50 Refugee Women Made Soap, Now They’re Building Businesses!

Neville Gaunt, Chairman of Your PassPort2Grow (YP2G) and CEO MindFit has been actively working on a solution to the growing refugee problem. In fact it’s no longer just a problem, it’s a crisis. 

Many refugee camps across Africa are busting at the seems with nearly 4 times the planned number of refugees housed in tents. A refugee camp is supposed to be a safe, temporary haven from war and conflict. But when you’ve spent THIRTEEN years living in one, it becomes your home.

But unlike the homes we know, these are more akin to prisons. There’s virtually nothing you can do to improve the conditions – and you can’t break free.

This is the reality of life today for millions of refugees and it’s getting worse as escalating military and political disasters drive more and more from the only real homes they have known and putting their lives on hold.

It’s a refugee crisis not just a problem and the Aid Agency (NGO) model is broken

We rely on Aid Agencies to follow the old saying 

“give a man a fish, he feeds for a day, teach him how to fish he feeds his family for life”

But these agencies are struggling to do the feeding and not touching the teaching. 

There are only two ways refugees can improve conditions for themselves and their families:

1 start a business

2 get a job

Sadly, the infrastructure in most camps doesn’t support either. The few projects aimed at creating entrepreneurs are soon dashed by a lack of leadership and resources. Only a lucky few, those with qualifications, will find a job and move out. But they’re all too rare.

We know we can’t change this overnight, but you can help by joining our group of international business mentors and local in-camp leaders and trainers who all work to a simple model, based on nothing more than commitment and common sense.

Be in no doubt, this an ambitious international collaboration and one that will soon see us bring together a few pockets of early success and make each of them sustainable under the same model.

The results

We trained 50 refugee women to make and sell soap, restoring their confidence, giving them hope  and building a brighter future. (This is the third time we’ve run the programme, so it’s a process that works and not just luck!)

And we do all this for $50 per startup!

  • Trainers – refugees in the camp – $20
  • Training Equipment – $15
  • Startup supplies – $10 
  • Support post startup -$5

All the coaching/training/mentoring by the international team is given free.

Once trading profitably the startup micro business – pays a monthly club fee as payback – $2 

We now need your help to reach more refugees!

Donate and empower refugees to become entrepreneurs https://www.gofundme.com/f/how-you-can-help-the-refugee-crisis

“Entreps, is committed to supporting initiatives like this one that not only addresses the refugee crisis but also promotes long-term autonomy and sustainability. The training of these 50 refugee women to produce and sell soap not only provides them with an opportunity to generate incomes but also restores hope and confidence in a brighter future. We endorse projects that not only offer immediate solutions but also empower vulnerable communities to forge their own paths to prosperity”.

Joaquin V. Boston
Chairman of Entreps

Our United Nations… by Thakur S. Powdyel

Thakur S. Powdyel

Our United Nations: 75 Years on…

One war too many; one misery, all miseries; one dream, all dreams… This was the context, extent, and intent that led to the founding of the United Nations Organisation from the ashes of the Second World War that engulfed humanity on a scale unprecedented and desolation unimaginable. The United Nations came into existence on October 24, 1945, when the UN Charter was officially ratified by the five permanent members and a majority of other signatories, with the cherished aim ‘to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war’.

Signed 75 years ago today, on June 26, 1945 at San Francisco, the United Nations Charter enshrines the most fundamental and comprehensive aspirations of humanity and the obligations of member-states to enable the flourishing of life and conduct of nations befitting the human of the species. The many organs that constitute the United Nations Organisation are mandated to fulfil the foundational aims of the world body in letter and in spirit.

In its chequered journey, the United Nations has come a long way. With all its imperfections, the United Nations remains the most important, truly international institution comprising some 193 sovereign, independent states from across the globe as its members. It symbolises the most fervent hope of humanity for peace, security, and a life of dignity and respect in an environment of inter-state, inter-regional, and inter-national relationship based on mutual tolerance, integrity, and goodwill.

Despite the threats to its basic goals that were unleashed almost from day one with the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the blatant violations of membership obligations, challenges posed by human and environmental crises, cyber-security threats, and a host of other compelling issues that claim the attention of the United Nations at different points, it remains the most reassuring symbol of hope and sanity in the world today.

With all its imperfections, it is thanks to the sustained efforts of the United Nations that the world is this much safer, the human lot this much better, and the future still worth-working for. Often close to the brink, yet short of strike, a global conflagration of a Third World War has been avoided, humanitarian crises mitigated, and chances for peace enhanced. The UN is the first and the last point of reference for standards of good behaviour for governments and nations around the world.

Successive secretaries-general, heads of agencies, regional as well as country chiefs and functionaries at all levels, past and present, have each brought to bear their individual convictions and professional commitments on the discharge of their duties and advanced the goals of the United Nations and given it cause for legitimacy and worth often in the face of cynicism and threat.

