Connect young innovators with business in need!

Dear wonderful donor, 

We would like to start off by wishing you a happy International Women's Day. We thought it would only be appropriate to highlight the wonderful work that our female business partners have accomplished. Through our programs, women in Nigeria have been able to use their skills and use them to their full potential with the help of our resources. None of this would have been possible without your tremendous support. 

We would like to share the story of a student IBIP team and their connection with powerful Nigerian women.  

The team of Roosevelt students started off working with Falilat who runs a small soap making business in Bauchi State, Nigeria. The girls helped Falilat with various business problems such as marketing techniques and developing new scents for her products. Halfway through the team’s first year of hard work Leadership Initiatives’ Executive Director, Marshall Bailly told them about yet another amazing program during that upcoming summer. Leadership Initiatives was hosting the International Business Leadership Summit, which would be similar to that which Maya attended the previous summer.

This program, however, would take place at Georgetown University in Washington D.C. Two members of the Roosevelt group, Maya and Lauren, attended the summer program and develop even more skills to use in the IBIP. The girls ended up being paired with Rabi to help her work on her catering business during their week at the program. Little did they know that the charming young woman they were working with would ultimately become their official business partner. This program not only allowed the girls to form a more personal connection with Sani but also taught them leadership skills, public speaking skills and hands-on experience in entrepreneurship.   

When Lauren and Maya returned from the summer program they were bursting with stories and skills that they were eager to share with the other members of their group, and so was their business partner, Rabi. She announced the wonderful news to the group that she was pregnant! It was a very exciting turn of events but meant that she was going to be taking a break from working with the Roosevelt IBIP team.

Wonderful stories like these wouldn't be able to happen without your continuous and unwavering support.

Thank you from your friends at Leadership Initiatives 

Dear Tremendous Leadership Initiatives and Respective Donors,

Through simple (yet tremendously effective) business solutions, high schoolers across the nation have had lasting impacts on their associates in Nigeria. Although there are new IBIP students every year as a result of the International Leadership and Business Summit at Georgetown University, now ongoing for the third year in a row, some solutions have been followed for years, becoming more elaborate due to steadfast commitment.

When I joined the IBIP program in my freshman year of high school, I was first partnered with Falilat, a Nigerian soap maker who was looking to finance the education of her children and her single staffer through her start-up business. She was looking to make herself stand out in the soap-making industry, one that was highly competitive in Bauchi State, the province of Nigeria in which she conducts the majority of her business. Through working with Falilat and learning more about these struggles, my group helped her develop a business name (DMB Soap, named after the initials of her children), logo (in the form of soap bubbles), and a new form of packaging. Although I extremely enjoyed working with Falilat, her success due to these solutions meant that I was partnered with a new business, only able to sporadically follow her progress.

However, due to my internship at Leadership Initiatives, I was able to choose my business partner for my senior year, the last year in which I would be able to participate in IBIP. Looking through the list, one name stood out: Falilat. During our first Skype call, Falilat instantly recognized me, excitedly telling me all about her newfound business due to the business name and logo. She informed my group that she was still part of IBIP because she was ready to expand; Falilat wanted to differentiate herself even more by creating scented soaps, finding yet another type of packaging for professional clients, and more. I was thrilled to learn about her progress and cannot wait to see where her business success will take her.

This is why Leadership Initiatives exists — these bonds between American students and Nigerian business partners empower growth and prosperity for both parties, allowing for the spread of ideas and cultures beyond national borders. Your support of our efforts greatly aids the creation of these connections. You, just like the dozens of high schoolers who work with Nigerian businesses, are playing a direct role in changing the lives of people around the globe. Thank you for this belief in the power of communication and collaboration, and thank you for the enormous difference that you make for this program!

If you would like to learn more about stories like Falilat’s, please visit liempower.org.

Thank you,

Leadership Initiatives

Dear Tremendous Leadership Initiatives and Respective Donors, 

After a busy summer filled with business, law, and medical summits at Georgetown University, Leadership Initiatives is ready to get back to work on its main project: the International Business Internship Program (IBIP). Due to the hard work and monumental success of these summer programs, Leadership Initiatives has been able to recruit more students than ever to become a part of IBIP and help change the lives of business partners across the globe. 

This week marks the first official week of the 2018-2019 IBIP year; new teams have been meeting with their mentors and business partners for the first time, making introductions and preparing for their exciting year. Moreover, successful IBIP groups from previous years have come back together with even more ideas and solutions for their business partners, cementing and furthering those relationships with their associates and translators that were already so strong before the summer. Leadership Initiatives is thrilled to be working with so many talented students this year, and we wish great prosperity to all of the new teams!

