Besides business, our company, CCBA-Ethiopia, highly values the overall development of the community in every aspect. One of its pillars is prioritizing in making our continent a better place for all. Hence, it has launched and carried out a range of initiatives in economic inclusion, water replenishment, and waste management: World without Waste.
With more than six decades of industry leadership, CCBA-Ethiopia is committed to fostering the development of young people and women empowerment, entrepreneurship, and employability opportunities, community build-up programs, safe neighborhoods, and small domestic companies. It creates prospects for stable employment and income for its targeted recipients through direct investments, partnerships, or outsourced funding.
As part of CCBA’s economic inclusion initiatives, Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA) in Ethiopia graduated a group of 50 hearing-impaired youths and women after a compressive training program to enable them become masters in bamboo crafts, creating opportunities for entrepreneurship and employability. The graduation ceremony was held at the Friendship International Hotel, Bole Road, Addis Abeba.
The “Signs of Success”, a three-month training program, aimed at creating a sustainable income for the disabled through skills development. The trainees learned how to make homeware, including chairs, tables, beds, sofas, baskets, and flowerpots, allowing them to become socially and economically self-reliant.
The project was done in partnership with Association for the Rehabilitation of Girls, non-governmental organization, which also helped the trainees to develop entrepreneurship and employability skills.
CCBA-Ethiopia used its industry leadership to be part of the solution to the country, to achieve positive change in the world, and to build a more sustainable future for the planet, said Daryl Wilson CCBA-Ethiopia managing director.
“Our aim is to create greater shared opportunity across the value chain for our business and the communities we serve. Opportunity is about a better future for individuals and their communities everywhere on the African continent, not just about money,” he adds.
CCBA-Ethiopia, in particular, promotes inclusive growth opportunities for women, youth, and people with disabilities by defining a consistent way of economic inclusion programs across our markets and drawing on a leading practice to execute our programmes. At the same time, we will seek to harness the impact of our economic inclusion initiatives to solve business challenges.
“We understand that the success of our company depends on the success of the communities we serve. Investing in communities ensures our business sustainability. Most of all, we are all Africans and are part of our respective communities,” said Wilson.
One of our key strategies for implementing economic inclusion programs is to identify skill development opportunities to assist women and young people in starting and growing businesses through entrepreneurship. To promote employability, we also use collaboration and advocacy, utilising external funding sources or partnerships when possible.
Our entrepreneurship programs focus on initiatives that provide our target groups with the opportunity to take an existing business to a higher level of operation, while employability programs focus on up-skilling, re-skilling, or other opportunities that improve our target group’s chances of finding sustainable employment.
Signs of Success project is included in the entrepreneurship programs we provide.The success of these programmes will be defined by the extent to which we boost income, unlock sustainable earning potential, improve skills, and business knowledge, resulting in access to economic opportunities.
“We earnestly take our responsibility to give back to the communities we call home, whether it is through financial, time, or skill contributions,” said Wilson.