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February 23, 2017

Jeunes africains devant une école en Afrique

By Esperance Nahimana

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” – John Lennon

I’ve been raised more or less aware about how the world really “worked” . I remember that at school, teachers would teach us what we needed to know in order to succeed.  And, that was all I needed to pass, one class after the other. Clearly, it wasn’t enough. There was no space to challenge what was being taught.

With regards to entrepreneurship, traditional school systems made it hard to envision success outside of the common“bachelor and/or Masters and/or PhD & then success” framework. I am conscious that finding a job might be harder without any higher level diploma but diploma doesn’t necessarily rhymes with job nor opportunities. Entrepreneurship has become increasingly popular, the rise of the startups movement as a recent example. What I find great with entrepreneurship is that there is nothing about how old you are, how good at school you were, how many diplomas you have, how many countries you’ve seen, there is no standard profile to  be entrepreneur. I think what is important is to realize how the classic road to success has dramatically changed and for the best!

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    Esperance Nahimana

    Writer and collaborator

    Of Burundian and Congolese origin, Espérance was born and raised in Belgium. A student of International Law at ULB, she is passionate about human rights. She remains convinced that equality should be a reality, not a utopia. For her, Sayaspora is above all a beautiful, innovative idea designed to inspire the younger generations of women to come.

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