Hi we are the Venture U team! We’re college students from the Washington DC area and we’re introducing an exciting program developed for schools like yours! Our organization is called Venture U, and we help students in secondary schools learn practical entrepreneurship skills in hopes that they will be inspired to begin businesses of their own. We want to see communities transformed through the power of education, and the accomplishments of young entrepreneurs! Just like you we want to see the next generation have a big impact on their communities and Uganda as a whole.
Without practical business training, students are being taught how to be job-seekers rather than job-makers. We would like to help change that!
We’ve done a lot of research and have put together a solid entrepreneurship curriculum, complete with a teacher’s course and practice quizzes to instruct students on how to start their own businesses. We want to see students finish their studies with not only academic knowledge, but with entrepreneurial knowledge as well. This knowledge will allow students to obtain a job by creating their own. Starting your own business can be difficult and it involves risk, but entrepreneurs are necessary for communities to grow. We are here to help inspire students to take advantage of the opportunity of entrepreneurship, and we want to help make the process easier!
In June 2014, we traveled to Uganda and launched our program in the Alpha and Omega Vocational Secondary School in Kiburara, Uganda. The students are enjoying the Venture U program and have learned a lot already. Many of the students have been inspired by our program and have already started their own businesses while they are still in school! We are greatly encouraged by their success and we hope you will be as well. Here is some of the feedback from our friends at Alpha and Omega after using our program for only two months:
[Testimony from Victor] “My name is Victor. I am a senior three student at Alpha and Omega Secondary School. I am so grateful for Venture U because of the business management ideas that I have gotten. I am now planning to start rearing chickens when I go back and also teach Venture U skills to other people in my village. Thanks.”
[Testimony from Innocent] “My Name is Innocent. I am a student at Alpha and Omega Vocational Secondary School. I just heard about Venture U in June 2014 where we learned how to start our own business, marketing, book keeping, etc… As the chairman of Venture U at Alpha and Omega, we are planning to start a piggery and chicken business next term. Many thanks to Venture U.”
Innocent has a strong entrepreneurial spirit; in addition to the new business ventures that he is pursuing, he had already started his own necklace business. Innocent’s ambition is inspiring; and in fact, the profits from his business help his brother attend school and pay for his sister’s medical treatment. We are proud of Innocent’s success as an entrepreneur and for the way he provides for his family. We believe that every student has the potential to make the same impact as Innocent; however, they may be lacking the practical training needed to both launch and sustain a business. That is why we are here - to provide that very training.
Now that we have hopefully sparked your interest about this exciting program and the success of these students, we will explain how it works:
The Venture U Entrepreneurship Elective program is a practical, non-academic elective. It is a downloadable curriculum provided on a flash drive, much like this one. The curriculum includes detailed courses on entrepreneurship as well as other resources like short practice quizzes and business guides. Our program also includes a course just for teachers to walk them through how to teach the course. This makes it easy for any faculty member to teach our Entrepreneurship Elective - therefore, schools will NOT have to hire an additional teacher. All they need is a projector. Our curriculum provides the information, resources, discussion questions, and quizzes needed to teach and test the students’ knowledge. Students will complete the course with a greater understanding of entrepreneurship and they will be equipped to create and sustain businesses on their own.
We are pursuing nonprofit status because our goal is to help students, not to make money. However, while we focus on this goal, it is an expense to create and deliver the program. Although we do not make a profit from this product, we do require schools to pay a small fee to offset the costs. The good news is, you can view our program and try it out today FREE OF CHARGE! To start your free two week trial or to simply learn more about Venture U, please visit Uganda.VentureU.org. You can also email us at team@ventureu.org to contact to our team personally.
We are so excited to see students become inspired and equipped to start businesses of their own! Entrepreneurship is an important part of a community and we believe there are major implications to training a new generation of entrepreneurs. Like Innocent, the students will be able to provide for their families, pay for school tuition, medical bills, and more, all while feeling the accomplishment of owning their own businesses. We hope you will join us in this vision of empowering Uganda’s youth. We anticipate that the next stories of entrepreneurial success that will come from the students at your school!