You do not need to have any formal education to enroll for the SWEET Africa CAFE. The SWEET Africa CAFE addresses the common accessibility barriers to adult learning, namely method of learning, medium of instructions, accessibility and qualification. You only need a few requirements outlined below

• Passionate about and committed to social change
• Resilient, and a risk-taker
• Have a will to develop some skills in business and finance
• Have a vision to see social change as an opportunity to transform society
• Relentless in the pursuit of your vision
• A good ‘leader’ with effective communication skills
• Have an impulse to invent new approaches and identify practical solutions of problems of our society
• Have a strong conviction about your social role in the community or society
• Have a focus on creating long-term, sustainable change and impact by starting your own social enterprise
• Willing to commit time and own resources

• The unfolding of the “Social Entrepreneurship Field” is being suffocated by nature of its existing promotions that are not only seasonal , but also sector institutionalized, urban based, and often heavily fortified by exorbitant tuition fees required for tutoring/teaching , boarding and study materials-often are out reach of an average African eager to learn and acquire skills.

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• Further ,inequalities in higher education by social background are pervasive across Africa countries and institutions, with achieving greater access and diversity , a major challenge that needs long-term engagement, commitment and attention.

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• Using the Global Massive Open Source Educational Resources and Tools that have universalized free access to Adult education and reliant on a rich content wealth of global tutor volunteers ranging from retired university professors, PhD and Masters students, together with the learner-supporting community volunteer mentors, the long-term SWEET Africa CAFE neither charges tuition fees for tutoring/teaching and boarding nor costs for study materials .In addition there is no travel costs and no payment for infrastructure development . .

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• Please take note that the entire SWEET Africa training takes place in the applicant’s own country. Therefore, neither air travel expenses and nor fees for accommodation are required for the 12 week SWEET africa training.

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• In the above context , SWEET Africa is out here to open-up the social entrepreneurship door by offering free Entrepreneur customized knowledge ,skills and facilitating tools for African learners to drive social change in Africa.

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• The SWEET Africa CAFE model among other things, removes wealth obstacles to participation in productive adult learning to address pressing social problems, tackles barriers to equal education opportunities, and also facilitates an affordable and accessible per-university training programme to aid transition to degree study.

The training is for 12 week training session, in which SWEET Africa has set six course units each consisting of 4-5 lessons with self-interactive test/assignments accompanying each lesson completed.

• In your initial application , you will need to provide a summary of a product or service that could benefit the poor such as villagers in rural Tanzania or the Kibera slum dwellers in Kenya. Briefly figure out your sustainable business/revenue generation model to get this product/service into the hands of your customers at affordable price. This 12 -week course from SWEET Africa will help you think through how you can create financial value while delivering the products or services to the poor at an affordable price.
• All applicants must have mobile phones/number for enabling real –time communication, including the use of reminders via short text measles (SMS). Owning either a mobile SMART Phone type, a laptop , or home based desktop computer will be a plus, when considering your application for enrollment .You may need to have access to DVD player to facilitate some stand-alone learning for those without regular access to the INTERNET or without access to a SMART Phone type, a laptop , or home based desktop computer .
• For those learners without the above basic learning aids, SWEET Africa has in place an arrangement of working with Local Charities/Service providers (Schools, Churches, NGOs, CBOs, Business internet cafés etc) to mobilize and facilitate learners with learning aids within learner localities at convenient times and place.
• Learners themselves can also mobilize fellow learners to offer the above Group facilitation for the SWEET Africa learning, provided they fulfill all required learning aid support conditions, and legalities.

SWEET Africa is also very eager to produce graduates with well-polished marketable business plans , whose presentation to any funder will simply be resource winning document with a well articulated Global Goal Oriented "social innovation", strategy, approach , and sustainability plan via assured revenue generation streams .

Applicants may therefore pay an additional optional fee of US$ 10 also charged at the time of registration to facilitate our Global and Country context selected expert team of four-five professional volunteers to thoroughly review and polish your business plan twice during your course of learning . Please note that your "Global Goal Oriented Social innovation" as presented in your application forms the basis/theme of your business plan, whose first draft is expected to be ready for review midway the course(6 weeks), with the presentation of your second revised draft at the end of the course (11 weeks , just shortly before the final exam) for the final review .

On line Profiling of the your "social innovations" for funding consideration by prospective funders will be completely free of change .

Mentors are an essential ingredient for the success of any social entrepreneurship. The greatest value to social entrepreneurs is having a mentor’s input during start-up and the first two years of business development. Through mentorship, as entrepreneur you will gain feedback and encouragement and can learn how to overcome challenges that range from current legal structures and financial models to staff management and investment decisions.

The chance of succeeding in business is much higher when a young entrepreneur is being mentored as demonstrated by research findings below:

• Learners that will transfer a new skill into their practice as a result of learning a theory = 5%
• Learners that will transfer a new skill into their practice as a result of learning a theory and seeing a demonstration = 10%
• Learners that will transfer a new skill into their practice as a result of theory, demonstration and practice during the training = 20%
• Learners that will transfer a new skill into their practice as a result of theory, demonstration, practice and corrective feedback during the training = 25%
• Learners that will transfer a new skill into their practice as a result of theory, demonstration, practice, feedback during training and in-situation coaching or mentoring = 90%

Source: Joyce B., Showers B., Bennett B. Synthesis of research on staff development: A framework for future study and a state-of-the-art analysis. Educational Leadership (1987);45:77-87 .

Here are some steps you can take to find the right mentor for yourself:

• Define a list of your top goals for the mentoring relationship
• Brainstorm a list of prospective mentors
• Select those who are aligned with your goals
• Approach one of the potential mentors and ask if they would
• consider mentoring you. Clearly define what it is you are needing support with
• Start by asking for a 30 minute informational interview and see if things click
• Feel out what their time availability is like

Before you submit your application ! This is a basic requirement in the application form

SWEET africa is aware that identifying an opportunity among the many Africa development problems is a challenge many aspiring and eager learners may not take alone. Several obstacles may stand in the way including lack of Experience, Guidance, Statistics, and where available, lack of skills to repackage the Statistics into a compelling problem statement, together with a corresponding social enterprise business solution.

Therefore, before you submit your application for the SWEET Africa learning, we request that you take a moment and review the resources provided on this website. SWEET Africa is confident that following your thorough review and internalization of all the guiding resources provided website, you will be a-ready-made SWEET Africa CAFÉ learner with a Resource Winning and Society Profiting business idea , simply requiring a-state-of-art polishing expected to occur during your learning under SWEET Africa Cafe.

Only Electronic learning (E-learning) will be used whereby all course materials and interactive Self Tests will be mailed to you via pass-word protected link for you to download, instead of being accessed on the INTERNET. This means you don't need to be on the INTERNET to access study materials. Assignment submission can be either via e-mail or through the Online assignment submission system.

The tutorial will help you make the most of your learning experience by describing the many features available in the course. It describes a typical lesson to familiarize you with how the lessons are structured, and what is required of you. All menu items, icons and navigation tools are identified and their features explained.

English and Swahili.

Full Support services provided include access to tutors, Offline library, plus an online Ressource Center

Learning Deliverables

• 12 week rigorous electronic learning
• Two Assignments submission Electronically
• Four Self- administered Assignments
• One-Midterm and Final Written Examination (Optional)
• Certificate of completion (Completers).
• Certificate of attainment (Exam Attainers)

Resource Deliverables

• A Motivational Free Min-laptop for each of the five best Business Plan Social Innovations
• Free Customized and Responsive/Mobile Web template for 50 best learners’ social enterprise Business Plans
• 1-Year free web hosting for 50 learners’ Social Business Plans
• 1-year free access to Grants, MOOCs & Fellowship Alerts for all learners’ Resource seeking Business Plans
• Free learner participation in SWEET Africa Market Place when resources permit
• Free Business Plan profiling on the SWEET Africa portal
• Free Customized Excel accounting software

Arrangements are underway to include your country soon !

Arrangements are underway to include your country soon !

Through partnership support and funding , SWEET Africa will organize free-of-charge development market place competitions in which learners will pitch the ideas for SEED funding (US$5000-US$10,000). Before you apply, you should first confirm that you are eligible to compete. The basic eligibility requirements are that: You are fully certified to have successful completed the SWEET Africa 12 week Training modules. You must be a citizen of the SWEET Africa targeted countries. A full list of the eligibility criteria including rules will be available via SWEET Africa Market place page. Once you have established that you are eligible to apply, you will next need to get together a few promotional materials for your application.

Use your “Theory of Change” as agreed upon with SWEET Africa during the idea/application vetting process to explain your enterprise to the mentor.

To illustrate the point, suppose your agreed-upon social enterprise has the title below :

And further assuming you have reached an agreement with SWEET Africa that your social enterprise above be guided by the theory of change (TOC) below :

“if low-income, and marginalized youth have first-hand skills in starting and running a business, then opportunities of self-employment will improve ”

Then use the above TOC explanation to explain to your mentor that his/her guidance is needed in helping to you to put together the various execution pieces to start/move the social enterprise forward including identifying who to partner with, employ, where to source finances, volunteers etc.