V-LAB - VANUATU'S FIRST BUSINESS AND IDEA INCUBATOR
  • Home
  • About
    • The Association
    • Our location
  • ACTIVITIES
    • CURRENT ACTIVITES >
      • Social Impact Incubator
      • National University of Vanuatu
      • Yumi Growem Vanuatu: cohort of returned seasonal workers
    • PAST ACTIVITIES >
      • 1st Incubation program
      • Joint Program with the National University of Vanuatu
      • Scaling Frontier Innovation Program
  • The Bisnis Nakamal
  • Newsletters
  • Contact
  • Blog
  • Home
  • About
    • The Association
    • Our location
  • ACTIVITIES
    • CURRENT ACTIVITES >
      • Social Impact Incubator
      • National University of Vanuatu
      • Yumi Growem Vanuatu: cohort of returned seasonal workers
    • PAST ACTIVITIES >
      • 1st Incubation program
      • Joint Program with the National University of Vanuatu
      • Scaling Frontier Innovation Program
  • The Bisnis Nakamal
  • Newsletters
  • Contact
  • Blog

blog

New program launched to assist Vanuatu’s social change actors - The "first" of its kind.

4/21/2022

0 Comments

 
JOINT PRESS RELEASE
(21 April 2022) Port-Vila, Vanuatu: A “Social Impact Incubator” program dedicated to supporting Vanuatu’s social change actors was launched in Port Vila on Tuesday 12 April 2022, between V-Lab, a charitable association dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship in Vanuatu and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) Pacific Office in Fiji.

The 20 successful participants or ‘Champions of Change’ of which 10 are women will receive extensive support from V-Lab until August 2022 in the form of training, coaching, and networking opportunities with a view to help them grow their social idea, project, or business.

Picture
Picture

​The “Social Impact Incubator” Program will follow the social change actors who will be working on the ground to improve the lives of more people in their communities through initiatives in health, sanitation, waste management, youth, and women empowerment.
Ms. Eslyn Aru who is involved in transforming coco-based products said, “I am looking forward to the commencement of training and I believe that there is so much I will learn in this program.” Ms. Aru empowers women in her community by encouraging them to create more local products.

​Another successful participant who runs a non-profit organization focusing on awareness and prevention of Cervical and Breast Cancer Mr. Max Albert said, “This is such a unique opportunity for me to grow my organization. Through this program, I hope to develop my managerial skills and be able to connect with a wide range of partners who will help me to reach out to as many people as possible.”
​
Picture
​Participants in this program include community organizations and social enterprises based in Port-Vila and operating on a variety of islands, including Efate, Epi and Pentecost.

V-Lab President Mr. Marc-Antoine Morel said, “Social actors play a critical role in improving the well-being of people and are often leading efforts to foster innovation in any given country.
Their contributions in the development of countries should therefore not be underestimated, particularly in times of crises such as the COVID one.’’ ​

UNDP is supporting the development of the Social Impact Incubator program. UNDP’s Inclusive Growth Deputy Team Leader Mr. Patrick Tuimalealiifano said, “For a sustainable future and to accelerate progress towards the Global SDGs, it is very important that development partners and decision makers invest in unlocking the potential of our youth as leaders and as innovators, especially in social entrepreneurship.”

The 20 ‘Champions of Change’ were identified through a selection process undertaken by V-Lab and UNDP following a call of application that was released in March.

About V-LAB Association: V-Lab has been created to support innovation and social entrepreneurship in Vanuatu and seeks to provide access to facilities, services and mentoring to young entrepreneurs - with a view to help them develop and grow their businesses and ideas as well as to promote entrepreneurship in the country.
About UNDP: UNDP partners with people at all levels of society to help build nations that can withstand crisis, and drive and sustain the kind of growth that improves the quality of life for everyone. The UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji provides country and regional support to 15 countries in the Pacific, as part of the 177-country office UNDP network and offers global perspective and local insight to help empower lives and build resilient nations. www.pacific.undp.org

For more information, please contact:
Emma Hivo from V-Lab emma@v-lab.org
Rita Tamton, Programme Management and Monitoring Support, UNDP Pacific Office in Fiji.
E: rita.tamton@undp.org
0 Comments

Building a Team

1/4/2022

0 Comments

 

V-Lab's efforts in building local capacities. 

Everything that V-lab has been doing for the last 2 years aligns with one vision, and that is to develop the local's capacity. From creating and launching projects to training participants to mentoring coaches; Our style of teaching and getting information across is through a mixture of training and coaching - Which we believe we are the only association that is doing this in Vanuatu. 
V-lab's goal in the last year was to train as many Ni-van coaches and trainers as possible and that has been working out great through a collaboration with Breadfruit Consulting. 
Chris Elphick is the man behind the scene that has been working closely with our In-training coaches. His role is to mentor the coaches, focusing more on developing the soft-skill than their hard-skill. He believes that while one may possess all the knowledge to deliver a good coaching session, it doesn't necessarily make them a good coach. To be a coach you need to have that relationship - People need to respect you and you need to be able to understand them so that you can meet them where they are at and communicate at a level where you can help them achieve their goal and perform to their fullest potential. 
Picture
​( Chris Elphick with V-lab coaches and staff )
Picture
So far we have around 11 local In-training coaches. Our method of choosing a potential coach does not stem from the idea that they are a good person or has done a lot of great things, but is more to do with their business background. One thing that if not all, but most of our coaches have in common is that they are involved in business and management. Either they are managing a business, running one, or both. V-Lab is confident in its team and has created balance in terms of age and gender, with its coaches possessing numerous hard-skills, including but not limited to :
  • Financial skills,
  • Marketing and Management skills 
  • Agricultural skills
  • Customer service and 
  • Leadership, Team-work and strategic planning.

When interviewing an in-training coach, Joel David, he summarizes his experience with a quote,
"Our goal as business coaches is to empower entrepreneurs in a way where they can move by themselves and be confident in their own ability and journey."​
Picture
Picture
Our Coach and Trainer of the year -
(Taken from December 2021 newsletter article).

Velenie Jacob has joined V-Lab as an incubee in 2020 through the Scaling Frontier Innovation incubation program. She is now one of our lead coach and trainer and works with V-Lab to deliver some training sessions on Financial Management and How to find finance. She coaches some incubees under Yumi Growem Vanuatu.

Velenie works as a Finance officer for Vanuatu Investment Promotion Authority. She founded her own company "Narara Consulting", aiming to bring up small businesses to a standard where business owners are capable to understand and compile book-keeping for their businesses as well as be able to understand business finances better. Her slogan is "Brekem silence. Tokbaot finance". Velenie is currently working with V-Lab to develop our Finance Nakamal, aiming at delivering tailored training on financial management to individual and businesses on a pay-for-service basis.
 ​
Moving Forward.
2021 was all about getting the team to feel like a team. Lots of team bonding activities, including a retreat which was held in December. The objective behind the retreat was to engage the team in discussions to reflect on what we have achieved together so far and what more we can do to be better in delivering our services and providing only the best for our incubees.
2022 for V-Lab and its team of coaches and trainers is about moving forward and doing more structured development. Providing training on topics such as; emotional intelligence, empathy and communication. 
V-lab in collaboration with Breadfruit consulting plans to provide qualification on coaching that will be recognized internationally. This is in our goals for 2023 and will target anyone that is looking for a career in coaching - not just business wise, but also personal, life skills and more. 
0 Comments

    Author

    Write something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview.

    Archives

    April 2022
    January 2022

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Thank you to our Top sponsors !!!


Contact Us

    Contact us Today!

Submit