Daiki "Taji" Tajima

Location / Country: Kigali, Rwanda
Organization: Africa Entrepreneurship Collective

SONG: "This summer, I did my summer internship at African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC). AEC is an American NGO which supports entrepreneurs in Rwanda and Tanzania. AEC was founded by Ms. Julienne Oyler (CEO, Yale MBA) and Ms. Sara Leedom (COO, Oxford MBA) in 2012. Under AEC’s umbrella, there are three organizations; Inkomoko, the affiliate for providing business consulting in Rwanda, AEC Rwanda Trustee, which provides low-cost loans to entrepreneurs by collaboration with KIVA, and Anza, the affiliate for providing business consulting in Tanzania. Strictly speaking, I did my summer internship at Inkomoko among these three organizations.”

“Supporting entrepreneurs in Rwanda has three different stages. For the first stage, AEC/Inkomoko staffs provide workshops for training basic business skills such as setting vision, mission and goals, building effective team, and basic accounting. During the first stage, AEC/Inkomoko staffs also conducts initial meetings with the clients. For the second stage, AEC/Inkomoko staffs analyze the business of entrepreneurs in terms of sales and marketing, operation, people, finance and accounting. During the second stage, AEC/Inkomoko staffs also deliver the business assessment reports with recommendations to the clients. For the third stage, AEC/Inkomoko staffs set the priority of the consulting service based on the feedbacks from the clients. During the third stage, AEC/Inkomoko staffs also provide actual consulting services such as developing market strategies, making financial projections in order to get external funding from banks, providing advanced accounting workshops, etc. As a summer internship member, I mainly involved in the second stage, i.e. delivering the business assessment reports. “

Responsibilities & Accomplishments

“I was in charge of supporting four Rwandan entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurs are chosen by Bank of Kigali’s entrepreneurship support project. Under this project, the eight winners among fifty entrepreneurs will be provided the interest-free loans by Bank of Kigali.”

“Although there are many challenges for entrepreneurs in Africa, international organization, governments, and private companies are cooperating each other to unlock the great potential of entrepreneurs in Africa in order to create more jobs and achieve sustainable development of the continent.”

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Conclusion

“My summer internship at African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC) / Inkomoko was an amazing experience for me. I learned a lot from the NGO and people in Rwanda but at the same time I tried to do my best for contributing through supporting clients of AEC through business assessment reports, providing internal training about Japanese economic growth and developing networks with IFC and JICA. I would like to contribute more to the beautiful country, Rwanda, as wells as the amazing African continent after graduating from Fletcher.”

Marli Kasdan

Location / Country: Kigali, Rwanda
Organization: Hands of Mothers

Kasdan: "Overall, my internship experience with Hands of Mothers (HOM) was extremely rewarding for me. I learned a lot about development at the local level though the lenses of women’s empowerment in business, capacity building, and project sustainability. In addition, I feel that my work with HOM centered on deliverables and impact to our program participants. I thoroughly enjoyed working with the three cooperatives that HOM supports: Twiyubake, Baho, and Ejo Hazaza. I appreciate and recognize the many challenges they face, and I think that the HOM summer team was able to lay the groundwork for a sustained upward trajectory for each cooperative. My hope is that our team’s focus on capacity building through a series of trainings and workshops and our emphasis on promoting sustainable income generation has put in place the foundation for each cooperative to become independent from HOM and sustainable in the long run.”

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Hands of Mothers

“HOM worked with three women’s cooperatives in Kigali, Rwanda:

• Baho: raises kuroiler hens and sells eggs

• Twiyubake: makes hand-crafted leather sandals

• Ejo Hazaza: makes hand-crafted jewelry; applied for a grant to start a project to grow and sell oyster mushrooms”

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Deliverables and Impact to Program Participants

“During the internship, my deliverables and impact on program participants mainly focused on my work with the women in the cooperatives that HOM supports. Throughout the summer I ran a series of trainings and workshops along with my team members in order to help the women in the cooperatives improve their record keeping skills, sales skills, cooperative management and organization, and cooperative accountability structure. “

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Conclusion

“I thoroughly enjoyed my internship experience with Hands of Mothers in Kigali this summer, and I hope that I had a positive impact on the women we worked with and HOM. I gained valuable field work experience this summer, and I want to extend my most sincere thank you to Jerry and Yunie Blakeley for the fellowship.”

Mark Karugarama

Country: Rwanda
Organization: Zamura Feeds LTD

MARK: "Over the summer, I had the opportunity to work with a young but promising social-enterprise in Rwanda’s growing Agri-business sector. Located in Musanze District, Northern Rwanda, Zamura Feeds LTD operates in the commercial livestock feed industry. It is a relatively new industry, formerly subsidised by the government, but slowly becoming more and more commercialised, to effectively cater to the growing needs of farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs in the region."

My responsibilities revolved around 2 major activities; i) working directly with cooperatives and small-holder farmers to assess their needs and ii) designing a marketing and distribution plan to use a similar business model to reach parts of Southern and Eastern Rwanda, as well as neighboring border towns in Uganda and the DRC. This model will be used in conjunction with distribution centers to determine the most cost-effective way to get the product to market and to reach even those farmers in the most rural areas.

"We worked with farmers on two fronts; i) farmers who purchased the feed for their farms/animals and ii) farmers who supplied all the input (i.e maize bran, whole maize, cotton seed cake, sunflower seeds, soybean, limestone, shells, and a multitude of other inputs). An effective distribution channel would therefore be helpful not only for selling the product, but also in sourcing input--which Zamura pays competitive prices for, to ensure the farmers are making enough to support themselves and their families. Gaining an understanding of the farmers and their families’ economic goals and aspirations--and how the company is working closely with them--had a deep and lasting impact on my entire internship experience.

