Social Entrepreneurs Rapid Response to Crisis - African Diaspora Network

Impact and Innovation Forums 2021

Social Entrepreneurs’ Rapid Response to Crisis

Wednesday, April 21, 8:00 AM PST, 3:00 PM GMT

Hosted by the African Diaspora Network and the King Baudouin Foundation United States (KBFUS)

On April 21, African Diaspora Network and the King Baudouin Foundation United States (KBFUS) are hosting the virtual webinar, ‘Social Entrepreneurs’ Rapid Response to Crisis.

When disaster strikes, only the flexible and responsive survive. The uncertainties of a global pandemic and the increasing challenges of climate change overwhelmed even the most well-funded organizations. But where top international NGOs may falter to respond to changed conditions on the ground, locally-led social entrepreneurs can thrive.

SaCoDé, Dandelion Africa, and Onelamp are three organizations that successfully navigated the many challenges of 2020. With a fraction of the resources their international counterparts received, SaCoDé, Dandelion Africa, and Onelamp will share their unique mission-driven approach and creativity that enabled continued operations during the most troubling of times.

Learn about what investor organizations are doing to support social entrepreneurs like SaCoDe, Dandelion Africa, and Onelamp. The African Visionary Fund will be joining the conversation to talk about their work in unleashing breakthrough impact by driving resources to high-impact African founders, offering unrestricted, unburdensome funding to African visionaries.

The virtual conference is hosted by the African Diaspora Network and the King Baudouin Foundation United States (KBFUS).

Speakers

Atti is a leader and advocate with over 10 years of experience as a nonprofit CEO. Throughout her career, Atti experienced the biased and unjust challenges of raising philanthropic dollars in the U.S. for a locally-led, community-centered African organization. As the AVFund’s Africa-based co-CEO, she is focused on supporting the personal and organizational growth of African visionaries and their innovative impact ideas.

Derrick Hosea Opio is founder of Onelamp. At Onelamp, they recognize light as a critical enabler to quality education for the world´s deprived and underserved. As a social enterprise their main goal is to provide affordable clean, safe and efficient lighting technology to 7.5 million children attending rural schools in Uganda, where only 1% have access to electricity and 78% of the primary schools are found in rural areas. Our approach is to provide individual affordable solar bulbs directly to students and Onelamp light cards at $2 for an entire academic term of access to clean light.

Grace Françoise Nibizi is the Founder and Executive Director of SaCoDé, a nonprofit Organization based in Burundi in East Africa. She created SaCoDe in her garage with a passionate vision to help disadvantaged women raise their youth children in dignity. She takes a vision and makes it reality through sound strategy development. Before creating SaCoDé, Grâce Françoise held positions with different International organizations such Catholic Relief Services, UNIFEM, UNHCR, UNDP, and the European Union.

Wendo Aszed leads Dandelion Africa, a grassroots innovator in Kenya focused on women’s health and economic empowerment. She has over 10 years’ experience in grassroots project and nonprofit management and is rooted in community driven solutions. Her vision is to partner with the most marginalized groups in society, women and youth, giving them economic and skills-based training. She attended Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders at Stanford University and Santa Clara University, Wendo is an African Visionary Fellow, a dynamic speaker, writer and an Aspen New Voices Fellow 2019, she was awarded by the National Diversity and Inclusion Awards & Recognition 2019 in Kenya.