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Dahyun Park

North Allegheny High School

Class of 2023

Dahyun Park is a senior at North Allegheny Senior High School. She is enrolled in several Advanced Placement classes and three clubs at school, such as Econ Club, Interact Club, and Key Club.

Dahyun Park enjoys playing violin and reading. She is the President of Econ Club, and outside of school, she has participated in the Pittsburgh Youth Concert Orchestra. During her free time, she reads or volunteers at the Northland Public Library.

Dahyun has already completed a year of the International Internship Program and is excited to be returning for another year. She loves learning and working with others and hopes to use valuable skills attained through this program in the future.

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Katharine Peng

North Allegheny High School

Class of 2023

Katharine Peng is a senior at North Allegheny Senior High School. Katharine is a dedicated honors student who is enrolled in mostly Advanced Placement courses.

Katharine enjoys competing in speech & debate and playing the violin. At school, she is one of the Vice Presidents for her school’s Speech & Debate club. She is also a member of the Pittsburgh Youth Concert Orchestra and the National Honors Society. During her free time, Katharine enjoys writing and baking.

Katharine is excited to be participating in the International Business & Development internship this year. She loves learning about different aspects of business & the economy, and hopes to someday be an economics professor. In the future, Katharine wants to take the skills she has learned and help people around the world develop their own businesses.

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Yeyoung Yook

North Allegheny High School

Class of 2023

Yeyoung is a rising senior in North Allegheny high school. She studies deliberately in AP classes as well as extracurriculars.

Yeyoung enjoys playing in Girl’s varsity bowling team and learning team work, and she shows her musical talents by making into competitive PMEA honors, district, and region bands. She is the founder and President of the club Together Juntos and make wonderful holiday decorations with the special students! She got accepted to the National Honors Society and participates in many available volunteering opportunities.

Yeyoung is thrilled to join the business internship in IIP this year and help small businesses grow while learning the entrepreneurship and the leadership im the business.

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Our Business Partner

Shamsuddeen Bala

Business Statistics

Mr. Shamsudeen Bala likes to play and watch soccer for fun.

Some words he would use to describe himself and his business are professional, trustworthy, and organized.

His favorite color is any shade of blue, but he likes sky blue and navy blue in particular.

Shamsuddeen Bala

About Shamsuddeen

Shamsudeen Bala is a twenty-five year old tailor from Bauchi, Nigeria. He enjoys supporting himself, his siblings, and his family through his tailoring business. He does not have prior experience in this field, but he learned and got experience from training and began his business. His inspiration and goals for his business is to make money, help with tuition fees, and support lives by helping people learn skills.

Shamsuddeen Bala

Community Impact

Mr. Shamsudeen Bala's inspiration is to support himself, his siblings, and his family. His business targets women, young girls, and children. Currently, he has five boys working with him. His goal is to help others, especially young people who cannot go to school, by training them and helping them learn skills so they can go into business. He wants to empower his community through his tailoring business.

Shamsuddeen Bala

Our Partnership

Mr. Shamsudeen Bala is excited to work with Leadership Initiatives' International Leadership and Business Interns. In particular, he is excited to create logos (in his favorite colors) and a name for his business. He hopes to empower young people in his community and help them learn skills so that they can also start businesses and make money later on.

Our Approach

FINANCIAL TRACKING

Financially literate entrepreneurs make growth-oriented financial and economic decisions for their savings, borrowing, and investments. Our team is working with Isiyaka Sa’ad to create an effective financial tracking system for his business finances, receipts, and daily costs.

OUR ADVERTISING

Our team identified target markets and key demographics to create a customer acquisition plan. We are working with Isiyaka Sa’ad to redesign his brand and create effective marketing campaigns.

BUSINESS IMPROVEMENTS

Steady growth is a critical component of creating self-sustaining communities. Our team is working to identify key areas of opportunity for Isiyaka Sa’ad and design solutions with grant money to improve his business to foster growth.

Our Fundraising

$0 RAISED

$750 NEEDED

$750 GOAL

Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced some of the highest growth rates globally over the past 10 years. While this means that people in these nations have become more optimistic about their social and economic future, the region continues to face a myriad of historical problems. In order to continue steady growth and achieve a future of equitable conditions in the region, our International Internship Program team seeks to build stronger communities from the grassroots level through fundraising for community development.

Funds raised are used to implement community-based education programs, pay staff to run the operations on-site, and invest in training for local leaders. Leadership Initiatives uses fundraised money to develop a network of support for actionable change and accountability between our team, the Leadership Initiatives staff, and the community stakeholders we work with.

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