These first meetings have gone extremely well. As mentioned above, new teams have officially begun calling their business partners and discussing what problems they would like to tackle together. Callie’s team from Ridgefield High School is just one example of the bonds that can form between these young innovators and businesses on the other side of the planet. In a letter to Leadership Initiatives about their first call with Grace, a salon owner in Nigeria, Calli writes, “The first time we met Grace with our translator Tamar, the entire Skype call was full of smiles and laughs that warmed our hearts and managed to bring us closer in just 30 minutes!” Relationships likes these are forming across the nation, allowing both the students and the businesses to trust one another and create a strong foundation for the rest of the year. Callie’s team and Grace have decided to begin collaborating on designs for Grace’s renovation of her salon, showing the impact that these students can have on many aspects of a business and its success.

Teams like the one above are why Leadership Initiatives was created: to help people around the world with their most pressing issues, offering ideas and insights from disparate perspectives for the purpose of finding those monumental solutions. Leadership Initiatives was created for this spreading of ideas and knowledge, something that has helped transform businesses year after year. 

I would like to personally thank you again for your donations to Leadership Initiatives. Without the aid of our phenomenal donors, it wouldn’t have been possible for students like Callie to meet Grace. Through your donations, you make it possible for the solutions of students to be turned into realities for our business partners. Leadership Initiatives relies on the benevolence of donors like you, and we thank you for your involvement and participation in our work to better lives! You, along with the students in our IBIP teams, help make a difference in the lives of businesses like Grace’s and many more!

If you would like more information about any IBIP team’s work, including that of Callie’s, please visit liempower.org.

Thank you again, 

Leadership Initiatives

Dear Amazing Leadership Initiatives Donor,

In a few weeks, the first set of students will be attending our first ever Law program at Georgetown University. At this program, high school students will be paired with real attorneys and clients on cases of national importance for hands-on legal experience. These students will spend seven days working on witness preparation for either a federal fraud investigation or researching discovery and trial strategy for a case involving gender discrimination against female government employees. This program is revolutionary and one-of-a-kind opportunity, and we are excited to see what the minds of the youth can do and create in a mere week!

Along with the Law program, our other new program is the Medical program where high school students are paired with top medical professionals with the goal of training the next generation of doctors in the fields of emergency room medicine, surgery, medical research and sports medicine. These students will actually have the chance to use Microsoft’s Oculus Rift technology to diagnose and treat a patient in sub-Saharan Africa in real time. So not only are these students going to be learning from the top professionals in their field, but they also will be saving a life.

Of course on top of these two amazing opportunities, Leadership Initiatives will continue to host the International Leadership and Business Summit where students will have the chance to develop solutions for real-world problems faced by businesses in developing nations. We have featured many stories of our student solutions from this summit, and we are excited for more amazing work and innovative solutions from our students this summer. We are proud of all of these students for deciding to make a difference in the world - not only locally, but internationally. However, our students would not have this awesome opportunity without your generous support.

Therefore, I just want to say thank you again to all of our wonderful donors because you allow our programs to prosper and expand to change more lives. Your generosity allows Leadership Initiatives to the fund student solutions in the IBIP and summer programs and implement them into action. Our business leaders in Nigeria have benefitted so much from the student's work that they are now able to reach out to other people in their community and empower them. Thank you so much for believing in Leadership Initiatives and the students from our programs.

If you are interested in attending one of the programs yourself, please visit bethechangenow.org. If you would like to learn more about us in general, please visit lichange.org!

Thanks,

The Leadership Initiatives Team

Links:

• Summer Programs
• Organization Website

Dear Valued Leadership Initiative Donor,

The school year is ending and that means that the yearly Leadership Initiatives’ International  Leadership Business Summits are rapidly approaching! After the overwhelming success from last year’s teams, all of LI is super pumped for a new year of more solutions from amazing high school students. In addition to the ILBS Summits, Leadership Initiatives is sponsoring a Law and Medical program to help student’s take their passions and exercise them at a young age. Overall, we continue to be impressed with student solution’s and do not expect to be disappointed again this year. If you would like more information about the upcoming summer programs or would like to change the world yourself, please visit bethechangenow.org

In honor of this upcoming summer season, I am going to share below a story from one student who participated in last year’s summit:

“My first business partner was Ibrahim Usman, who created a mobile phone repair business to  help support his sister and his uncle, who took them in after his parents were killed. I created a financial management system that could be used both digitally and on paper, as the electricity was being frequently shut off often in the area at that time. Because of this experience, I immediately fell in love with LI and wanted to do more.”

Life changing experiences are happening at these summer programs because of not only the student’s dedication, but yours as donors. Last year, Leadership Initiatives’ had a record breaking number of student solution’s funded because of the generous donations and support that we have received. 

Let’s continue changing the world together. You are changing the world with us and I am so glad that every one of you is on this journey to help empower the communities of Nigeria. Thank you again for your support and generosity; I know that your impact is real and important and I cannot wait for our future together!

Best, 

The Leadership Initiatives Team

Links:

• Link for Summer Programs