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Erica Tjandrasuwita

The Quarry Lane School

Class of 2025

Erica Tjandrasuwita is a rising sophomore at Quarry Lane School. She is a dedicated honor student who is enrolled in honors classes and is self-studying for Advanced Placement tests.

Outside of school, Erica enjoys playing the electric guitar, singing, and volunteering. At school, she is in 6 different clubs that focus on fashion, fundraising, and music. She is heavily committed to the Global Education Club and the Fashion Club which she has been attending for 2 years. Following that, Erica also enjoys learning different languages. She is currently learning Chinese and Spanish and is looking forward to being able to speak them fluently. Erica has also done volunteering with an organization known as Fertile Groundworks. She goes during the weekends from 9-12 am to help out with fieldwork and distributing fresh vegetables and fruits to other foods banks and organizations.

Erica Tjandrasuwita is excited to be participating in the International Business and Development Internship this year. She is interested in becoming more involved with the foundations of creating a business and someday hopes to make one of her own. In the future, Erica hopes to take the skills she has learned from this program and make her own advances in the business field.

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Naomi Koski

The Quarry Lane School

Class of 2025

Naomi Koski is a sophomore at the Quarry Lane School, who is enrolled in Advanced Placement and Honors classes. She also runs a Mahjong club at school.

She enjoys playing guitar, playing badminton, and drawing during her free time. She also loves hanging out with friends.

Naomi enthusiastic to take part in the International Business & Development Program this year. She wants to learn more about business as she believes it'll be useful later in life.

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Fiona McCarthy

DC International School

Class of 2025

Fiona McCarthy is a sophomore at DC International School.

Fiona McCarthy enjoys playing the acoustic and electric guitar in her free time and studying film at her school. In her advanced film class she is helping in making a morning news show for her school. She is also a student ambassador at DC International.

Fiona is excited to participate in the business program and to continue to do programs with Li. She is eager and interested in learning more about business in other countries.

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Stella Iankoulska

Sacramento Country Day School

Class of 2025

Stella Iankoulska, 15, is currently a Sophomore in Sacramento Country Day School after moving from the bay area to Sacramento this summer. She can be described by her mentors as always looking to be ahead and in control of her academics, often pushing herself to enroll in any AP and AT courses she can. Currently, she finds herself always looking for more ways to be involved with her community and in helping others. She has donated food, toys, and old clothes to charities and school fundraisers whenever given the chance. At the moment, she often helps around school, fixing broken supplies and technology, helping clean up and organize, assisting teachers, and tutoring.

Stella has always enjoyed art/design, robotics, and computer science as she finds most of her hobbies include forms of one or more of them. Other than game design, robotics, and similar projects for school, she also helps her community by creating art for around the campus, and brainstorming design aspects for school teams. She has also found that she can apply her artistic talent to help out in the real world by adding visuals to projects such as non fiction stories, projects, reports, t-shirts, fliers, ads, and slide shows to influence others. In the future, she hopes to use her skills to have a bigger impact on communities outside her own.

Stella is excited to join and be a part of the International Business & Development Program this year and is looking forward to helping promote and develop a business through her artistic, logical, and technological skills.

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Our Business Partner

Bilal Sabo

Business Statistics

Our business partner is 30-year old, Bilal Sabo, who lives in the Kafar Dumi area of Bauchi, Nigeria. His business has two stores that involve tailoring, designing, and also teaching fashion for the people in his community. He's married to Hannatu Sunusi and has three daughters and one son who attend school.

Mr. Sabo hopes to expand his business in the future to be able to serve as a role model to young children who are interested in joining the fashion industry. He also hopes to have modern equipment and employ more men to break the cycle of poverty in his region.

With the profits that he makes from his business, Mr. Sabo plans on being able to also build his own house and continue to grow his family.

Bilal Sabo

About Bilal

Mr. Sabo is a very hard working individual who is constantly busy either working on new commissions or teaching. However, during his free time he enjoys spending time with his children and wife. He hopes to be able to take them on a vacation in the future as a way to relax and bond with them even more. Bilal has also spent 15 years in the sewing and designing industry. He was taught how to sew at a young age before eventually opening up a business of his own.

Bilal Sabo

Community Impact

Mr. Sabo makes an impact in their local community by providing them with affordable, comfortable, and authentic African clothing. He has also trained over 50 young boys in his business who have then gone on to establish their own shops/businesses. As you can see, Mr. Sabo's work in his business has gone on to not only support his family but to help support other young entrepreneurs and local citizens in their everyday life.

Bilal Sabo

Our Partnership

Mr. Sabo is excited and honored to collaborate with Leadership Initiatives' International Leadership and Business Interns. He looks forward to being able to save money for future expenses and provide more young boys with the opportunity to create their own businesses and gain experience. With Leadership Initiatives' he believes that is possible.

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

$37 RAISED

$713 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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