Founder and director of the Unite Passion Project Lila Wells (currently a rising junior at Northwestern University in Chicago) has been working part-time with the cold brew coffee company BrewBike since January 2020, first in campus operations and then in marketing and now with social media. BrewBike’s mission is “to empower the next generation of leaders through entrepreneurial experience.” Lila submitted her presentation (below) to the Brewbike Future Fund team of judges early this spring and was recently chosen as the winner of this student competition, which is designed to empower “the next generation of entrepreneurs to chase their dreams and do the good they are meant to do in this world.” The grand prize of $3,800 will be allocated towards growing The Passion Project through the launching of additional Unite Clubs in secondary schools across Tanzania. Congratulations Lila and thank you to the BrewBike Future Fund!
The AWARD-WINNING presentation
Hello and thank you for taking the time to listen to me talk about one of my passion projects today. Fittingly, its name is the Unite Passion Project – and venture has been a highlight of both my sophomore year and college career more broadly.
My name’s Lila. I’m a sophomore undergraduate at Northwestern University double-majoring in Sociology and Legal Studies. And that, I’m passionate about. But it took me a while to get there. First quarter freshman year, I was an aspiring Chemistry major who thought that the lab was my future. That, I believed, was my passion. Until I took my first college Chemistry Course and realized that my interests and talents most definitely lied elsewhere. This realization was something I thought had more to do with me than my access to career knowledge more broadly. It seemed like all of my peers around me knew what they wanted, what their futures would be. But as I began to converse with people I admired, I found that – as young people – choosing a course of study and future career path is something inherently mutable and subject to change. Frankly, it’s something we as 17, 18, 19, and 20 year olds often don’t talk enough about. Aren’t perhaps prepared enough for.
I’ve had the honor and pleasure of working with the international NGO Unite the World With Africa Foundation – which aims to empower extraordinary yet impoverished and marginalized Tanzanian youth and women with quality education, health, leadership, and business development programs – all aimed to foster independence and long-term success. I’mlucky to have been mentored by Unite’s incredible Tanzanian leadership team, and to call members of the organization’s flagship program – the Unite Scholars – my good friends. And as I was talking with one of them, Imani Faustine, this past June he brought up a question that brought me back to my freshman year dilemma. He asked the following – can you have more than one dream? The answer is, of course, yes, but its something that – especially in Tanzania – students often aren’t encouraged to do. Their school system, operating similarly to the British system, steadily hones in on one to three subjects throughout a student’s pre-university path. Once you’ve reached your A-Levels, your course is practically set. Or so we think, right?
Imani’s question and my dilemma, as well as ideas brought up by the remaining 41 Unite A-Level Scholars are ultimately what created this venture, the Unite Passion Project. The Unite Passion Project operates where other programs don’t: government A-Level schools in Tanzania. Through a comprehensive curriculum emphasizing soft skills as well as an open source library speaker videos, this program addresses challenges that are otherwise not discussed—career readiness and professional development. These skills are vital for students coming of age in a time where the traditional path (school, one career, retirement) is becoming less and less common. The Passion Project addresses an endemic lack of career exposure by showcasing the passions, career paths, and activities of students and professionals from around the world, as well as how they have leveraged their resources and strategies to attain their dreams. We focus on amplifying Tanzanian excellence, and currently have 107 speaker videos on the platform, reaching over 1,300 students in six Tanzanian upper secondary schools.
The Passion Project videos are viewed and discussed in depth in Unite Clubs within each school. The clubs have a tripartite focus, ecology, altruism, and intellect. The first, ecology, stresses environmental reforestation – and sidenote, our Kibaha Club planted over 400 trees this spring. The altruism tenet is all about giving back to each school’s surrounding communities, often through donating time to local projects. The last tenet, intellect, is where the Unite Passion Project videos – to encourage honest, strategic and thoughtful debate about the future.
Starting last summer, I began to build a Tanzanian and American team through my contacts at Unite as well as through my university to embark on this project. I have spoken about this venture on Work With Engaisi, a Kenyan podcast, as well as at Emory University. This project has also been featured in the Greens Farms Academy magazine, Westport News, the Audira Labs newsletter, and BBC’s Voice of America Swahili.
So, where are we now? The Unite Passion Project currently has 107 speaker videos on its platform (both on YouTube and offline through Tanzanian-mediated channels). Our six partner Unite Clubs have over 1,300 members in total, and we have added over 12 comprehensive modules emphasizing soft skill and pre professional development. This spring, I have built a team of five undergraduate students from Northwestern, DePaul University, and Brown, and together we reached out to over 200 potential speakers – garnering over 40 thus far to add to our collection. I revamped and relaunched our website and work collaboratively with Tanzanian Unite Club Coordinators to establish a feedback mechanism between our audience and speakers. This venture is my life, and it has been the opportunity of a lifetime to connect with professionals young and old from around the world through a simple question: what exactly is your passion?
I was accepted to the Winter 2020 cohort of Propel this past December through Northwestern University’s Garage Entrepreneurial Incubator. Propel seeks to empower female entrepreneurs, and in my time there I developed five partnerships for the Passion Project. I’ll describe a few of interest. The first is crisis training with Dr. Kenneth Wolf a cinical psychologist who consulted with the government in crisises like 9/11 and the Oklahoma City Bombings. Dr. Wolf will be training our Unite leadership cohort and a select group of Unite Club students on how to effectively identify, assess, and address traumatic situations in their communities at large.
The second involves Winnie Nyato, a Tanzanian native and Evidence and Insights Manager at Girl Effect. She is working with us to bring a ‘Somo Session’ to our Kibaha Boys Unite Club, which will involve intensive career training and talks from young Tanzanian professionals, who will demonstrate firsthand the opportunities, challenges, and obstacles faced when entering the job market. Another Tanzanian native, Adam Mkaka, has partnered with us to bring our comprehensive speaker series and career development program into Tanzanian refugee camps. We have also included Hussein Mussa’s Afrika Sihami videos in our club repertoire. Afrika Sihami – which in Swahili means ‘We Don’t Leave Afrika’ aims to inspire and educate through positive and empowering stories of East African history. These videos will be paramount in demonstrating Tanzanian and East African excellence.
I’ll stop there because this is truly the important part. Where your funding would go. To the right is David Bitaho, a Unite Scholar and incredible leader who is currently studying at Tabora Boys School in Tanzania. He and his classmates have expressed interest in starting a Unite Club – and after many many many Whatsapp and email correspondences, we’re excited to embark on this new club launch. But we need some funding to do so.
The price breakdown for the Tabora Boys club costs are as follows: 2000 USD for laptop screens, a projector modem, and microphone speaker to facilitate video viewing and discussion. 500 USD for club notebooks, pens, and academic materials for the year. 500 USD for all necessary materials for a Unite Garden, a factor of our ecology tenet which includes tree planting. And 600 to 800 USD for teacher coordinator stipends, phone bundle allowances (such as minutes), communication, and club events with the community.
With this funding, the Unite Passion Project could launch the Tabora Boys School club to reach over 300 additional students. This career exposure is paramount and, speaking from my experiences as a student, it truly makes a world of difference by broadening the scope of what is possible to achieve.
Lila on a Zoom call with David Bitaho to share the great news that his dream of starting a Unite Club at his school (Tabora Boys) will now come true!
Asante sana kwa muda wako, or thank you for your time.