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Success Story

Photo: USAID/Angola/Cathy Hamlin

High school senior Priscila Finito fries sausage pastries as part of the school’s Junior Achievement Company program.

“After graduation, I want to open an ice cream shop. I will need to get some financing, but then I know what to do next,” said Osvaldo Soares, who is part of a student-run business at a school in Luanda, Angola.

The foyer to the Economics Institute of Luanda is fragrant with the smell of frying pastries. From the front office window, a group of students participating in the Junior Achievement (JA) Company program is selling small sausage pies and cups of fresh orange juice to fellow students passing by between classes. And they are learning to be entrepreneurs.

“I have learned how a business really works,” explained accounting and management senior Priscila Finito. “We learned how to find customers and how to market to them.”

In fifteen schools in and around Luanda, students are piloting JA programs, and senior students at these schools are learning to create a business. Over a period of 16 weeks, seniors at the institute have created small businesses, conducting market research, sketching a business plan, selling shares in order to accumulate capital, and buying raw material for production.

Students are guided by volunteer professionals such as accountants, procurement officers, and human resources managers from companies and other entities such as Esso, Coca-Cola, Odebrecht, Chevron, Alcatel-Lucent Technologies, the U.S. Embassy, and USAID.

“They wanted to make pastries and sell drinks, but the school already has a snack bar that sells pastries and soft drinks,” said Correia Pongolola, advisor to the students. “So they decided to sell the pastries at a cheaper price, and make juice as an alternative to soft drinks. To make the pastries cheaper, they had to make the pastry production more cost effective.”

“After graduation, I want to open an ice cream shop,” said Osvaldo Soares, as he mixes pastry flour with a hand mixer. “I will need to get some financing, but then I know what to do next. I need to get equipment and a place, and start working to repay the loans.”

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