CINA: Enabling youth with disabilities to become social entrepreneurs
/Israel Baelongandi and Daniel Baraka, co-founders
- TYPE OF GRANT:
Laboratory - FUNDING PERIOD:
2022-2023 - GEOGRAPHIC FOCUS:
Kinshasa, DRC
Problem
There are more than 9m people with disabilities living in the DRC. Support systems are currently limited and not sufficient. In the DRC people with disabilities lack access to basic services as well as full societal participation. It is estimated that 93% are jobless and 96% live in poverty.
Solution
CINA’s purpose is to support people with physical and albinism disabilities to unleash their potentials and create their own job opportunities as well as tackling challenges in their communities. CINA focusses on social entrepreneurship and self-organisation as tools for empowerment and job creation. Their specific target group are people, especially women, with physical and albinism disabilities, aged 18-35, that can at least read, speak French and are jobless. Their training programme consist of four stages. The objective is for their scholars to graduate from the programme and set up their own social ventures. The central theme is empowerment and each stage has a different focus. They cover practical skills (budgeting, marketing, design thinking) as well as methods that focus on mindsets and self-esteem and allow their scholars to discover their talents and passions. Scholars (often working in teams) that graduate, receive a loan of 150-200$, that they reimburse without interest after a 3-months period. CINA also aims to build a community among their scholars, alumni and collaboration partners.
CINA is a young organisation with a lean budget that is keen to track its impact. It is still in the process of developing its internal impact monitoring system. This includes economic dimensions (income, jobs created) as well as the personal development of their scholars (confidence, satisfaction).
The grant is facilitated via SINA gUG
- 96%of people with disabilities in DRC live in poverty
- 50scholars with disabilities trained as of July 2022
- 3registered social enterprises in 2021
About the organization
CINA was set up by Israel Baelongandi and Daniel Baraka in 2021. The team of 8 is based in Kinshasa and have structured their organization as a holacracy. Their vision is to create a better economic future for the entire generation of young people living with disabilities. CINA’s founders are alumni of the Ugandan Social Innovation Academy (SINA). CINA is self-managed and independently registered, yet shares experiences and learnings with other SINA communities.