Chief Executive Officer and Founder of Go-Getters, Alieu Fofanah has disclosed in an interview that his organization was established in July to bridge between those in the Diaspora and the business opportunities on the ground in Africa. Speaking about his organization, the CEO said he had the idea in May, with the aim of bringing young people in the Diaspora, who want to initially find out what was happening on the continent in terms of business opportunities that they can involve in.
He said that this has now turned out into a group of young people who wanted to get involved in the project and “we have established the ‘Go-Getters’ as a bridge between those in the Diaspora and the business opportunities on the ground in Africa. What we have seen is that we don’t want people from the Diaspora to come and get a job. We want them to come and be part of creating jobs by building businesses and we want to encourage people to think big.”
Fofanah said, “it is about establishing businesses in the continent in Africa to provide jobs for locals and also inspire locals to start their own businesses.
In Africa, we have a young demography, these young people are going to need jobs. The government can’t provide everything, so we have to look into the private sector and we have an abundance of skills in the Diaspora and we want to tap into that and create a hub of different individuals who come into different African countries to achieve something but we want to do that under one brand.”
The Go-Getters CEO disclosed that the programme is not only limited to Sierra Leone but it is all over Africa.
‘We want to have a network of all Go-Getters all over the African continent who are doing different things, so that if one member starts a business in a country, that business should be expanded into the other parts of the continent, as we want African companies to be giants in the world, therefore the networking is very good.”
Adding that they had travelled to Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Rwanda Ghana and Sierra Leone while the reason for this visit is for research and find out what is on the ground and what the government puts in business.
Also, the investment on the ground and the challenges entrepreneurs face in each country.
He said based on the information gathered from these six countries, they will look at which country is most accessible and easier for the Go-Getter model to start initially.
“We want to start small and make sure the model works and replicated in the different countries, but we want to already establish networks in all of these countries. We will then establish which country to start first.”
He said different activities are organized in different countries which allows them to network within that country, and for Sierra Leone the organization brought together young people who are entrepreneurs to speak to other bodies of entrepreneurs about their challenges, as they don’t want to repeat them. “If things are happening on the ground already, we prefer to tap into that and make it more efficient” he said.
By Betty Milton
Tuesday March 04, 2014
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