​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.”
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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

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. 

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."​

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.