Two of my colleagues and I traveled off-site, twice a week, to meet with smallholder farmers and small businesses in the border towns of Goma (Congo) and Kabale (Uganda), some of whom are clients of Zamura Feeds. In discussions with farmers and cooperative leaders, we were able to get further insights into people’s overall perception of the product, and note down any challenges; access; price, effectiveness, etc. My experience was greatly shaped by thought-provoking conversations with farmers and the cooperatives they work with, which help them get their produce to market. I have learned a lot both from the businesses perspective and from the farmers who seek to lift themselves out of poverty. Challenges abide, but the agribusiness sector is ripe with opportunity and potential."

"Production success stories were told across the livestock production sector in other neighboring villages we visited for not just dairy farmers but broiler,layer and swine farmers whose goals intersect at one point: increasing yields be it of eggs, meat or milk/dairy products. It inspired a feeling of hope in me, that simple but well-organized animal husbandry could have such a tremendous impact on people and help them lift themselves out of poverty, especially in a country where around 67% of the population depends on agriculture for their sustenance. Overall, the internship experience was for me a learning opportunity unlike any other."

Fumi Tataki

Country: Rwanda
Organization: African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC)

Fumi: "The purpose of my summer internship is to earn an experience of working in Africa to find approaches to achieve economic development through business. By working as a mentor and consultant for clients of African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC) in Rwanda, I developed strong interest in working in human capital development for small medium enterprises (SMEs) in the future.  

After working with SMEs in Rwanda, I started to develop a career interest in human capital development, particularly skill development and change in awareness toward professional environment. I was intrigued by the need of that human capital development that can tremendously make positive impact to development of the country. Besides my work at AEC, I also had a chance to work with AIP, a program that provides training to students. With another Fletcher student, I presented Business Canvas Model to university students across Rwanda. It was a wonderful experience to interact with students and help them develop their own business ideas. After Fletcher, I would like to
pursue my career in SMEs sector to help their business to make development impact to their lives and country’s well being."

Justin Sullivan

Country: Rwanda
Organization: African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC)

Justin travelled to Kigali, Rwanda as a Global Business Mentor for African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC) at Inkomoko, AEC’s pilot program. AEC’s model has already helped create more than 700 jobs, while contributing to the country’s economic and social development.  

Justin: “I found the opportunity to work so closely with young, driven African entrepreneurs incredibly valuable. Not only was I able to refine and put to practice many of the lessons from first year foundational business courses at Fletcher, but I was able to do it a part of the world that I consider a second home, and in a sector that I am truly passionate about and believe will continue to bring a significant social impact to Africa in the future. Honestly, my experience this summer far exceeded my expectations. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity that the Blakeley Fellowship has given me. With this experience under my belt, I look forward to a long future career in the East African tech business."

Nathaniel Rosenblum

Country: Rwanda
Organization: African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC), Inkomoko

Nathaniel spent the summer working for Inkomoko, a business acceleratory run by the African Entrepreneur Collective (AEC) based in Kigali, Rwanda. AEC through Inkomoko works with hundreds of entrepreneurs in Rwanda to help them move from start up to fully‐fledged business. They are not specialized in a particular field, and rather reflect the growth spaces of the Rwandan economy

Nathaniel: “the most important accomplishment of my time in Rwanda has to do with refocusing my career interest. I am now much more aware of the challenges of financing development in agriculture through the private sector. These challenges are not insurmountable, rather without a concerted effort to deal with them they will continue to hamper ambitious and deserving entrepreneurs. In whatever my next steps are I plan on addressing those problems thanks to this summer’s glimpse into the Rwandan agribusiness landscape.”

Catherine Klepacki

Country: Rwanda
Organization: Resonate

Resonate inspires women and girls to become leaders and individual agents of change in their families and communities by teaching them to leverage their personal stories to build confidence and realize their own worth and potential. 

Catherine: "Working with Resonate provided an incredible opportunity to gain experience at the local level in an unfamiliar international context. I learned important lessons about the challenges a small start‐up or NGO may face as this type of organization works to create a sustainable platform for lasting and impactful social change. I gained a unique appreciation for program implementation and evaluation challenges associated with the push by donors and foundations to provide concrete data reflecting a measure of organizational success. These insights impacted how I think about program structure, the importance of clear and measureable goals, and data collection and analysis. The impact of local stakeholder partnerships on organizational success was also clearly demonstrated. Although I learned a great deal from this experience, the opportunity to work in a post‐conflict context with local stakeholders provided greatest personal impact. I am extremely grateful for the Rwandan women with whom I worked who imparted a wealth of wisdom and insight. The opportunity to work with Resonate this summer was extraordinary. Sincere thanks to the Blakeley Foundation for making it possible!"

Heather Lemunyon

Country: Rwanda

Organization: AEC (The African Entrepreneur Collective

Heather Lemunyon’s role at AEC (The African Entrepreneur Collective) was to serve as a Global Business Mentor, or and entrepreneurship consultant who worked one-on 0one with AEC’s clients in business planning financial planning, developing strategies for growth, market and sales analysis, and and strategic vision.

Heather: “In every way possible, my time as a Global Business Mentor with AEC was outstanding. Not only did I fulfill all of my personal goals for my internship experience, I was allowed great opportunities to directly and positively impact the growth of East African companies that I hope will continue to grow, increase employment, and continue to develop this region of the world with such large opportunities and potential.”

Jocelyn

Country: Catholic Relief Services

Jocelyn worked with Catholic Relief Services-Rwanda (CRS-Rw) to analyze how male and female farmers benefit differently from CRS’ agricultural and value-added production programs. She designed focus group surveys to meet with coffee, sweet potato, and cassava farmer’s groups. Her research was shared with the CRS-Rw livelihoods team to improve future agricultural and gender programming.