YALI RLC: My Experience (Day 25)

The 18th day of October, the 25th of YALI RLC NC3, was very eventful! It started with physical exercise, of course, and ended with the last creativity night for this cohort. Breakfast got served at 7. Then, Mr. Kappo presented. His style of presentation is different, but his message still got passed. Afterwards, we went ahead to receive lectures at our different tracks.

There are different sources of funds for businesses. One can source for funds, for one's business, from one's personal savings or purse, family and friends, 'bootstraps', grants' institutions and what have you. Doctors 'Laide, Obeng and Pascal, like they'd always been doing, did their best to explain in details 'debt or equity financing', where we learnt that it's more preferable (or even wiser) to get one's business financed through both debt and equity. Both debt and equity financing supply a company with capital, but the similarities largely stop there. Debt financing is when a company takes out a loan or issues a bond to raise capital; while with equity financing, a company gives investors shares in the company's ownership in exchange for capital. There is no promise to repay the investment like in a loan arrangement, nor is there an interest component. We learnt about the different grant programs available for Africans. We dwelt so richly on 'financial plan' as it is very key in a business plan. The components of the financial plan are: balance sheet, income statement (profit and loss account), and cash flow statement.

When we got back from lunch, we had a marshmallow challenge. It's such a very interesting challenge; lessons were learnt. We wrapped up the day's session with the chairman of 'Whispering Palms', Professor 'Femi Pearse, OFR, who was once the VC of the University of Lagos. He's ‘just’ 85 years old. He told us what entrepreneurship is, who an entrepreneur is, and of what importance an entrepreneur is to the society. While he was answering some questions posed at him, he shared the success story of Whispering Palms.

“The pick pockets” business model is to create an environment of chaos and/or confusion so as to facilitate a smooth operation. As every organization has its own unique means of creating, delivering and capturing value, so is the Social Enterprise Business. Mr. Baba Adongo, in the civic leaders' track, made reference to nine (9) building blocks in his explanations of why developing a business model is of a higher significance to the Social Enterprises. Our guest wise man who is in the person of Dr. Luther King reiterated how to source for funds placing emphasis on “clarity” as the core value every civic society organization should uphold in high esteem. A discussion on Logical Framework Methodology was intensively, extensively and explicitly made by Mr. Baba as the day’s session headed to a closure.

Building economically sustainable community was the topic this day, at the public policy makers' track, taken by Dr Ajibade Peters. We learnt how to stimulate economic growth to drive sustainable economic development utilizing the triple bottom line.

We assembled at about 5, after which dinner was served.

At about half past 8, the creative night commenced which had Niger River group winners of the night.

That's how Day 25 ended.

Israel Bayode

Contributors:
Josiah Umar
Paa Kwesy
Emmanuel Maduka

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