For the 3rd year now, Belle and Co has been a key part of the Lifechoice’s Coding Academy personal and professional development programme, offering innovation, critical and creative thinking workshops to learners across 4 cohorts twice a year.
Every year, the students surprise us with their inventiveness coming up with prototypes to their most pressing personal and community problems. Mental Health, Crime, Environmental Pollution and other key issues close to their hearts get a revisit and fresh perspective.
Our country is in good hands if one looks at these young dynamic leaders! We need more forward thinking creative people.
Ground Up: Social entrepreneurship ecosystem boost for resilient – Seminar one (16 to 21 May 2022)
Macedonia 16-21 May 2022, Belle and co representative: Musa Mailula
The goal of the Ground Up project’s first seminar was to share information from partner groups’ work in the field of social entrepreneurship.
The results of the research undertaken by each of the 11 partner countries will aid in the identification of indicators to be included under each of the four pillars used to determine what makes a city resilient and supportive of social entrepreneurs.
Each of the pillars will have a collection of indicators that will be combined into a single digit index to quantify the amount of social activity in a country.
In order to achieve the above mentioned goal, in depth team discussions were held with the combined group. The bigger group was also paired into smaller working groups made up of participants from different partner countries. The discussions were later followed by interactive group sessions where we attempted to develop the indicators. During the interactive sessions, we had an in-depth discussion around the availability of data and calculation methodology/formulae. The last activity of seminar one was the presentation of the indicators.
The following broad list of indicators was compiled with the contribution of the 11 partner countries:
HUMAN CAPITAL
Demographics information (structure of population within local community, including the number of youth, age of population, level of education, gender etc)
Structure of vulnerable groups at local level
Detailed information on youth structure
Goals of CSOs/topics they cover
Number and structure of participants of the programs of CSOs relevant for the sector.
QUALITY OF LIFE
Human Development Index (HDI) – includes life expectancy, Gross National Income per Capita, Mean years of schooling and Expected years of schooling
Homelessness
Poverty/inequality
Gender inequality
Quality of health systems – doctors per capita
People affected by natural disasters
Pollution (water, air, noise etc)
Access to digital technology (internet, PC, mobile phone etc)
Crime rate
Percentage of green areas around the country
Accessibility of education
Socio economic developmentÂ
Financial standard
Average salary
Rent
Taxes
Cost of living
Economic stability
Inflation
Unemployment
Economic growth
Housing
Quality
Home ownership rate
Infrastructure
Accessibility
Public transportation
Political stability
Regulatory of the flow of political exchange
Human rights and laws
Discrimination
Gender equality
Disabilities
Environment
Pollution
Basic human needs
Poverty
Access to water
Average death rate
Access to health services
Quality of health care services
Crime rates
FUNDING AND CAPITAL ACCESS
Government loans – grants
Venture capitalists – private equity
Bank loans
Family and friends
Crowd funding
Charity donation
Duration of support
Eligibility
Sector
Age
Social impact area
Geographical coverage
Amount
SUPPORT SYSTEMS
Physical places providing information
Education institutions providing information
Number of financial institutions as percentage of banks
Number of existing sources in public sector
Number of existing sources in private sector
The objective of seminar II is to narrow down the list and find sources of quantitative data for the list to include in the index and will be held 3-8 July in Costa Rica.
More About the Ground Up Project
The project “GROUND UP: SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM BOOST FOR RESILIENT CITIES” focuses on development of place-based methodologies enabling youth organizations and other actors to build ecosystems that boost social entrepreneurial activity. This is an 18-month project supported by the EU Erasmus + Programme and implemented by lead partner Youth Alliance Krusevo of Macedonia.
The methodology will enable youth organizations accomplish these objectives:
to identify challenges and obstacles that inhibit supportive environments;
to strengthen social entrepreneurial ecosystems from the ground up, enabling cities to identify smarter paths of empowering young people;
to identify transferable good practices from initiatives, projects with high social and environmental impact; to understand the needs, motivations of stakeholders involved in developing social entrepreneurial ecosystems;
to create a unified evidence-based framework indicating elements critical to success locally.
