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R E P O R T

OutlineExecutive SummaryOur journey so farOrganization and managementOur missionOur approachOur programsOther Noteworthy achievementsWhat we learnt in 2019Our program plans for 2020Partners and SupportersFinancial Reports

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To create a sustainable world where peace and justice thrive, all individuals must acquire values, relevant skill-set, and heightened awareness (UNESCO 2014). This is why the Sozo Networks was founded in 2015 in response to the anticipated youth bulge in Africa to empower youths with the skills and knowledge required to combat critical challenges facing their communities. Sozo networks is a youth-led non-profit organization that promotes the participation of young people in leadership and development in Nigeria. We help them to develop competence for active citizenship and leadership. Our theory of change includes providing support to young leaders and strengthening youth-led initiatives through 3 thematic areas - Education, Leadership, and Entrepreneurship. We implement the above by providing educational support, experiential training, volunteering opportunities, mentorship, hands-on experiences, and idea incubation programs. Our alumni network has evolved into a strong ecosystem of young social change leaders, collectively and individually providing solutions to some of Nigeria's most critical problems through civic leadership and entrepreneurship.

Executive Summary

Founded in 2015, Sozo Networks was built on the vision of creating a world led by competent young leaders. Sozo Networks train and empower young people through experiential training on social change and leads an ecosystem of young changemakers that are providing solutions to some of Nigeria's most critical problems through civic leadership and social entrepreneurship. Today, we have reached over 12000 young people between the age of 13-35, supported social ventures to scale and remain sustainable. Sozo Networks was started (and is headquartered) in Ibadan, the third most populous city in Nigeria, and has spread to Lagos, Abuja and Ogun State as a result of the ownership spirit of our program alumni.

Our journey so far

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The Sozo Networks is incorporated as a non-governmental organization in Nigeria under the name Sozo Empowerment and Mentorship Initiative and incorporated Trustee identity CAC/IT/No 80932. We have three advisors who supervise our team of six staff that coordinates volunteers on the field. Our governing body works together to ensure effective and efficient project delivery while maintaining compliance with operational and financial ethics, organizational standards, and constitution. Sozo Networks is a youth-led organization founded by Dr Segun Fatudimu and guided by a board of trustees led by Mr. Olusegun Abimbola, a former marketing manager for Unilever Nigeria. Our Advisory board led by Ms. Kelly King, the Executive Director of the Future Leaders Foundation in New York, who advises on our programming and projects.

Organization and Management

entrepreneurship and design thinking.

1. Youth Education: We bridge a significant loophole in the nation's education system by offering mentorship and al ternat ive educat ional opportunities that allow young people below the age of 20 to develop essential skills for active citizenship, leadership, and career in the 21st-century society and workspace. Our thematic areas of focus are:

entrepreneurship by teaching on social 2. Youth Leadership: We raise young social change leaders through a 5 phase approach (DCDES) that helps them to discover their vision and needs, develop self, create solutions, engage with communities to test the solutions, and finally pass on impacts to others. 3. Youth Entrepreneurship: We promote

Our missionTo nurture formidable leagues of competent young leaders who are actively transforming their societies through innovative entrepreneurship, civic engagements and public leadership.

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Our approach

Our ProgramsSozo Networks is focused on promoting youth participation in leadership and development by providing safe spaces, leadership capacity development programs, mentorship and exposures that helps our burgeoning youth population acquire critical knowledge, values, and skills that empower them to be active contributors in the development of their communities. For young people to show up to lead, they need to understand their purpose, their role in nation building, acquire leadership skills and have access to a supportive ecosystem. Our programs demonstrate our commitment to human capital development; we support young and emerging leaders to build the world they want to see. thesozonetwork

The New Year created an avenue for us to raise new change-makers. There was no perfect way to end the year and start a new year than with the Strategy Boot-Camp. The aim of the boot camp was to equip participants with primary skills, insights and tools needed to understand and navigate the social sector. We noticed that youth led social/civic initiatives after a few years of existence wind up and the reason is because they lack the capacity to sustain these various initiatives. Hence, we called for applications for emerging social sector leaders to participate in the Strategy Boot Camp. We reviewed about 400 applications and 50 were selected across two regions in Nigeria (North Central and South West). Majority of the selected participants lead civic initiatives and are between 23 and 40 years old. The Strategy Boot Camp was hosted in three major locations in Nigeria, which are Ibadan, Lagos and Abuja. Continue reading at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1t2V6oUt1sE934y14ofozUXn_c6ll3ThH/view

Social Impact Strategy and Accelerator Boot Camps:

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There are many young leaders and community-based organizations in Nigeria doing incredible work to help people in their communities. However, lack of access to funds and lack of diversification of funding sources are significant challenges to support their initiatives.” Our goal through this course is to empower young leaders to obtain the needed funds to implement their innovative ideas and solutions to transform their sectors and communities. During this course participants learnt how project proposal ideas are developed, strategies for developing relationships with funders, the major components of a project proposal, how to develop strategies for successfully implementing funded projects, the grant opportunities available through the foundations and diplomatic missions in Nigeria and other fundraising concepts besides grant writing. This year the onsite grant writing training reached a total of 312 participants in Abuja, Lagos, Ibadan, Akure and Makurdi; while the online course reached 120 participants from 5 other countries. Learn more about the origin of the course here https://today.appstate.edu/2018/03/06/lutabingwa and about the grant course at www.sozonetworks.com/grantwriting.

