The Wontanara-Ashoka Program 2022 for East African social entrepreneurs

This is a call for entrepreneurs in East Africa to come apply for the 1360€ grant from the Wontanara Ashoka Program 2022. See full details below.

The Wontanara-Ashoka Program 2022 for East African social entrepreneurs (1,360€ grant)

The Wontanara project was initiated by the parents and siblings of Bertrand van der Straten Waillet, who died on March 15, 2017, at the age of 32 in a motorcycle accident in Guinea-Conakry. Bertrand was socially engaged and concerned about the world, about others. He was a fervent advocate of ecology, he was a traveller, he liked to confront his ideas with everyone, he liked to share a meal with the most destitute. Working for the NGO Trias, he set up projects to empower groups of farmers and craftsmen, which continue to bear fruit today. Many testimonies show us the extent of what he left behind.

Wontanara project (which means “all together”) aims at keeping alive the spirit that animated him, in Belgium or abroad. Each year, we select several projects that seem to correspond to this spirit and support them with a financial grant.

Requirements

Any young social entrepreneur in DRC, Rwanda or Burundi aged from 18 to 35 years old.

The selection criteria are:

Owning the original idea;
Changemaker quality;
Creativity and entrepreneurial mindset;
Social impact; and
Ethical fibre.

Benefits

Ashoka will reach out to candidates and select six of them to participate in its Young Changemaker programme. This means these six young social entrepreneurs will benefit from a six months long tailor-made mentoring programme: from May to October 2022, they will be provided with the tools, resources, networks… to help them scale their innovations and grow in confidence as changemakers.
At the end of the journey, they will be invited to showcase their project to the Ashoka Africa Conference on Social Entrepreneurship, benefit from an additional 1 360 € grant and initiate a post-changemaker engagement journey within the Ashoka network.

How to Apply:

Please fill in the short questionnaire Click Hereand submit it by April 15th.

If selected, you will be asked to submit a short video presentation of your project at the start of the Young Changemaker journey + another after completion.

The form is available in two languages: