Beyond School Community Challenge
The BSCC is an initiative of The Mandela Washington Fellowship Alumni Association of Nigeria in collaboration with United States Mission to develop entrepreneurial mindsets of young people between 13-18 who are predominantly in public and private secondary schools across Nigeria.
The BSCC provides a platform for outstanding secondary school students to provide solutions to problems around their environment by creating community development projects. Guided by mentors and their schools, the students identify the challenge, proffer viable entrepreneurial concept to address the challenge.
The Challenge identifies top finalists annually from the pool of applications received across Nigeria by working closely with the Federal and States Ministries of Education, and the top finalists selected are invited to pitch and exhibit their entrepreneurial ideas at the National Youth Leaders’ Assembly. Winning teams are awarded with Prizes in form of project and educational grants, teacher prizes as well as certificates of recognition for both teams and their schools
Prize
Ten Finalist Teams will receive invitation to the final competition pitch of the Beyond School Community Challenge that will take place alongside the Young Leaders Assembly 2019 in Abuja Nigeria.
Top Three Winning Teams will receive the following:
- Cash grant prize of N1,000,000 will be shared amongst the winners as follows:
- N300,000 for project idea scaling for the winner
- N250,000 for project idea scaling for second place winner
- N150,000 for project idea scaling for third place winner
- N10,000 Education Grant for finalists in the 4th-10th position
- N10,000 cash prize for top winning teacher advisor
- Presentation of certificates to all teams and schools.
Eligibility
- Applications are open to teams and not individuals. A team must be made up of 3 students and 1 student advisor.
- Students should be currently enrolled in a secondary school in Nigeria
- Students must be aged between 13 – 18
- Past National Winning schools for the 1st 2nd and 3rd position are ineligible for this year’s nomination.
- Student advisor should be above 18 years and should either be a teaching or non-teaching staff in the school were the students are enrolled.
Application Steps
Students and teachers build a team with each team made up of 3 students aged 13- 18 and 1 teacher above 18 years.
Team members identify a challenge they want to solve and with the assistance of their advisor, design a solution with a business model to address the problem. The solutions should be tied to at least one of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Applications will then be submitted before the deadline
Top 20 finalists from the pool of applications after review shall be subject to a round of 20 minutes virtual interview for each team with independent panel for the selection of top 10 finalist.
10 finalist teams will be invited for the pitching competition at the Young Leaders Assembly in Abuja.
Selected teams will be duly notified by late August and their names published on our website and social media platforms.