Congratulations! Sofonie Dala attends YouthConnekt Africa Summit 2022 - Key Takeaways


 Accelerating Investments in Youth
“Resilient Youth, Resilient Africa”
13 - 15 October 2022 | Kigali | Rwanda

"After the award ceremony for young Angolan innovators, this was the second most transformative event of the year 2022 in my life. Thanks to UNDP Angola for supporting this journey", said the African digital entrepreneur and gender specialist Sofonie Dala.

Sofonie Dala is an African digital entrepreneur, philanthropist and activist who is founder and CEO of the startup Talentos Multiplus she was born in Luanda on October 31, 1991.

While visiting the startups' exhibition stands, Sofonie Dala met other African women entrepreneurs developing the reusable menstrual pad project that she is also developing in Angola. The meeting was very beneficial, they networked, exchanged ideas in order to form future partnerships.


Green Menstruation

 Ladies without plastic - Key to reduce our carbon footprints

https://sofoniedala.blogspot.com/2021/12/live-congratulations-we-are-celebrating.html





Dala has strong focus on sustainable development goals, is passionate about communicating the development projects and believes that if we want to achieve the 2030 Agenda, we should communicate in ways and languages everyone can understand.


In the next 5 years Sofonie Dala intends to create a community-based cooperative with a sustainable activity model that empowers women who live below the poverty line. By 2030, she hopes to empower and transform the lives of 50% of the 4 million illiterates who are left behind in the digital world in Angola.


Like any young entrepreneur in its initial phase, she needs funding and mentoring opportunities for her startup to survive. Intending to build a corporate headquarters in Luanda, she is actively looking for sponsors, investors and partners.

“Resilient Youth, Resilient Africa”

“The vision for YouthConnekt Africa (YCA) is to connect the youth to socio-economic transformation. I identify with this vision for African youth.”


We start by recognizing H.E. Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda for hosting us and being a great champion for the development of youth in Africa. His incredible support to the YouthConnekt Africa from the beginning is what continues to drive this pan African initiative. Young people have engaged with their leadership in shaping the narrative on Africa’s development to ensure that Africa is portrayed for what it truly is: a continent rich in talent, natural resources and resilience, Africa is indeed the future.”


Throughout the sessions, attending youth felt a sense of empowerment after leaders and experts from various fields pledged their support to empowering the youth to successfully undertake projects that can steer the continent’s development.



A selfie with Michele Candotti

“We can not continue framing the future with the priorities of the past.”
“This initiative symbolizes a revolutionary approach that can only be producing lasting results for the future”
-@UNDP Chief of Staff & Director of Executive Office, Michele Candotti

The summit brought together over 10,000 youth delegates representing 98 countries from across Africa and beyond including Henriques Ngolome from Angola.

The YouthConnekt Africa Summit 2022 Concluded

Thousands of African youth left the just concluded YouthConnekt Africa 2022 Summit (YCAS) in Kigali with their heads held high, after three-days of discussions and assurances from world leaders and experts on how they can lead Africa’s development efforts.The annual continental summit, which took place for the fifth time, brought together participants from 30 African countries to discuss and chart a way forward on how to involve the youth in Africa’s trade, health, climate resilience and financing, technology, skilling for the future and other topics that are critical for a sustainable future.




Speaking while presiding over the closing of the summit this afternoon, the Prime Minister of Rwanda, Rt. Hon. Edouard Ngirente said:“As we come to the end of this summit, I’m confident, in addition to the wonderful atmosphere of solidarity that we have witnessed, that you have gained much and contributed much to the goals of YouthConnekt.

We know that the most important resource in Africa is our youth, in particular skilled African youth.”


YouthConnekt Africa is a continental initiative with the mission to empower young people by enhancing their knowledge, experiences and skills while investing in their ideas, innovations and initiatives to harness Africa’s demographic dividend which aims at contributing to the achievement of Africa’s SDGs mandate, the AU 2063 agenda, and AU Youth Charter.

Sofonie Dala, young entrepreneur from Africa, Jorge Trula-undpAngola, woman entrepreneur from Cameroon.
It was initiated in 2012 by the Government of Rwanda in partnership with the UNDP and is a multifaceted youth empowerment model focused on leveraging youth employability, entrepreneurship and civic engagement through innovation.

Program


Vision 
Connecting African youth for socio-economic transformation.
Mission 
YouthConnekt Africa Hub is a Pan-African platform that seeks to empower  young people by enhancing their knowledge, experiences and skills while  investing in their ideas, innovations and initiatives so that Africa makes  progress in harnessing its demographic dividends by 2030. 

YouthConnekt Africa Initiative is endorsed by the African Union Executive Council as a model  implementation framework of the Africa Youth Charter, with the YouthConnekt Africa Secretariat  as its implementing partner.  

It is taken a platform approach to solving challenging development issues by bringing the  youth together with Heads of State, Policymakers, Business Leaders in the private sector and  Development Partners to address the needs of the youth. 

Eyewitness videos



Ahead of the Summit, on Monday the Pre-summit activities started with the #AfCFTA Bootcamp, the leadership fellowship meeting, the African Youth #COP27 meeting and the #YouthConnekt Technical committee meeting.


The executive director Oulie Keita paid courtesy visits to the various meetings and thanked them for their valuable contributions to the #YouthConnekt2022 Africa summit.



DAY 1

DAY 2

The first Lady Jeannette Kagame delivered the Guest of Honor's Remarks at the #YouthConnekt2022 on Sexual & Reproductive Health, And Mental Health service delivery.

StartupsExpo - Startups Exbhition Event





DAY 2

DAY 3

Powerful performance from Gashora Girls portraying the still existing social norms and stereotypes that hinder them from joining STEM. The #ConnektedGirlsHub is here to provide this wonderful intergenerational conversations with youth and leaders at all levels. #YouthConnekt2022.

On the third day of the summit a couple of sessions on various themes including; investing in young startups, Private Sector Roundtable, a transition to a more resilient, including sustainable climate future for Africa among others were carried out. Some entrepreneurs received awards for their startups.







YouthConnekt Africa Hub’s central role is to primarily strengthen the African youth empowerment ecosystem by equipping existing initiatives with technical and financial resources, knowledge sharing and improved national ownership of the youth’s socio-economic transformation agenda.
Twenty-eight countries have established YouthConnekt Africa national chapters to date.

Unfortunately, Angola has not yet established a national chapter, but we intend to do so, and this was one of the reasons for our participation as delegates from Angola.

An Angolan commission of 3 people attended the summit, they are:

- Sofonie Dala - Engineer / Digital entrepreneur and Gender specialist;
- Jorge Trula - Coordinator of the Employment and Skills Development for UNDP Youth;
- Henriques Ngolome - Director of the Center for Social Innovation and
Incubation of the Catholic University of Angola.


If you missed the first part click here: