Apio Sarah Ongom

Apio Sarah Ongom heard about the JA Superfan Contest—launched by JA Worldwide to highlight the 2020 virtual Boston Marathon and associated fundraiser—during the summer of 2020 from her home in Kampala, Uganda, where she had been expanding her workout routine. Before the pandemic, Apio Sarah found that she would get busy and postpone her workouts, although she still managed to run twice a week and set aside some time for short yoga workouts at the end of each day. COVID-19, however, brought both restrictions and more time, and each contributed to Apio Sarah’s increased exercise routine. She lengthened her yoga workouts, ran longer and more often, and spent her early mornings and late afternoons walking to and from her apprenticeship, about 4 kilometers each way. She was no longer skipping workouts, so a contest that gave points for exercise was a perfect fit.

A business-administration student at Makerere University Business School, 24-year-old Apio Sarah first got to know JA in February 2020, when she heard about a campaign called “Tide Turners: Africa Beats Plastic,” organized by JA Africa and the United Nations Environment Programme. She liked and followed JA Africa’s Facebook page to learn more about plastics and their role in pollution, and then signed up to participate. “The whole campaign period was amazing,” Apio Sarah recalls, “and I emerged as the overall winner. (Also flip to pages 12 and 13 of the campaign report, below, to see her feature.) After that, I signed up for JA Africa’s newsletter and that’s how I learned about a bigger body called JA Worldwide. I later followed JA Worldwide on Facebook and Twitter and signed up for a monthly newsletter,” where she learned about her chance at being crowned JA’s Biggest Superfan.

Through the JA Africa Tide Turners campaign, Sarah learned skills that aren’t taught in a traditional classroom. She advocated on behalf of the environment, using her voice for a positive change and learning creative ideas for how to make money while recycling plastics. “I also got exposed to other meaningful ways of environmental protection,” she says, “which I believe will enable me to become an advocate for the environment at all levels. JA Africa allowed me to speak at the Online National Youth Summit Plastic Tide Turner’s Challenge 2020, organized by the United Nations Environment Programme in India (view below) in June. I am super proud to be part of JA.”

Sizolwethu Maphanga

At only 18 years old, JA Eswatini alumnus Sizolwethu Maphanga became an award-winning CEO, a voice for youth in her country, and a rising force in the African technology sector.

Sizolwethu Maphanga’s participation in the JA Company Program enabled her to transform her appetite for tech into a burgeoning career. In 2018, she co-founded JA student company Nazware Innovations, which created IVOTE, an app that eliminates lines and other delays and ensures accuracy and transparency during the voting process. Under her leadership, her student company won second place at the JA Africa Company of the Year Competition, and Sizolwethu received both the Christi Maherry CEO Rising Award and the JA Africa Employability Award. The company continued to grow after the JA Company Program. In 2019, Sizolwethu shared, “We have been approached by our government, which wants to use the voting system for national elections in four years.”

She went on to participate in the African Girls Can Code Initiative’s first coding camp for girls in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. A joint initiative from the African Union Commission, UN Women, and the International Telecommunications Union, the four-year program teaches girls digital literacy, coding, and personal development skills. The initiative held a contest to select a logo idea from among its students, and judges selected Sizolwethu’s design.

Not only did the logo design competition cement her place in the initiative’s history, it also meant an invitation to meet one-on-one with UN Women Executive Director Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who believes the inclusion of girl and women in tech jobs is essential. Sizolwethu called meeting the Secretary-General “one of the greatest accomplishments of my life. Meeting the Secretary-General, the person who is at the top of the UN, was one of the best things that has ever happened to me.”

In 2020, as a featured speaker at a commemoration ceremony for International Youth Day, Sizolwethu said young people in Eswatini—a population numbering around 700,000—“simply need a listening ear, resources, and a little bit of faith.” In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic raging at the time, she addressed the challenges young people in Eswatini faced, especially the 46.55% youth unemployment rate and the prevalence of HIV among girls ages 15–19 years. “I believe the youth are fresh, vigorous, and innovative,” she said. “Their ideas, combined with the experience of the older people, can help bring about impactful economic activity in the country.”