Come 2021, it will be half a century of exemplary partnership between the Kingdom of Bhutan and the United Nations. Becoming the 128th member of the United Nations Organisation on September 21, 1971, thanks to the far-sighted vision of the Father of Modern Bhutan, Druk Gyalpo Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, has immensely benefitted the country, both in tangible as well as symbolical terms, advancing thereby the foundational ideals of United Nations to which Bhutan is fully committed and enhancing the overall development goals of the country through targeted, strategic support provided by the UN system.

Having started its operations in the country as early as 1973, the office of the United Nations Development Programme was formally established in 1979. Currently, it has some 26 agencies of the UN working in the country under the auspices of the Delivering as One approach with the Resident Coordinator as the overall chief.

Each head of the UN system in Bhutan and their colleagues have made their own unique contributions to the advancement of the country’s development goals particularly in the human resource capacity building and governance areas with significant, visible results in diverse sectors they have been involved in.

As a passionate believer in the noble ideals of the UN Charter, Bhutan has been playing its role, albeit modest, by participating actively in deliberations in the different bodies, advocating the foundational vision of the organisation, and in more recent years contributing volunteers to peace-building and peace-keeping missions in some of the most challenging hot-spots in the world.

Bhutan’s holistic development vision of Gross National Happiness, articulated by His Majesty Druk Gyalpo Jigme Singye Wangchuck, has found deep resonance with the long-term development goals of the UN. Endorsed as the ninth Millennium Development Goal, the UN General Assembly adopted pursuit of happiness as a basic human right and declared March 20th as the International Day of Happiness in 2012. Several themes of the 17-point Agenda 2030 draw their inspiration from the work of the high-level international experts’ team, including Nobel Laureates, appointed by His Majesty the King in 2012 to chart the post-2015 development road-map.

As the world celebrates the 75th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Charter, it is a moment for some deep soul-searching, to reflect on the vision of the founding-fathers and the distance we have covered. How might the world look like without the United Nations? How might we make it more efficient, effective and fair? How do we hold the defaulters to account?

For Bhutan though, the benefits that have come through our membership to this pre-eminent extended family of nations have given to us a global platform to share the country’s unique vision of holistic development dedicated to human and societal flourishing within mutually supportive planetary boundaries. This membership has allowed us to make our own the all-embracing foundational ideals of the United Nations.

Inspired by Friendship in all Seasons, “working together to ensure no one is left behind is at the heart of our work in Bhutan and we are grateful for these partnerships”, in the words of the current UN Resident Coordinator, Mr Gerald Daly.

This is the inescapable fact. The ideals of the UN are human ideals, conceived and communicated in time for a time beyond time. The UN is us and ours. So are its ideals. They survive and thrive through individual faith and conviction. It is the integrity of individual leaders and individual nations and their citizens to breathe life into the UN and live out its noble ideals in their life and action. The soul of the UN expresses itself in the role of its functionaries and signatories.

For me as an individual, and a man of faith, the United Nations still represents the best of human yearning and the noblest of collective striving. If not for Covid-19, I should have been at Seville in Spain this moment to partake of the historic 75th anniversary of the signing of the UN Charter as a special invitee of Entreps-UN75.

May the sublime ideals of our United Nations flower and flourish in all realms, at all times, and in all lives…

__________________________________________________________________________________

Reflections:  June 26, 2020.

Thakur S Powdyel, Former Minister of Education, Royal Government of Bhutan

Entreps Global Juror.

Entreps Partnership with Creative Youth Community Development Initiative

Entreps partners now the Creative Youth Community Development Initiative (CYCDI) to deploy Solution17. This partnership works towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, as a way to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the United Nations and prepare for the 5th Global Entreps Awards and 5Gcitizens International Congress, to take place in Seville on 25th to 27th of June 2020.

Learn more about Solution17’s entrepreneurship project, ‘IC2030’, on http://www.cycdi.com/ic2030/index.php and Solution17 for Climate, by the Covenant University International Office of Linkages.

The Creative Youth Community Development Initiative, the winner of an United Nations’ SDG Action Innovator award-winning, was born to promote the Sustainable Development Goals and the achievement of the 2030 agenda through education and creative development, innovation and entrepreneurship in children, youth and women. All of it, running in Africa to the world’s sake.

This initiative, brought to us by our Global Juror Foluke Michael, is to be implemented through the platform Solution17 for SDGs, the Vision of the Children, Creative Youth Initiative Against Corruption, InnoCreativa Youth Hub and CDMA Social Enterprise Programme.

If you want to get more information about the CYCDI don’t forget to check their site, and if you want to read about the 5th Edition of the Entreps Awards, its categories and other Entreps initiatives, get onto www.entreps.org and social media!

You can also become one of the 1,000 Global Jurors from 126 countries. They nominate and select projects and initiatives like this one: Learn more here

We want to remind you that you can also play an active role on the celebration of the 75th Anniversary of the signing-off of the Charter of the United Nations by taking part on the global conversation on the role of international cooperation in building the future we want by voicing your opinion on the UN75 1-minute survey via Entreps.

The future will sustainable if no one is left behind. Entreps, Looking beyond Horizon.

Register here!