The Hanga Ahazaza Initiative in Rwanda is Accepting Applications

More than 20 thousand tourists travel to Rwanda to visit their endangered mountain gorillas, but restricted aviation and the looming threat of COVID-19 have prevented the country’s tourist industry from leading their world-renowned safaris and mountain treks. (Flickr)

The Mastercard Foundation's Hanga Ahazaza initiative in Rwanda announced its reopening of the incubator applications on March 12. Selected applicants will become members of the fourth cohort of rising entrepreneurs to be provided communications, customer service, ICT, and digital literacy skills in the six-month program.

The MasterCard Foundation helped launch Hanga Ahazaza in 2018 as a means of encouraging Rwandan youths to become successful entrepreneurs in the tourism and hospitality sectors, both of which are key sources of revenue for the country. The program aims to provide education services and work training to 30,000 men and women by 2023.

Eligible applicants are those who are between the ages of 18 and 35, already have a start-up or at least a solid idea for a start-up, are based in Rwanda, and have the flexibility to commit to the full six-month program. The website makes a special note that women are encouraged to apply.

The start-up incubator program guides participants to work effectively as entrepreneurs or start-up employees and suppliers in lucrative fields that are region-specific. For instance, the MasterCard Foundation website states that “coffee consumption and tourism are on the rise in Rwanda, making specialized preparation skills in high demand.” Accordingly, the MasterCard Foundation is offering to train participants through barista classes, in addition to providing them with management and customer service training which would, all in all, greatly increase their chances of employment and promotion.

The program is especially significant to boosting the Rwandan economy and reducing youth unemployment rates, thereby mitigating the devastating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, the MasterCard Foundation enacted another business-growth program in November 2020 to alleviate some of the pandemic’s dire effects on tourism. This program allowed up to 2,500 Rwandan entrepreneurs to apply for free, virtual business recovery and growth programs, delivered in Kinyarwanda, French, and English. Through the MF’s partnership with the African Management Institute, accepted entrepreneurs in the November application cycle would also be rewarded the AMI’s popular one-month Business Survival Bootcamp and a six-month Survive to Thrive program.

The success rates of the previous three Hanga Ahazaza incubator programs include a 19 percent revenue increase on average per participant and a threefold increase in youth employment in Rwandan SMEs. Thus, although COVID-19 numbers have gone largely unreported in Rwanda—the country of 12 million people reported its first COVID-19 case on March 14, 2020, and has only recorded 20,000 total—the tourism and hospitality sectors have certainly taken a hit during the pandemic, meaning the extra boost offered to young Rwandan entrepreneurs offered by the Hanga Ahazaza program should allow for economic damage control amid the pandemic.