Today, Sizolwethu continues the career in technology she began with the JA Company Program and Nazware Innovations. With aspirations to start an agriculture technology company, she seeks to transform the agriculture sector by developing software and equipment for farmers. “The goal is to make people more productive in their agricultural activities through the use of my technology products,” she said. “The services will range from security-like tracking devices for livestock, digital marketing and IT equipment production.”

We can’t wait to see what she does next!

Mabel Simpson

Story by Helenah Swedberg; photos by Kate Carlton

The droning sound of sewing machines rises from the small workshop next to Mabel Simpson’s house. She sorts through a stack of African-print fabrics, while her two employees stitch together colorful laptop bags, handbags, backpacks, shirts, and cushions. One of the sewing machines once belonged to Mabel’s grandmother, and it has supported Mabel since she quit her office job over a decade ago to to launch mSimps, her own fashion brand.  

“I love art, but my previous job had nothing to do with it,” Mabel says. Although making a career out of art is unusual in Ghana, Mabel studied visual arts in school, and it was there that she also learned to run a retail operation, though JA. Her school had a “JA Shop” on campus, and students were responsible for all aspects of managing the store, including keeping it running and profitable, learning the basics of business.

Mabel took those skills and poured them into the mSimps shop in Accra, Ghana. “The most important thing I learned from JA was business management,” Mabel says. “I’m really grateful for that opportunity. I don’t know if I would have managed to do all this without that experience.”  

But being an entrepreneur can be a lonely path. “Few people understand it,” Mabel says. “They think you can wake up anytime and work anytime, and that you make a lot of money. But as an entrepreneur, you are always paying other people. You only survive if you have financial discipline.” 

She wants to be an advocate for art and let young people know that they can make a career out of their artistic passions. “Some students want to study visual art, but their parents force them to pick something else,” Mabel says. “Art is underappreciated, but the key is knowing how to turn your passion into a paying job.” Mabel remembers a former mentor once telling her, “Art won’t pay you; business will pay you.” She now shares this advice with all the young art lovers she meets.  

““You need both a creative mindset and business know-how. JA gives you all of this.””

— Mabel Simpson

Update to our original story!

Since our visit to Mabel’s shop in 2018, she has expanded to a large online store. You can find her product at https://msimpsgh.com. MSimps also now provides the opportunity for students to have internships during vacations to enable them have hands on knowledge, skill, and experience. Mabel also partners with Soar Global Foundation, an NGO dedicated to children education and community development, by organizing reading clinics for children in orphanages and underperforming schools and raising funds to stock books in school libraries across Ghana.

Team NagroTech: Fresh Vegetables in Eswatini

JA Africa | JA Eswatini

Sivesetfu Bhembe, Sibongakonkhe Dlamini, Lindelwa Zindela, Nkhosinathi Dlamini

NagroTech was founded as a JA Eswatini company to solve three challenges: the low availability of vegetables in the Kingdom of Eswatini; inflation in the costs of vegetables, when they can be found; the lack of land faced by most residents, making growing their own vegetables nearly impossible.

NagroTechPTY turned to hydroponic gardening, which is designed to use water—rather than soil—as the medium for growth, along with liquid nutrition that’s made up entirely of local compost from kitchen leftovers. The system is both mobile and decorative, making it perfect for urban and suburban residents. 

JA students designed a system that is simple for the user: plant the seeds in the provided tubing, and add the liquid nutrient. From there, fresh, crispy, nutritious vegetables can grow in any size dwelling, even a small apartment.

Daniel Amoako Antwi

Story by Helenah Swedberg and Fungai Tanya Chimbuya, Gather Reporter for Africa; photos by Kate Carlton

It’s empty and quiet inside the bright white wooden church in central Accra, Ghana. Daniel Amoako Antwi stands in the middle of the aisle, leaning against one of the red chairs. This is his place to reflect and think outside his busy work life. “Every business needs a fundamental blueprint, beyond yourself,” he says, confirming why social values and impact are at the heart of his business mindset. The spark ignited by the JA Company Program well over a decade ago eventually led him to start the social entrepreneurship hub he runs today, only a few blocks away from his church. 

