With an inspirational story about her life and experience as an entrepreneur in Uganda, Beatrice Ayuru is one of 11 speakers at the first-ever TEDxPlaceDesNations event taking place in Geneva, Switzerland on 11 December.
Ms. Ayuru is a beneficiary of UNCTAD’s Empretec entrepreneurship programme and for her work founding a school in northern Uganda, which is now recognized as among the finest in the country, she won first place in the Empretec Women in Business Awards in 2010.
“Empretec helped me to build my skills, gain knowledge of my rights as a business person and how to make my business unique,” Ms. Ayuru said. “Because of the training, I am now accountable and transparent, and I operate a formal business.”
Empretec , one of UNCTAD’s flagship technical assistance programmes, aims to promote entrepreneurship, and to enhance the productive capacities and international competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises in developing countries. Since its inception in 1988, the Empretec network has expanded to 36 countries, and, in cooperation with national counterparts, the programme has assisted more than 360,000 entrepreneurs such as Ms. Ayuru.
In her TEDx speech “From Cassavas to Classrooms”, Ms. Ayuru will recall how she sold cassava to students to supplement her tiny income teaching in a state-run school. With savings from this business and entrepreneurship training from UNCTAD, Ms. Ayuru overcame numerous challenges to establish a school in an underserved rural community, and to provide quality education to young people in an economically disadvantaged region, and in particular, girls who generally lack access to education.
Launched in 2000 in a largely impoverished rural region that had been ravaged by civil war, Lira Integrated School caters to a wide variety of students from varying backgrounds, including children from impoverished families who cannot afford school fees as well as those affected by war and HIV/AIDS, and has had a significant impact on its local community.
The TEDx event will showcase a number of remarkable stories of people helping people. Drawn from Geneva’s myriad of international organizations, the event features innovators, humanitarians, entrepreneurs, scientists and peacemakers speaking about the impact they are making to find solutions to today’s challenges and shape tomorrow’s world. The event will be webcast live and featured on social media.
Ms. Ayuru, who is speaking during Session 1 of the TEDx event, is available for media interviews in Geneva between 10 and 12 December.
African Eye News.com
