buzz•word Venuste Kubwimana was honored as runner-up in the NextGen in Franchising Global Competition for his social enterprise franchise, A Water Kiosk at School. The school-based and student-managed program sells clean tap water to community residents at affordable prices.
Tapping a Need NextGen finalist supplies clean water in Africa In his early teens, Venuste “Venu” Kubwimana faced a daily struggle to meet basic needs—including those we usually take for granted, such as access to clean drinking water. After losing much of his family during the Rwanda genocide in 1994, he was left to care for his younger siblings and often had to miss school to find water for them. His experience drove him to create opportunities for other struggling youths. With the help of friends, Kubwimana established the International Transformation Foundation (ITF), a youth-led, nonprofit organization that provides leadership and entrepreneurship programs to youths and enables them to contribute to development of communities. Working with ITF six years ago, Kubwimana developed A Water Kiosk at School, a school-based and student-managed program that sells clean tap water to community residents at affordable prices. The profitable endeavor teaches students business and
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entrepreneurial skills while generating much-needed income for schools. Using the franchise model, ITF makes the initial investment to set up the water system at a school. Students and community residents buy the water, and sales proceeds make the system self-sustaining. To date, the program’s 11 Water Kiosks across Kenya and Rwanda have given 117,858 people, including 5,717 schoolchildren, access to clean drinking water. Kubwimana presented the concept at the NextGen in Franchising Global Summit held in late February in Las Vegas (www.nextgenfranchising.org), where he was a finalist and received a cash award that “has gone a long way in aiding our efforts to extend A Water Kiosk at School to Rwanda’s Southern Province villages,” Kubwimana says. For more information, visit www. itfsecretariat.org/jointhepipe.html. —Jill Abrahamsen
