Mr Tony Elumelu, the energetic and iconic man behind The Tony Elumelu Foundation recently took time off his busy schedule during a business trip to Rwanda to pay a visit of ‘encouragement’ to one of TEF beneficiaries making waves in Kigali, the capital city of the East African country.
The excited Elumelu took to his verified LinkedIn page over the weekend to write:
“In between my meetings in Rwanda, I took time to visit a 2016 The Tony Elumelu Foundation beneficiary, Yvette Ishimwe, Founder of IRIBA Water Group Ltd.
“Proud of Yvette’s innovative Water ATM in Kigali. The water ATM provides access to clean water for rural communities.
“With USD5,000 seed capital in 2016, Yvette today employs 200 workers and operates in three African countries.”
The Tony Elumelu Foundation is the leading philanthropy empowering a new generation of African entrepreneurs, driving poverty eradication, catalysing job creation across all 54 African countries and ensuring inclusive economic empowerment. Since the launch of the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme in 2015, the Foundation has trained over 1.5 million young Africans on its digital hub, TEFConnect, and disbursed nearly US$ 100 million in direct funding to over 20,000 African women and men, who have collectively created over 400,000 direct and indirect jobs.
The Foundation’s mission is rooted in Africapitalism, which positions the private sector and, most importantly, entrepreneurs as the catalyst for the social and economic development of the African continent. The Foundation’s ability to fund, train, mentor, and network young African entrepreneurs has created a unique platform for catalysing growth across the African continent.
The robust ability of the Foundation to reach entrepreneurs across geographies and sectors has enabled it to conduct innovative partnerships with the European Union (EU), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the US Government via the United States African Development Foundation (USADF), the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS), the French Development Agency (AFD), the German Development Finance Institution (DEG), the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the African Development Bank (AfDB), and Google, with bespoke programmes including targeting female empowerment and growth in fragile states.
Packaged by Olayinka Agboola
