Social Business Program

We are now in Rwanda - half way through a journey from Cape Town to Cairo to uncover Africa’s most inspiring social entrepreneurs.  As we transcend the east coast of this giant continent, we are searching each country for real changemakers; people who are bringing entrepreneurial solutions to much debated development issues.  Through our networks and research, we have identified a suite of changemakers we will be visiting (see below). With only two weeks in each country our time is limited so the list is by no means exhaustive. We’ve tried to capture a real breadth of causes and we’re looking for people and projects who are truly exceptional.

Between May and August 2011, we will be spending time with these social entrepreneurs and their projects so we can really delve into their stories, unpicking the ingredients for how passion has been converted into action. We want to get to grips with the factors which contribute to social change success and more importantly, we want to know how we can inspire others to help.  Just as we were inspired when we were students, we want to galvanise others to become changemakers too.

Along our travels we are blogging about our discoveries through our website (www.ontheup.org.uk) and facebook (www.facebook.com/ontheupcapetocairo). We will be writing short blog posts with our initial insights including suggestions for action for all of our followers. Amalgamating the best stories from projects across South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya, Sudan & Egypt, we will also endeavour to write a book. This will cover a deeper critique of the social entrepreneurs who really struck us and will focus on how the readers can get involved. We will sell the book for a small profit which will be donated back to the projects profiled.

Please follow our journey and contribute any suggestions of social entrepreneurs we should be profiling along the way.