Association of Mentors for Business and Entrepreneurship (AMEBE)

General Presentation

AMEBE is a non-governmental organization founded in 2016 by Jean Berchmans Siboniyo, a 2016 Mandela Washington Fellow and Humphrey Fellow. We’re a multidisciplinary team of women, men, and young people who use innovative curricula and strategies to help women and youth build economic resilience through social entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership.

To bring this mission to life, our founder brought together a group of mentors committed to transforming Burundi into a better place for everyone — one free from ignorance, joblessness, and poverty. Our mentors come from diverse sectors, united by a shared focus on entrepreneurial education, self-employment, community-based jobs, and grassroots leadership. AMEBE was officially recognized as a local NGO in Burundi by the Ministry of Home Affairs on February 12, 2018, through ministerial authorization OM 530/126.

AMEBE exists because Burundi’s education system has historically placed little emphasis on business and entrepreneurial training. As a result, graduates have typically expected office jobs as the natural reward for their degrees. But the number of graduates keeps rising every year, while government job openings haven’t kept pace. The government itself has acknowledged it simply cannot employ every graduate. The result is a growing population of unemployed young people across the country — many still waiting for the government to give them work that doesn’t exist. Reports indicate that more than 65% of young graduates are currently unemployed. This is a serious problem: an intelligent, idle population is an easy target for opportunistic politicians who may exploit them for violence in pursuit of their own interests.

AMEBE was created to change that trajectory. We train young people in business and entrepreneurial skills, leadership, and communication — equipping them to build their own income-generating ventures, connect with the business world, and take control of their futures.

Our Vision

An Africa free from ignorance, poverty, and joblessness.

Our Mission

To promote economic resilience and social innovation through entrepreneurial education — empowering youth and women to create decent jobs, eliminate poverty, and connect with the world through English communication in pursuit of sustainable development.

Our Core Values

Ubuntu
Honesty
Impartiality
Determination
Professionalism

Our Objectives

Mentor anyone interested in building ventures for community development
Incubate first-time entrepreneurs
Train aspiring entrepreneurs to launch their business ideas
Teach new entrepreneurs how to build business plans, manage enterprises, and plan, execute, and monitor projects
Connect young people who have already started their own businesses
Champion excellence across the entrepreneurship sector

Who We Serve

Our direct beneficiaries are youth and women organized into Mentorship Clubs — which function as entrepreneurial hubs — and into Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs) across universities and communities throughout Burundi’s provinces. We also make a point of reaching people with disabilities and minority communities wherever they are. Women’s empowerment is a particular focus for us: we firmly believe that when women thrive, the entire country thrives.

Our Services

We offer training in:

Entrepreneurship and marketing
Building and managing income-generating activities
Social entrepreneurship
Business communication
Creating and managing cooperatives
Mentorship and coaching for income-generating activity owners
Connecting beneficiaries with potential investors for seed capital, grants, or loans
Entrepreneurial leadership
Peaceful conflict resolution

Our Achievements

Empowering Youth Through Mentorship (EYTM)

EYTM was AMEBE’s first project, launched through the Mentorship Club Burundi in 2016–17 with support from the Alumni Association Burundi and the U.S. Embassy in Bujumbura. The program aimed to mentor talented Burundian youth eager to turn their ideas into reality. We focused on each participant’s individual ideas in business, entrepreneurship, civic leadership, public management, and climate change — helping them refine those ideas into something they could apply in daily life to benefit themselves, their neighborhoods, and their wider communities.

What we accomplished:

As outlined in our original project proposal, we first identified the institutions where young people most needed these life skills. We selected six: the University of Burundi (Mutanga Campus), ENS, the University of Kiremba (Bururi), Université de Lumière de Bujumbura, Université Polytechnique de Gitega (UPG), Université des Grands Lacs (UGL Bujumbura), and the American Corner in Gitega.

We trained 18 students to serve as Mentorship Club representatives and peer trainers at these institutions. We’re proud to report that these students went on to launch their own Mentorship Club branches, recruit and train other students, and put what they learned into real-world action.

At Université des Grands Lacs Kiremba, students began producing soap as a direct result of their entrepreneurship training. Their goal is to supply affordable soap across southern Burundi — driven by a dual motivation of improving public health and generating income.

At Université Polytechnique de Gitega, some members are building a trash-recycling startup, while others have joined the Kiremba group’s soap-making initiative in Bugendana commune.

At Université Lumière de Bujumbura, trained students are pursuing agribusiness — growing vegetables and other fast-growing crops to fight malnutrition and earn income while still studying. They’re currently searching for land nearby to rent for cultivation.

At École Normale Supérieure (ENS), students are working to open a campus shop that will make it easier for students to buy what they need while generating revenue.

Throughout 2017, we organized conferences at universities and outreach sessions at high schools to help young people apply what they’d learned — empowering them to create their own jobs rather than wait on government employment.

By 2019, our Empowering Youth Through Mentorship project had trained more than 3,000 individuals and institutions in entrepreneurial education and accountable leadership, grounded in core Burundian values like Ubuntu and fraternity.

AMEBE has also taken a leading role in promoting cooperative formation, particularly in Gitega province. In 2018, we trained senior staff at the National Communal Investment Fund (FONIC) on building cooperatives — helping them improve how they distribute funding to Burundi’s communes.

We also continue to support women’s cooperatives, including groups working in tailoring and fashion.

Looking Ahead

We’re working to build innovation hubs across multiple provinces so we can:

Train unemployed youth in business, entrepreneurship, leadership, and communication — both university graduates and those who weren’t able to complete their studies
Partner with local and international NGOs to combine our efforts and drive sustainable community development
Build value chains and networks across Burundi and the region to create lasting economic resilience
Work with government institutions to help implement policies aimed at reducing joblessness and poverty nationwide.

About Us