The project is including 11 organizations representing North Macedonia, Costa Rica, South Africa, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Poland, Denmark, Ecuador, Serbia and Peru.
The project will include series of capacity building and mobility activities designed with aim to reach following objectives:
to evaluate local contexts and support the creation of conducive social entrepreneurial environments using created methodology;
to gather and analyse practices implemented and transfer these practices in the field of youth;
to develop competences of youth workers in new methodology thus increasing quality of activities targeting young people with fewer opportunities and developing their entrepreneurial competences
to encourage collaboration in the creation of local and international projects addressing challenges that prevent supportive social entrepreneurial ecosystems.
The title of this blog “The Future is Co-Created” is a tag line from an amazing client that Belle and Co. is privileged to be working with, The Innovation for Policy Foundation. Haven’t heard about them yet? Let me introduce you …
The Innovation for Policy Foundation (i4Policy) is a pan-African non-governmental organization that brings citizens, communities and governments together to co-create the future! They do this by:
Re-imagining governance
Designing participation
Teaching Transformation
Re-imagining Governance
From co-initiating and coordinating the Global Assembly, to launching a viral crowdsourcing campaign during the covid-19 pandemic that reached more than 200m people, i4Policy works to amplify people power to address the greatest challenges and opportunities of our generation.
Designing participation
We design and host open and effective public engagement processes: from global declarations to national legislation, from one-off consultations to multi-year co-decision processes, and across the policy cycle from agenda setting through to collective sense-making.
Teaching Transformation
We develop open source tools, research, participation methodologies, and governance ontologies to support the transformation of our economies and societies. We’ve trained and equipped hundreds of government officials and community leaders in more than 80 countries to lead this transformation.
In February 2022, Belle and co. was approached to join the i4Policy team as their Pedagogical expert. A major project they were developing, revolved around designing resources, tools and learning material for policy-makers in the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystem in Africa.
This work has become increasingly important as more and more African countries are adopting a new forward-looking Start-Up law-making process to support high growth entrepreneurs, many of them in the tech-based ecosystem.
I4Policy Foundation has assisted many governments to pursue more participatory policy processes (see below ADDIS process and the Senegal Start Up Case Study as an example of activities supported). The idea is to be as inclusive as possible when co-designing meaningful policies with the people whose lives will be impacted.
In my next few blogs, you will start to read about the policy-related projects that Belle and co. will be helping to develop over the year/s to come. See related Tags: Policy, i4Policy to find those blog posts.
In January 2021, the British Council, appointed Belle and Co. and its supplier consortium (Made Culture, Nigeria and Heva Fund, Kenya), supported by UK partner University of Arts London, to expand its digital programme delivery and to this end, commissioned a suite of e-learning courses, to support young people in the development of their knowledge in creative entrepreneurship.
Over the next 4 months, Belle and Co. and its consortium, were in charge of developing:
Module 1: Launching your Creative Enterprise
Module 2: Growing your Creative Enterprise
A further Module 3 on Impact Entrepreneurship and Module 4 on Creative Economy Policy, were designed by another service provider.
Module 1: Launching your Creative Enterprise
This entry-level module consists of 5 courses comprising of a total of 50-60 lessons. Each course should take the learner 2,5 hours to complete. Which means, Module 1 should take around 12 hours to complete.
Module 2: Growing your Creative Enterprise
This intermediate level module consists of 7 courses comprising a total of around 70-80 lessons. Each course should take the learner 2,5 hours to complete. Which means, Module 2 should take around 17 hours to complete.
A mixed media approach was used including video case studies, interviews, PDFs, PPTs, Worksheets, and Quizzes.
Click through the carousel to see what the courses look like online:
Each Course starts with a welcome video by the Course facilitator. In this case, Malaika Toyo (Made Culture), is introducing Module 1: Course 3 on Marketing and Branding.
A variety of Video Case Studies were produced from across the continent. Pictured here is an entrepreneur from Egypt, and an Entrepreneur from Rwanda.
Some Video case studies take the form of an interview. Pictured here is an Entrepreneur from South Africa being interviewed by one of our facilitators.
