TUI Futureshapers East Africa

Facilitating social entrepreneurship can support the development of meaningful jobs which offer employment and opportunities to vulnerable and underrepresented groups. This is particularly true for younger population, where youth unemployment rates are high.

The project trained four, innovative tourism entrepreneurs (aged 18-30) who then created a new Social Innovation Academy in Cape Verde and Zanzibar.

Job creation is critical and social entrepreneurship can play a key role in creating meaningful and sustainable jobs for the younger population. High youth unemployment and a dependency on tourism make Cape Verde and Zanzibar particularly vulnerable to the impact of global events such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project gives participants the option to create a new Social Innovation Academy (SINA) or social enterprise in their own countries.

The SINA model helps young people to create entrepreneurial sustainable tourism organisations. The project selected four young people from Cape Verde and Zanzibar who trained at the Social Innovation Academy in Uganda for nine months.

At the SINA academy they did learn how to overcome any negative beliefs that may limit their confidence. From there they were trained in accounting, logistics and entrepreneurship and attend life coaching and mentoring workshops. They then went through an “enterprise stage” where they were taught how to turn their ideas into reality. This did provide them the foundations of how to set up a viable social enterprise.

Now that they have completed their training in Uganda, they will return to Cape Verde and Zanzibar to set up their own community space or enterprise.

The project ended in April, 2023.

SINA helps young people to reach their full potential and create their own sustainable solutions and enterprises around the world.