#MemberSpotlight // JA on Investing in Future Generations through Education
#MemberSpotlight // Junior Achievement on Investing in Future Generations through Education
Education is the key to Africa’s prosperity in a global economy therefore equipping Africa’s youth with the right skills and mindset to build thriving communities is equally important.
To drive this not only amongst the African youths but youths globally, Junior Achievement was founded in 1919 to provide age appropriate, experiential and turnkey in-school and after-school programs for students which focus on three key content areas: Entrepreneurship, Financial literacy and Work readiness.
As economies grew in the 20th century, there was a need to equip people moving into cities on productivity and free enterprise, this saw Junior Achievement being set-up to help with smooth transition in developing the workforce in these emerging cities.
Over a century later, JA has grown to be in over 100 countries, reaching over 10 million people and having over 400,000 business executives serving as mentors and delivering JA’s content in schools.
JA as an entity in Africa is hardly 40 years old. However, the NGO has turned out to be Africa’s largest and most-impactful youth-serving NGOs, delivering hands on, immersive learning in work readiness, financial health, entrepreneurship, sustainability, STEM, economics, citizenship, ethics, and more.
JA Africa has a presence in 13 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and collectively we reach more than 300,000 youth in more than 3,000 schools each year. JA Africa Works in Côte d’Ivoire, Eswatini, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Junior Achievement entered the Kenyan market in 1999 and since then Junior Achievement Kenya has been implementing an Entrepreneurship and Financial literacy skills training program targeted at youth between 15 – 25 years through their flagship program the JA Company Program.
JA Kenya in partnership with the Ministry of Education Science and Technology, private sector partners and Vision 2030 has impacted on the lives of 30,000 students annually.
Based at Nairobi Garage // Kilimani, we recently had an interesting chat with the Executive Director of Junior Achievement Kenya Mr. John Wali, where he shared with us some of the proudest moments he has had at JA, JA’s core values setting up innovation hubs/ coroner in partnership with higher education institutions ,gamifying their content and how it has been at the helm of JA Kenya as also why coworking is ideal for JA as a business.
Watch the interview here:
