Tag Archive for: Daaki Joshua

Iganga Youth Day: Safe Spaces for Youth

Hey guys, if you have been following me on social media, you must be knowing that every year I host thousands of young people in Iganga at Hangout Foundation for the international youth day celebrations; Iganga Youth Day. This year 2018, I’m again inviting you all to join us in Iganga on 11th August at Iganga District Headquarters. We are also inviting all youth led organisations and companies around the country to join us. Youths will have the opportunity to present themselves, talk to people face-to-face, and leave lasting impressions.

For you guys running projects and companies, this is a great opportunity for the Youths to know more about what you do. For example, what kind of opportunities they offer to graduates and jobs your company will offer in future. This is also a great networking opportunity among the youths themselves and can be a great facilitation tool to future collaboration!

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Daaki Joshua (Second Left)

About Iganga Youth Day

Over the past two years Hangout Foundation has been organizing Iganga Youth Day under International Youth Day, discussing the given themes from the United Nations. This year, with support from Balloon Ventures and Africell, we are organizing this event again. Putting young people together and giving back to the community.

The theme for International Youth Day 2018 is: “Safe Spaces for Youth”

Youth need safe spaces where they can come together, engage in activities related to their diverse needs and interests, participate in decision making processes and freely express themselves. While there are many types of spaces, safe spaces ensure the dignity and safety of youth.  Safe spaces such as civic spaces enable youth to engage in governance issues; public spaces afford youth the opportunity to participate in sports and other leisure activities in the community; digital spaces help youth interact virtually across borders with everyone; and well planned physical spaces can help accommodate the needs of diverse youth especially those vulnerable to marginalization or violence.

Donation to Iganga Main Hospital Paediatrics Centre

Hangout Foundation has for every commemoration carried out community service and this year intends to visit Iganga main hospital Paediatrics Centre to share baby porridge and other baby products. This comes as a result of the organization being a great pusher of the global goals.

On Friday 10th, we will have camp fire with BBQ with a group of young people to share and network together before the event. More activities will be organised from morning and through the day. Companies are encouraged to come on Friday to get involved in pre-events and activations.

On Saturday 11th, The main event will start with a match to the hospital with a band to present the donation. After, we will head to the main venue for speeches, discussions and more engagements with youths.

Want to get involved? Email info@hangoutfoundation.org or call +256793477557

Listen to the official advert

6 Ways to Succeed in Your Creative Business

No matter the kind of business you want to start, preparation is key before starting, whether you’re selling a single product or a line of products or just making a living on the Internet. However, there is one major challenge; it’s always hard to sell in the initial stages as people always shy away from new products, they don’t buy what they don’t know. This means, you have to do some really great work letting people know what you sell and why they should buy! Basically marketing!

You will need a number of tools and channels to help you and your business reach a wider base of potential customers. Strategic planning and creative marketing are some of the ways can bring in a significant number of customers.

But, from my experience, I want to share with you how you can succeed or increase your chances of being successful in your first year in your business in a developing country like Uganda where market leaders are still few and there is potential to grow as a trusted local service provider. Let’s go! Sorry in case of typos?

How you look at things

The success of every business starts within yourself, how you vision the things you want to achieve and how you plan to achieve them. Every entrepreneur needs a vision to be able to succeed. And it’s really better if you can write it down in your notebook as this can always remind you of what you want to achieve and set targets. You also have to be realist as you set targets, small wins are so important, always celebrate them. Setting unrealistic targets will frustrate you when things go wrong. So, think big and start small, you can easily get back up when things go wrong.

Trust and Honesty

Today, it’s very hard for a business without a community. Your community are the people that really trust you, follow and know you. These are your loyal customers. They are loyal because they trust you and they trust what you sell because they know you! Totally run away from fraud and try to offer quality services. Referrals are key to growing your community with loyalty. The more clients trust you and your products, the more they will recommend others to come to you. Your marketing made very easy and simple!

Try out new things

The copycat culture will make you look like everyone, and thus it will be hard for you to stand out. Try to be different and offer your services in a unique way or offer something that is not already on market, of course things can fail, but you will learn. You won’t also know what works and what doesn’t if you don’t try new things.

