Our Solution
Bare necessities vs. self-reliance
The current approach to refugees, which most countries follow, neglects the opportunity refugees can bring to the local economy and society. It has a short-sighted strategy that often leads refugees to barely survive, let alone thrive and makes ineffective use of aid provisions.
Team Spirit tackles these challenges by reimagining refugees' economic inclusion to create a more prosperous future for all by enhancing agricultural supply chains, creating concrete livelihoods and providing vocational training. Overall, we foster self-reliance, build more resilient supply chains and increase food security.
Our Main Pillars
Fostering...
Food Security and Agriculture
Many refugees in developing countries use agriculture as a primary livelihood and we support to make it effective and sustainable to ensure food sovereignty an resilience.
Livelihoods and Self-Reliance
We help to build sustainable and self-sufficient livelihoods for refugees in the long-term.
Women Empowerment
Since a major part of refugees are female and face an additional challenges, we want to ensure a holistic system is created that supports and accelerates women's journeys.
Knowledge Ecosystems
We facilitate ecosystems by leveraging knowledge and resources through exceptional and diverse partnerships with community leaders, local communities and other experts to foster knowledge and skill transfer for maximizing impact.
Advocacy
We want to amplify the voices of refugee communities and spread the message of their strength. talent and knowledge for a better future for everyone.
Our Flagship Program: Impact Incubator
Our flagship high-impact startup incubator is a one-of-a-kind program uniquely bringing together refugee and student leaders leveraging personal development and high-impact entrepreneurship to help visionaries become leaders of tomorrow and create ventures that move the needle. It is a two-week in-person incubation, getting participants until prototyping with an eight-week follow-up mentorship. Together with Unleashed, our key partner, we will merge our curriculum with their U-Incubate Program and co-launch this incubator together.
Impact on the ground
In our latest initiative, TSI partnered with Unleashed and the Resilient Achiever Foundation to launch its new incubation program, the High-Impact Incubator. This unique initiative brings together refugee, community and student leaders to co-create a new paradigm of development, focusing on personal development, locally led transformation, and high-impact entrepreneurship with the goal of creating ventures that drive meaningful change. It consisted of three main phases
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FIRST PHASE. We started with a train-the-trainer program in Nakivale Settlement focused on learning to facilitate the High-Impact Incubator, getting to know each other and sharing knowledge. The training brought together 18 organizations from 11 settlements across Uganda, comprised of host and refugee communities.
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SECOND PHASE: After the training, a 3-month implementation period began, where all organizations implemented the incubator in their community with selected entrepreneurs and supported the ventures with mentorship and funding received from TSI. It trained over 320 entrepreneurs, and 50 sustainable businesses emerged, which were still going strong after 6 months of launching them.
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THIRD PHASE: Having successfully implemented the incubators across Uganda and closely collaborating across institutions, a group of community leaders came together to form the consortium "Paradym Outreach". They continue resource and knowledge sharing, collaborate on new initiatives, raise necessary funds, and advocate for impactful entrepreneurship and locally-led solutions.
Key Facts
Our Pilot Program
59
Participants
Our bootcamp targeted male and female refugees from the Rwamwanja Settlement, between 18 - 36 years old that have little to advanced agricultural knowledge.
200
Tools Distributed
Each participant received three tools to foster sustainable agricultural practices and each created farmer collective got a shared tool including seeds to start cultivation.
5x
Usual Monthly Stipends
To compensate participants for their time and provide transportation support, they received each day a stipend. Their usual monthly stipend - which only covers the bare minimum or not even - was similar to the daily we gave.
6
Farmer Collectives Built
To ensure continued engagement and strengthen the existing collaboration between community members, out of the Bootcamp we built six farmer collectives according to region.
Our Impact
After training organizations to facilitate the incubator, these are the immediate impacts measured
18
Organization-strong Coalition
11
Settlements & Regions in Uganda
320
Entrepreneurs trained by our partners
20%
Increase in mental health & resilience
66 %
Increase in entrepreneurial knowledge
53%
Expanded their professional network
Agroecology & Business Training
Our impactful 5-day vocational training about sustainable agriculture and business in the Rwamwanja Settlement, implemented with our partner Tomorrow Vijana and with four follow-up training.
Impact on the ground
After months of preparation, tears and sweat, we launched our pilot program “Agroecology and Business Bootcamp” in the Rwamwanja Settlement in Uganda. Chantal - our director - and Sasha - our agricultural lead traveled to Uganda to facilitate and teach the Bootcamp together with Tomorrow Vijana - our key local partner in launching the Bootcamp and implementer.
For five days, we taught the principles of agroecology and social entrepreneurship with hands-on elements to almost 60 participants from the refugee community.
Key Facts
Agroecology & Business Training
59
Participants
Our bootcamp targeted male and female refugees from the Rwamwanja Settlement, between 18 - 36 years old that have little to advanced agricultural knowledge.
200
Tools Distributed
Each participant received three tools to foster sustainable agricultural practices and each created farmer collective got a shared tool including seeds to start cultivation.
5x
Usual Monthly Stipends
To compensate participants for their time and provide transportation support, they received each day a stipend. Their usual monthly stipend - which only covers the bare minimum or not even - was similar to the daily we gave.
6
Farmer Collectives Built
To ensure continued engagement and strengthen the existing collaboration between community members, out of the Bootcamp we built six farmer collectives according to region.
Our Impact
Long-term effects from our Agroecology and Business Bootcamp measured one year after implementation
13%
Average Income Increase
11%
Average Yield Increase
64%
Increased time on community building
71%
New built businesses based on training, 29% expanded on existing ones
100 %
shared knowledge surrounding community
Our USP
Through our holistic model, we tackle the market access gap not only by providing vocational training but also by directly creating livelihoods through enhancing agricultural supply chains. We leverage the strong agricultural sector while making it more efficient and effective via sustainable practices and ensuring quality. By filling these gaps, we also expand into adjacent markets to diversify risk and represent talent. Our main goal is to empower local communities and grassroots efforts which is why we take on a facilitator role and make refugees the driver of our solution.