Daniel joined JA in high school in 2004, and his JA company team decided to sell sport products. The sport teams of central Ghana were very competitive, and several schools were bitter rivals. There was a high demand for merchandise with team names and colors. But Daniel’s JA company had no initial funds to start production, so they began selling shares to raise money. As the team’s marketing officer, Daniel went around to classrooms, dining halls, dorms, prep time, and even games, where he would pitch their company to crowds as large as 1,000 people. 

“I learned to speak in front of a large audience at an early age,” he says. “Being in JA taught me to persuade and convince people.”

After university, he spent a few years in corporate positions at Guinness and Hewlett Packard before he and a colleague decided to branch out on their own and start a software company together. “We rented a big office and bought everything we needed, but we didn’t know how to code,” he says. “We hired people we thought were good at IT, and all our money went to rent and salaries. We thought it was cool to say that we had our own business, but at the same time, we could barely afford rent.”

In an unexpected twist, they stumbled upon the opportunity to organize the first TEDx Ghana in 2014, the first of many they would organize, opening a door into a community of social entrepreneurs. But after recruiting volunteers for events, it became clear to them that young people were lacking fundamental work skills, like organization, data collection, and presentation. Employment is one of the biggest challenges for young people in Africa, with an unemployment rate hovering around 20% and about 10 million students graduating from African universities each year unable to find jobs. And that was pre-COVID-19.

“The more we learned about the skills gap,” Daniel says, “the more we wanted to do something about it.” So Daniel and his teammates created a bridge Internship program to prepare students for work. Africa Skills Hub is a youth employment and business incubator that aims to groom Africa’s next generation through hands-on learning and coaching tools, delivered online and offline using the Career Pathways Module, which includes a combination of digital, leadership, and entrepreneurial skills.

““JA shaped my thinking and narrative. It was one of the best experiences of my life.””

— Daniel Amoako Antwi

In 2020, COVID-19 moved the program entirely to a digital platforms and launched a number of new features, such as “Ask HR,” during which experts share insights into the new normal around employability and help young people prepare for what’s next.

Daniel’s achievements haven’t gone unnoticed: He has been a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Goalkeeper, was chosen as a UNDP Africa Youth Connekt Fellow, was listed as one of the top 10 Global Changers in Education by TEDx, and has been selected as the brand ambassador for the UN #Togetherband.

Solomon Odong’o Maxwell

Solomon Odong’o Maxwell built his first company in his second year of high school in Uganda. His company, which created a liquid soap product, won the national Company of the Year competition and qualified for the JA Africa regional finals. Through JA, he also saw how a bank worked and, shortly after, saw his first computer and fell in love with the possibilities that coding and design could offer. JA not only gave him real-world experience, but also radically improved his academic work. “JA was the best part of high school,” he says. 

By the time he entered college, Solomon was designing and developing websites, including the site for his high school, so majoring in IT felt familiar. One day, he realized that students had two realities in their lives that could work together: most rode bikes to school, and most were unable to find outlets to charge their phones.

““Surround yourself with other passionate people. Create a vibrant movement.””

— Solomon Odong'o Maxwell

The idea for Emali Creation was born: a mobile phone-charge device designed for bicycles. After securing a small grant to develop a prototype, Solomon was able to launch the company, which he ran throughout the rest of his college career. He also got involved in Model UN and other UN youth activities, and then took on the roll of local director for the Hult Prize, often called “the Nobel Prize for students.” Both endeavors created a close connection to youth issues. Before long, Solomon was given the responsibility of becoming the country director for AIESEC, which works with UN Uganda to develop leadership talent in the country. 

And although he still runs Emali, which literally gives life to Ugandan youth’s primary mode of communication, his current passion is 1MillionYouthAfrica, an initiative to teach one million young Africans how to turn dreams into reality.  

““Wherever you are, start! Ideas are good, but they have to be pushed into action. Business plans are great, too, but no one can predict what will happen in the future.””

— Solomon Odong'o Maxwell