Belle and Co. designed and hosted this training programme (Mon, 18 -Th 21 October) on Discord from 18-20 Oct and on Zoom on 21 Oct. Same time daily:
13:00PM – 15:00PM (KE – EAT)
12:00PM – 14:00PM (SA – CAT)
10:00PM – 12:00PM (SN – UCT)
Overall Objective:
Develop your Fak’ugesi Digi Intermediary pitch for 22 October 2021
Learning Objectives:
LO1: Aligning your concept with reality
LO2: Developing a convincing pitch
LO3: Enhance confidence in pitching in front of a regional and international audience
Over 4 days, AR, VR and Immersive Media Intermediaries were taken through a series of activities to enhance their pitching skills in preparation for a pitching session in front of investors and funders to be held on Zoom on the 22 October 2022.
“A stellar list of investors in the digital innovation & creativity sector form the judging panel for a funding pitch, specifically for Intermediary work to support the Digital Games & Immersive Media Sectors in Africa. A focus on work in South Africa, Senegal & Kenya, with one funding grant to be awarded to participants in each country through Fak’ugesi Festival supported by the GIZ”.
The Funders include those from Vodacom, Plug and Play, DER (Senegal’s state delegation in charge of financing, coaching entrepreneurs throughout the country), Foschini Group, E-Commerce at Standard Bank South Africa as well as MasterCard.
The training took place within the Discord Environment, which allowed a central point of information gathering, discussion and learning to take place. And was facilitated by Belisa Rodrigues of Belle and Company.
Some activities included covering storytelling techniques, pitch deck development and included a guest speaker, Madiba Olivier of Ki’iro Games from Cameroon sharing his pitch journey of failures and successes.
Olivier Madiba of Kiro’o Games, and Guest Speaker at Fak’Ugesi Pitch Training
Finally the day arrived for each participant to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges. Here is the full zoom recording of the pitches:
Live Streamed Pitching event on 22 October 2022 as part of the Fak’Ugesi Festival
Congratulations to the three winners: Smilo Gosa (South Africa), Mukui Mbindyo (Kenya) and Julien and Maeva of Kayfo Game Studio (Senegal).
The British Council commissioned Belle and Co. to design an important pre-award session for newly selected Commonwealth Scholarship holders, in preparation for their study journey overseas.
The day was opened by Meekness Lunga, British Council Programme Manager, followed by two opening keynote addresses by Adam Bye, Deputy High Commissioner, Foreign Commonwealth & Development Office as well as a congratulatory message by Ms. Kealeboga Letlhaku, Deputy Director: Scholarships Management, Department of Higher Education and Training.
13 Commonwealth Scholarships scholars were competitively selected from a pool of 200 applicants.
The pre-departure briefing included invited Commonwealth Scholar alumni and scholars together, on behalf of Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK to participate in a workshop session about “The Impact of Covid-19 on mental health and well-being”.
A number of alumni speakers were invited to share their stories of achievements, the impact of the award and sage advice on how to best prepare for this life changing milestone. The session’s discussions centred on a key aspect of preparation, namely mental health and wellbeing given the Covid-19 pandemic situation. The speakers included:
Alumni panelists: Siphiwo Ngeni; Jean Pelser; Mbali Pewa & Bronwyn Sheriff
The session harnessed the expertise of scholars with backgrounds in psychology and education, coupled with real life struggles of mental health. The space created, allowed for the current scholars to express their fears, share their own stories and ask questions openly. Jean Pelser shared an interesting pocket guide on how to manage mental health through 10 easy steps:
The session was rounded off with invited guest and Belle and Co. Associate, Mutsa Samuel, who spoke on becoming trauma-informed.
Belisa Rodrigues concluded the session with facilitated feedback and story telling from the floor. The feedback after the session called for more such spaces of vulnerability.
Over a 5 week period, Belle and Co. facilitated a hybrid design thinking workshop with two cohorts of Life Choices Coding Academy students in Cape Town. Problems being tackled included among others: Environmental Pollution, Youth Unemployment, Lack of Ubuntu, Crime, Gangsterism, Developing SMMEs, and Service Delivery.
Inspiration
Each group broke down their problem using a problem tree, and gained a deeper understanding of the key issues but speaking to experts, the public at large and others.