GrantWritingCourse:

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The SAFE project hosted 500 teenagers from Oyo state to its annual SAFE Conference, organized to equip teenagers from low-income communities with cognitive, leadership, life, and employability skills required to succeed in future workspaces, become innovative entrepreneurs and carry on active citizenship. Continue reading at https://sozonetworks.com/safeconference5report/.

SAFEConference:

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We also graduated the seventh cohort of the SAFE Academy. The cohort of 21 teenagers from low-income homes and public schools went through 12 days of intensive experiential and practical training sessions. The SAFE curriculum was facilitated by young experts and teachers recruited from across the city. Through this experience, these young teenage leaders now have a better understanding of themselves and their roles in the society, and are poised to make their communities better. Visit https://sozonetworks.com/safeacademy7report/ to read more.

SAFEAcademy:

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The program is targeted at young Nigerian change-makers in the social sector. It is designed to provide them with the knowledge, skills, and networks required to effectively lead sustainable community development initiatives via a 4-day non-residential capacity development boot camp, mentorship and continuous support. In 2019, the boot camps provided 200 outstanding young leaders from 4 Nigerian states (Lagos, Abuja, Oyo and Delta) with the opportunity to hone their leadership, advocacy, strategic planning, fundraising, and Networking skills. The participants are currently being supervised and supported by our team to step down the training to 2000 young leaders in their various communities. Out of the 200 boot camp participants, 20 Fellows have been shortlisted and will enjoy exclusive mentoring and project support. We received 4556 applications from across Nigeria. Here is the link to the project report - https://sozonetworks.com/yidreport2019/. You can also find the call for application and selection criteria at https://sozonetworks.com/yid/.

Youths in DevelopmentBoot Campand FellowshipProgram:

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We offered consulting services to 6 organizations in 2019. We worked on projects involved creating a social impact strategy for a medium scale business; creating fundraising strategies, strategic planning, and volunteer management. We also conducted staff training for two organizations on human centered design and effective resource mobilization and management.

ConsultingServices:

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. 6. SAFE Project Alumni Ali Ajagbe admitted to African Leadership Academy South Africa 5. Sozo networks Awards Fidelity Bank Southwest Zonal Director - Mr Adeyinka Adebayo for commitment to youth development. 4. Alumni Isaac Success won the future awards Africa prize for education7. Lagos lead volunteer Ilori Julius was elected the YALI Network Lagos state coordinator

3. Advisory Board Member Kelly King graduated from University of Pennsylvania2. Volunteer Manager - Kayode Alabi was appointed as a Peace First Ambassador4. Members' Achievement: 3. Newspaper feature: Nigerian Tribune feature how Sozo Networks provided youth with skills for development Read article at https://tribuneonlineng.com/how-sozo-networks-provided-youth-with-skills-for-development/2. New website: Due to security issues and the need for a better website, we changed our host leading to a change in our domain name to www.sozonetworks.com.

1. Founder selected as an Obama Foundation Scholar, also recognized by U.S Consular General for work on YALI Network and Mandela Washington Fellow in Nigeria

1. Change of Office: We moved from our old office to a new address at No. 3 Adebajo street, Bodija, Ibadan. In this new office, we have a bigger space for training and events. Courtesy our partner eCove Space, we now have a liaison office in Abuja.Other Noteworthy achievements

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2. Social Entrepreneurship is the way to a sustainable future: We raised over a million naira by offering training and consulting services. This success is proof that our business model is working and we aim to improve on this next year. What we learnt in 20191. The role of institutional partnership and support: Our relationship with our institutional partners helped scale our work and enabled us to deliver more impact to the people that we serve.

4. Collaboration is the new competition: This year we depended heavily on old and new relationships; we were only able to scale into new communities and states because we got help from organizations whose mission aligns with ours. 3. Human centered thinking and program design: We designed all of our programs based on interviews, surveys and interaction with the people that we serve. It was extremely helpful to have piloted the ideas with a small group before implementing them on a large scale.

Partners and SupportersInstitutional Partners and Affiliations: Appalachian State University Office of International Education and Development, CIVICUS, and Young African Leaders Initiative.Implementation/ Operational Partners: US Exchange Alumni group. YALI Network, Harvest House Christian Centre,Kamp kinetics, American Corner, Ibadan, Wennovation Hub, Abuja, eCove space, Farm konnect, 21st Century Entrepreneurship Hub, American Corner at Co-creation Hub (CCHub), Hacey Health Initiative, Mandela Washington Fellowship Alumni Association, Volunteers Hub Africa and Jump Start Academy Africa.Funding Partners: United States Mission to Nigeria, International Research and Exchange Board, Ajivin Group of Companies. thesozonetwork

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CONTACT DETAILS:IBADAN OFFICE:3, Adebajo Street, Kongi, Bodija,Ibadan, Oyo state, NigeriaABUJA OFFICEeCove Space, 4 Sefadu close,Ademola Adetokunbo, wusa 2, Abuja, FCT+234 708 719 8036hello@sozonetworks.comwww..sozonetworks.com/donate