AYM in Sierra Leone
The Sierra Leone African Youth Movement Center of Operations for Jobs Creation
AYM Sierra Leone Social Enterprise Center and Business Incubator. AYM Sierra Leone Social Enterprise Center and Business Incubator. We were just in the middle of renovation when Ebola brought everything to a standstill.”
African Youth Movement Sierra Leone currently has seven employees. This number is projected to reach 25 by the end of the year. For several years, AYM relied on a team of volunteers and social welfare to run the affairs of the organization. The volunteer Executive Board implements policies set by the International Coordinating Committee. The ICC was the organization’s ultimate decision-making body. It has now been replaced by the Global Assembly of Founders Circle.
Sierra Leone is the global center of AYM and Mattru Jong, the global operational base of the Movement. Through the Global Learning and Sharing Endeavor (GLASE) the Mattru Jong Project comes alive. The mission of GLASE is to bring together a diverse group of global youth thinkers all focused on implementing educational centers, providing foundation skills, supplementary education and promoting social change through youth entrepreneurship initiatives.
An early start-up sheep farming program now underway.
The current business incubator is driven by community demands and includes a cell phone charging business, vehicles and motorcycles batteries charging, 24/7 cold drinks sales, 24/7 outside electricity for young community women to sell their food to over 150 patrons to the center, a community movie theater, vegetable gardens and a small scale sheep rearing farm and, selling our electricity to an adjacent youth business initiative.
Cell phone, vehicle and motorcycle batteries charging is one source of revenue.
This is possible in Mattru Jong through the kind cooperation between AYM and the Moseleh landowning family. Allowing AYM the opportunity to utilize and ultimately transform more than 100 acres of scenic land along the Jong river, the Mattru Jong Project will have a major impact on the community in terms of ecotourism – with a truly authentic culturally immersive opportunity for visitors, transformative education for African youth, and opportunities for further local micro-businesses.
The Mattru Jong Transformation Project – Ecotourism
What does this project entail? It includes transforming a beach front with amazing waterfalls into an ecotourism program complete with living spaces and nature experiences. Ecotourism and agritourism is so important that the UN General Council had the following to say about the fight against poverty:
Ecotourism has a positive impact on income generation, job creation and education, and thus on the fight against poverty and hunger.
The Mattru Jong Project Goals
We have set ourselves a series of goals to ensure the transformation project stays on track:
- To promote the creation of new jobs in Sierra Leone
- To help improve the local industry and business climate in Mattru Jong
- To preserve and improve on landmarks in the Jong Chiefdom
- To involve the Chiefdom people in the development initiative of the transformational project
- To create agricultural projects for local food production and consumption
- To provide supplementary educational programs from ages three through adult
- To develop and expand creative recreational projects in the Jong Chiefdom
- To develop and promote effective African youth participation in the affairs of Jong Chiefdom
- To position Mattru Jong as the pre-eminent Chiefdom for art and culture in Sierra Leone