About Us

ASSOCIATION OF MENTORS FOR BUSINESS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP

                                                                   GENERAL PRESENTATION 

AMEBE is a non-governmental organization founded in 2016 by Jean Berchmans Siboniyo, a 2016 Mandela Washington Fellowship, and a Humphrey fellow. AMEBE is a multidisciplinary team of women, men, and youths with innovative curricula and innovative strategies to teach women and youth to become economically resilient through social entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership.

To make it happen, the Founder gathered other mentors committed to transforming Burundi into a better place for all, free of ignorance, joblessness, and poverty. The mentors are from different sectors with the unique perspective of promoting entrepreneurial education, self-employment, social employment, and community leadership.AMEBE has been recognized as a local NGO in Burundi by the home affairs ministry on February 12, 2018, through the ministerial authorization OM 530/126.

The AMEBE creation finds its motivation in the fact that the Burundi educational system has by far put less emphasis on business and entrepreneurial education since the independence times. In fact, graduates of the system would always see themselves in office positions as compensation for their diplomas. Nevertheless, the number of graduates increases each year whereas the number of government new jobs has not increased. Granted, the government itself has openly admitted that it cannot afford to employ all the graduates. The result of such a situation is that there are so many jobless youths throughout the country, who are still counting on the government to employ them. Reports say that more than 65 percent of young graduates are unemployed. Such a situation is very dangerous since the jobless population is intelligent and can be an easy target of all ill-intentioned politicians who can use them in violent acts for self-interests protection.  

Thus, we have created AMEBE to save youths from such a situation. We train them in business and entrepreneurial education, leadership, and communication to help them create income-generating activities, get connected to the business world, and change their lives for the better.

  • OUR VISION

AMEBE envisions an Africa free from ignorance, poverty, and joblessness.

  • OUR MISSION

Promote economic resilience and social innovation through entrepreneurial education, empower youths and women to help them create decent jobs, eradicate poverty, connect the world through English communication to reach sustainable development.

 

  • OUR CORE VALUES
  • Ubuntu
  • Honesty
  • Impartiality
  • Determination
  • Professionalism
  • OBJECTIVES :

AMEBE operates with the aim of attaining the following objectives:

  • Mentor all people interested in creating ventures for community development ;
  • Incubate novice entrepreneurs;
  • Train the aspirant entrepreneurs to launch their business ideas ;
  •  Teach novice entrepreneurs in business plan elaboration, the enterprise’s management, project elaboration, execution, and monitoring.
  • Connect youths who have already started their own business ;
  • Promote excellence in the entrepreneurship domain.
  • BENEFICIARIES

AMEBE’s direct beneficiaries are youths, women gathered in the Mentorship clubs working as the entrepreneurial hubs and in VSLAs in different universities and in communities throughout different provinces of Burundi. We do not forget to reach out to all disabled people and minorities wherever they are. We emphasize and focus on women’s education. We strongly believe that when women prosper, it is the whole country that prospers. 

  • OUR SERVICES
  • Training in :
  • Entrepreneurship and marketing
  • Creating and managing the incomes generative activities,
  • Social entrepreneurship
  • Business Communication 
  • Creating and managing cooperatives 
  • Mentorship and coaching for IGAs owners
  • Connecting our beneficiaries to potential investors for seed capital, grants, or loans
  • Entrepreneurial leadership
  • Peaceful resolution of conflicts
  • ACHIEVEMENTS

Empowering Youths Through Mentorship (EYTM)

Empowering Youths Through Mentorship (EYTM) was the first project carried out by the AMEBE/Mentorship Club Burundi, In 2016-17). The project was supported by the Alumni Association Burundi and the US Embassy Bujumbura. The training was visioning to mentor talented Burundian youths who want to transform their dreams into reality in their lives. The project takes much interest in each individual’s new ideas related to Business and Entrepreneurship, civic leadership, public management, and climate change. 

The project consists of finding talented youths in selected institutions; with ideas related to the domain above cited, orient the ideas, shape them in such a way that the author makes use of them in everyday life to succeed and impact the neighborhood and the whole community.

  • Achieved activities and results

As it was enshrined in the project proposal, the first activity was to identify the institutions whose youths are in more need of life skills. Six different institutions, mainly the universities, have been selected. The latter are: the University of Burundi (Mutanga Campus), ENS, the University of Kiremba(Bururi), the Université de Lumière de Bujumbura, the Université Polytechnique de Gitega (UPG), the Université des Grands Lacs (UGL Bujumbura) and the American Corner Gitega.

18 students have been trained as the representatives of the Mentorship Club and trainers of other students at the selected institutions. It is with great pleasure to announce that the trained students have created branches of the Mentorship Club, recruited and trained all interested students, and implemented the teachings inculcated in them into actions. 

More interestingly, the Université des Grands Lacs Kiremba students have started to make soaps as a result of implementing the business and entrepreneurship training. 

They are committed to provide soaps in all the south of the country and facilitate the population to buy soaps at reasonable prices. Their foremost motivation, they say, is to promote public health and generate money.

At Université Polytechnique de Gitega, some of the members are in the process of creating a trash-recycling startup while others are joining the initiative of those of Kiremba in making soaps in Bugendana commune.

At Université Lumière de Bujumbura, the trained students want to go far with agri-business. They want to grow vegetables and other fast-growing crops to combat malnutrition and generate money while still at the university. They are still looking for productive land nearby to rent, so they can grow the crops in.

At Ecole Normale Supérieure (E.N.S), the trained students want to create a boutique to facilitate students buy all they need at school and generate money.  

In 2017, different conferences in universities and outreaches to high schools have been organized to prepare youths to make use of the knowledge we gave them to create their own jobs instead of waiting on the government.   

In 2019, AMEBE via the “Empowering Youth Through Mentorship project” has trained more than 3,000 individuals and institutions on entrepreneurial education and the accountable leadership driven by baseline principles and values of the Burundian culture such as Ubuntu and fraternity. 

AMEBE is one of the organizations that have taken the lead in sensitizing working in cooperatives and the creation of the latter; especially in Gitega province.

In 2018, AMEBE has trained high professionals of  Fonds National d’Investissement Communal (FONIC) on cooperatives creation, which helped them to enhance some approaches of granting funds to the communes of Burundi. 

Moreover, AMEBE is accompanying women gathered in cooperatives. The women are gathered in cooperatives while others are tailoring fashions.

Women gathered in the Twijukirumwuga cooperative in Cankuzo

 

  • OUR PARTNERS
  • Alumni Association,
  • The U.S Embassy
  • The above-mentioned universities and American spaces 
  • Together  for a New Africa
  • Caritas Graz,
  • CARE International
  • Search for Common Ground
  • Caritas Burundi
  • OUR PERSPECTIVES 
  • Build innovation centers (hubs) in different provinces in order to be able to:
  • Train jobless youths in business, entrepreneurship, leadership, and communication. We want to train both graduates and those who did not have the chance to finish their studies,
  •  Collaborate with both local and international NGOs to put together our efforts to impact the community in synergy to reach sustainable community development, 
  • Build value chains and networks in Burundi and in the region for a sustainable and economically resilient community,
  • Collaborate with all interested government institutions to be able to apply all the decisions made for combating joblessness and poverty throughout the country.