Arkleton Trust Award

Details

Published: Tuesday, 20 May 2014 12:59

We are thrilled to hear that we have been awarded the Arkleton Trust Award for £16,500. Regular visitors to our website and readers of our monthly newsletters will know we have been very concerned about youth unemployment in Gunjur. As you will also know the Wiltshire Global Education Centre run by Caroline Harmer is an intrinsic part of MBG's work.

Bringing these two elements together has resulted in our developing a proposal and the grant will allow us to run a competition between schools in Wiltshire whose pupils, in groups of five, will be invited to produce business plans which would be appropriate for development by entrepreneurs in Gunjur. At the same time, the competition will be open to new young business entrepreneurs in Gunjur who, again in groups of five, will be asked to develop business plans.

The winners of the Wiltshire schools competition will travel to Gunjur to share their proposal with the winners of the competition there and the two proposals will be given start up funding. In the meantime we are putting five potential entrepreneurs through City and Guilds training at the Gambian Technical Training Institute and will be supporting current entrepreneurs with small loans to expand their businesses whether hairdressing, beekeeping, making fuel efficient stoves fired by peanut husk briquettes, tailoring or vegetable gardening. There's lots going on in Gunjur.