Ideation
After understanding the problem a little better, each group had to come up with a key insight that got turned into their key question they were looking to solve. After which each group was encouraged through various brainstorming techniques and inspiration, to come up with 50 new ideas.
Implementation
On the last day, groups were given a few hours to come up with their key idea and to create a prototype for presentation to the rest of the class including invited guests from outside.
Prototypes
Prototypes ranged from Interactive Art Exhibition to immerse yourself in the lives of others; A rehabilitation and education centred called Aqua Cure for marine animals; An eco-fashion line using everyday waste; An Entrepreneurship school for ex-offenders; A mobile app for predicting public transport issues; A mobile app to connect unemployed youth to job opportunities and internships (locally and abroad); A community clean up co-operative; educational campaign on civic rights; a centre for GBV; and a financial literacy game modelled on Monopoly.
The second online “Running Creative Hubs Programme” 2021, was launched earlier this month (5 June 2021) as part of the New Spaces capacity development offered to 4 Creators Hubs in Sudan (Music Hub, ArtTech Hubs, Womens Hub) supported by the Goethe Institut. See intro video below on the New Spaces Programme:
Goethe New Spaces Project Co-ordinator
Programme facilitators:
Belle and co Associate, Mutsa Samuel, based in Zimbabwe, is the Founder of UbuntuLab, Africa’s first and only personal Growth Hub that deals with the holistic development of emerging market entrepreneurs, influencers and institutions.
Belle and co Director, Belisa Rodrigues, based in South Africa, is the founder of a mission-based social enterprise called Belle and Company Pty Ltd offering training, research and consulting services to creative and social enterprises across Africa.
June Programme outline (Timezone GMT+2):
SESSION 1 Discovering Your Hub Personality
Saturday, 5th June 2021 10 am -12 pm
SESSION 2 How Hubs Change Hearts and Minds
Saturday, 12th June 2021 10 am -12 pm
SESSION 3 Sustaining yourself, your hub and your community
Saturday, 19th June 2021 10 am -12 pm
SESSION 4 Futures thinking: Resilience, Risk and Reaching out
Saturday, 26th June 2021 11 am – 13 pm
SESSION 5 Your Culture of Celebration
Saturday, 3 July 2021 10 am -12 pm
July, August, Sept, October Programme:
Monthly Webinars with guest speakers, Individual and Hub Coaching Clinics.
November Programme
5-day, in-person Creative Sustainability Bootcamp in Khartoum.
Meet some of the Creators Hub participants here:
Music Hub, Sudan
Art Tech Hub, North Darfur, SudanScreen shot from Session 2 “How Hubs Change Hearts and Minds”, 12 June 2021
Belle and co. was offered an amazing opportunity through the Social Enterprise Academy South Africa, to work in their Social Enterprise in Schools Programme supported by the British Council. This is the first time a programme of this nature has been run in South Africa, which has had a longer track record in other countries such as Scotland, Australia and Malawi among others.
As a Social Enterprise Academy facilitator, our job was to facilitate a Continuous Professional Development session with 2 champion teachers and 1 principal from each of the 10 participating schools, as well as to run the first pupil’s workshop to get them excited for their 6 month enterprising journey.
The programme aims to introduce learners from grade 4-7, to the exciting world of social enterprise, encouraging them to come up with ideas that will simultaneously generate an income and help their community.
The programme runs from May 2021 – December 2021, ending with a Dragons Den competition among the top participating schools as well as a closing award ceremony.
Belle and Co. was approached as a senior Social Enterprise Academy (SEA) facilitator in South Africa, to design and deliver an online Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Programme for SEA Zambia facilitators and staff. This session was customised to respond to the current needs of SEA Zambia who wanted the latest digital delivery techniques, and refresher of the SEA pedagogy as it relates to online learning.
Below is a screenshot of one of the session activities, crowd-sourcing activities that suit differing learning styles of potential learners online.
Cover Image: The Duke of Sussex, Prince Harry @BongoHive Zambia’s First Technology and Innovation Hub/ 27 Nov 2018/ Credit: Tim Rook / REX / Shutterstock