For fresh graduates, do not forget that your theory may not be as practical as you might be thinking, so don’t be frustrated when thing do not work in the first trial. Spend time reading how things work but go out there and work things out. Put your skills out on the open market where it will be actually tested. There is no complete formula for success as an entrepreneur, we all get there through different routes.

Be willing to learn

To be honest, thing will go wrong many times, and therefore you must get used to adjusting or changing plans, not closing! This is the process to learn client behaviors, understand what they want and what they do not want. Always see challenges and horrible feedback as an opportunity for you to improve and grow your business. Know what went wrong and work towards fixing it.

Get things done and in time

Think about this: when we go out to look for things to buy, we always look out for the best or quality products. This means it’s very important to understand how people look at your product or services. Are you offering value? Or you are just an alternative? Do you get things done in time or you leave things hanging?

Also, be careful as you promise what you can offer, your customers will always expect it all. Be smart enough to say “I’m sorry I won’t be able to deliver in time” rather than playing around!

Understand the market trends

It is so important to know what is working, to know what your competitors are doing right and how they are doing it. This will give you a clear picture of how develop your strategy and how to position yourself.

Know your customers, know the challenges that current market leaders are not solving and ask yourself if you can actually solve it, talk to people and ask how they would like to consume and build your services around that.

You can also ask yourself questions like why do “newbies” in your field fail? What are they not doing right? How can you be different from other newbies? What do market leaders in your industry think is “the right way” of doing things? What would it look like if you do these things differently?

Such question can help you innovate your industry and develop unique services and products that can help you stand out! If you are still struggling on how to build your business, I highly recommend you get this Stand Out self-assessment tool in the link below.

Dorie Clark free Stand Out self-assessment workbook

 

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Citi Bank Volunteer Africa Programme with Balloon Ventures

Volunteer Africa 2018 programme officially done! It’s been nice working with 12 Citi Bankers from different countries to support local businesses in Mbale through entrepreneurship and business design with Balloon Ventures. Moving on to the next one!

Volunteer African Impact in East Africa

For the past 5 weeks, I have been working as a programme manager of a Citi Bank and Balloon Ventures entrepreneurship programme in Mbale, supporting Citi professionals as they work with local entrepreneurs and prepare them to pitch for interest free loans to help them grow their businesses, supporting the programme with business design, marketing strategy and creating/design marketing collateral.

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Myself with a team of 12 Citi Bankers in Mbale

Learn more about Volunteer Africa

It has been a great adventure, using my skills to give back to the community and to learn from both local entrepreneurs and Citi Bankers

3 Days of Adventure Trips by Travel Maniacs

Travel Maniacs is a young travel brand, monitored by Makutano Safaris, a registered safari company specializing in domestic tourism and focusing on innovating how local people look at tourism and serving with a strong corporate social responsibility. They offer a wide range of services from Adventure Tours, Road Trips, Holidays & Honeymoon Packages, Hotels and Resort Reservations to Corporate and Individual Travel Assistance. I have worked with travel maniacs as a photographer and as a business consultant, supporting in designing packages and corporate business development.

They have a youthful team, passionate, qualified, well informed, friendly and flexible to make your travel and tour experience exciting. After travelling with these guys on a couple of trips, I thought I should share with you some of the things I have found to be exciting about their 3 Days of Adventure series.

Refreshing Moments

Exciting 3 days opportunity to get away, refresh and get away from your work. Traveling on new roads, no navigation, no GPS, no traffic jam. But fun. These guys will always be in control, from Transportation, Hiking, Boat Cruise, Game Drive, Nature Walk, Camp Fire, All meals, Accommodation and above all Crazy Photography.

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Comics and Humour

As I said, these trips are led by a team of young people who are passionate about tourism and travel. You will be amazed by how they easily make your experience memorable with humour.

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Social Responsibility

They do not only do this just for fun only, but also to impact and support communities that they visit. They reach out to vulnerables and support them in different ways; from donation, direct support and having fun together.

By the way, if you have a trip and looking for a photographer, I will be more than happy to travel with you 🙂