Alma Madge Ofula’s Profile joining Spark Global Enterpreneurship Coalition

Spark Global Entrepreneurship Coalition

After the U.S. Government launched its Spark Global Entrepreneurship initiative last November, leading entrepreneurship organizations came together to form an umbrella coalition.  The aim of the Spark Global Entrepreneurship Coalition is to connect, coordinate, and create common goals across public, private, and non-profit sector efforts to advance entrepreneurship around the world. The coalition will help to advance the efforts of the U.S. Government’s Spark Global Entrepreneurship Initiative to invest in emerging entrepreneurs by linking participants from those programs with resources, networks, and opportunities.  One of their first activities will be to work with the U.S. Department of State on coordinating partnerships for this summer’s Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kenya. 


 The 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) will be held in Nairobi, Kenya, July 25–26?

Unlike past years, registration for the 2015 summit will be more limited to allow for more interaction and networking. The organizers are now gathering all expressions of interest. Please go to the 6th Global Entrepreneurship Summit website to apply and tell them about yourself.

Hurry, because the application process closes on Monday, May 18!

 

Alma Madge Ofula’s Profile: 

My name is Alma Madge Ofula; I will be turning 13 years on 30^th July 2015. I am in class seven (7) of my primary education. I school at Rose of Sharon Academy in Nairobi. I love cooking, singing and reading books. In music, I was ranked the best in the Kenya Music Festival of 2014. I am viewed as the most disciplined pupil and the best overall performing pupil in my class rating from the kindergarten to the upper school category where I have maintained the same good performing position.  In the past two years I developed the desire to assist the less fortunate children in our society; though, I did not have the means on how to go about it, I believed that someday God will favor me with the means and since then, I put my focus to work hard in everything I do and by joining our Church youth group fellowship. While in church my Sunday school teacher mentioned to us in the class that there is a program she was introducing for young people in entrepreneurship. I got interested in the training as I was assured of setting up a small business that could enable me to get something little to assist those less fortunate in our society by way of creating employment opportunity from understanding the scarcity of employment positions for school leavers. I began to attend entrepreneurship classes during the school holidays where I learn different things on entrepreneurship especially for young people.

With the help of my parents, they helped me to set up a peanut butter project.  I sell peanut butter to some people and also donate to support less fortunate children in our community.  My parents allowed me to call the peanut butter Alma’s Peanut butter. Probably the best peanut butter in the country based on what I have heard people say about it after they have purchased.

CHALLENGES IN PRODUCTION COST, MARKETING AND TRANSPORATION:

We buy the groundnuts from the local markets in Nairobi, but since the cost of buying the nuts from the market is high, we plan to use the small farm in my rural area in Gem, Siaya County to grow the groundnuts and transport them to Nairobi for the business. This will help to reduce the cost of production and boost my business.  Some of the challenges that I have experienced include marketing of our product and moving the finished product closer to the growing clients. I would like to see our peanut also sold in different local stores shelves in Kenya. I would like to set up a peanut production company in future to compete with other bigger production unites in the country and this will open more employment opportunity for our community job seekers. As this grows, I would like to set aside some money to give back to the community by supporting the needy children achieve their dreams as well.  With this I think we shall save many children from going astray or wasting their lives by doing negative things but contribute positively to help make life better for many homes in the community. I may not be able to touch everybody’s life in Kenya as the employment situation keeps getting worse, but I would like to have to fill a gap in the vacuum and impact people’s lives positively.  I trust that God will open more opportunities, give me strength and by accessing more funds, I will endeavor to improve and expand the projects capacity progressively from where we are presently.