Kigali and elsewhere in Rwanda.