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Megana Madhurakavi

Robbinsville High School

Class of 2026

Megana Madhurakavi is a freshman in High School. She is a curious student who always takes any opportunity in her path.

Megana is the co-founder of an organization which educates children by teaching them real-life morals which they can interpret through stories. She won the title of Global Youth Ambassador of SDG & Carbon Neutrality Activity presented by the United Nations and UNIDO, and she has won many national dance competitions for the Indian classical dance, Kuchipudi.

Megana is excited to be a part of the International Business Development Internship as she loves putting her ideas together to make an impact. Megana wants to acquire many crucial skills here, and use them to further develop her future.

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Genevie Hong

Mark Keppel High School

Class of 2023

Genevie is a senior at Mark Keppel High School. She is an athlete, leader, and scholar who takes both Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment courses.

At school, Genevie was involved in several sports including Cross Country, Waterpolo, Track & Field, and Tennis. She holds several leadership positions such as being the Interpretive Speech Captain of her Speech and Debate Team, historian for FBLA, Secretary for a coding club called KeppelHacks, and President of her school's UNA-USA club. During her free time, Genevie enjoys being in outdoors, hiking or biking.

Genevie is so excited to be participating in the International Business & Development Internship this year. She's ready to broaden her soft and hard skills, learn more about the business field, and aspires to one day start her own non-profit.

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Crystal Ojiako

Jordan High School

Class of 2025

Crystal Ojiako, a 15-year-old Nigerian-American junior at Jordan High School in Fulshear, Texas, Growing up with immigrant parents and even immigrating to the United States at the age of seven, as well as travelling extensively outside of immigration due to the nature of her parents' jobs, taught Crystal that the world is a place full of injustice and inequity.

However, she also learned about the importance of community from watching her parents connect with various neighbours and give back in any way that they can, which has inspired her to work on skills such as writing, coding, organisation, and passions in cultural diversity, and learning in order to make an impact through leadership as the Marketing Director at The Front: Public Health, a non-profit that works to educate society on ways of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health as a community, and as the Outreach Manager of SEDY, which works to provide low-income residents with educational resources such as books and DVD, research as she frequently completes projects for organisations such as MedSight and the Justice for Education Project, and she contributes to Verste, a nonprofit dedicated to making research more accessible by creating simplified research papers, in addition to doing independent projects in fields such as dermatology and immunology, and friendship as she is a member of the Model United Nations, Quizbowl, and Around the World clubs at her school.

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Our Business Partner

Isah Sani

Business Statistics

Isah's business is unique because he allows the customer to submit a design which he then turns into a product.

Isah was inspired through a friend and his father who worked in Cobbling. He saw that his friends were able to care for themselves and their family, so he wanted to be able to do the same.

Isah started as an apprentice and had 5 years of experience, then started his own business.

Isah Sani

About Isah

Isah is a 34-year-old man who is married with three children: two boys and One girl. He lives in a room and a parlor mud house in Wuntin Dada. Isah goes to drop his children off at their school and goes to work at his shop. His business, Abu Auwal Shoe and Bag Making Design, is his source of income and he is passionate about it. He has 3 apprentices working with him and hopes to recruit and empower more apprentices in the future.

Through this business, Isah has been able to purchase a bike and build his own room and parlor safe container.

Isah hopes his cobbling business will employ more people from his community to give them an opportunity to make their own money and break the cycle of poverty. In turn, Isah hopes to expand his experience and get more educated.

Isah Sani

Community Impact

Isah has 3 apprentices working with him. He plans to employ more apprentices in the future. Through Abu Auwal Shoe and Bag Making Design, Isah has been able to purchase many necessities while also supporting his wife, 3 children, siblings, and 2 Orphans who live with him. Isah's business directly benefits 8 people in his wider community.

Isah Sani

Our Partnership

Our team and Isah meet regularly through Skype and plan out the next steps for his business. We make sure that we make the largest impact we can with Isah's business and take in all of our opinions into consideration. Isah is a wonderful business partner as his passion for Abu Auwal is what makes this project fun.

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

$624 RAISED

$126 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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