YLH mobilizes youth and women into business groups of 10-35 people. Group members are trained with entrepreneurship, business sustainability and financial literacy skills among others so that they are investment ready. YLH supports youth to carry out Market Analysis to assess demand and price trends, profitability and risks among others. YLH then provides collateral free affordable credit to youth and women based on group recommendation and credit history of the borrower. Youth products are linked to the market via a Market Analysis SMS (MAS), an online platform that collects and disseminates market information. YLH business model is a replication of what Emmy learnt from the Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) as held in Washington DC (2017).Since its launch in the year 2018, YLH has reached to 250 youths and incubates 20 youth start-ups in agribusiness, arts and design in Alebtong District of Northern Uganda. YLH is targeting to reach to at least 25,000 youth by the year 2029. By May 2020, YLH plans to pilot the use of offline handheld tablets to capture household information from clients, and this will allow fast and accurate data collection. The tablets will capture client’s digital geo location and help track business performance in line with the youth business plans.
IMPACT JOB CREATION Equipping over 25,000 rural youth by 2023 with entrepreneurship skills, knowledge and loans with the ripple effects benefiting more than 97,000 family members and provide over 2000 new employment opportunities to rural women and youth. PROTECTING THE ENVIRONMENT Providing rural youth with the tools and resources to start sustainable businesses keeps them from hunting and exploiting natural resources especially forest resources and wild life resources. We are achieving the dual benefits of tackling poverty and protecting animals and forests. POVERTY REDUCTION Rural Youth increase their incomes and capital, expand their businesses. Households of our clients so far appear to have better health practices and nutrition than other households. QUALITY RURAL EDUCATION Children of women borrower to this project will also reap the benefits, as there is an increased likelihood of full-time school enrolment and lower drop-out rates. Incomes generated from microenterprises that we supported were invested in children’s education. HIGHER LITERACY LEVEL The business will organize educational and sports completion that will ignite the desire to learn, compete and live healthy. TAX The business is paying taxes and hence boosting government revenue IMPLEMENTING SDG 8 By increasing labour productivity, reducing the unemployment rate, especially for young people
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