Nestlé rewards MYOWBU Ya Campo winners with internships opportunities

Kenyatta University’s Performing Arts Club (KUPA) and African Nazarene’s Peace Club have each won USD1000 from Nestlé Professional’s NESCAFÉ MYOWBU Ya Campo competition after beating four other clubs in the NESCAFÉ coffee selling business in their respective universities.

KU’s KUPA sold over 4,500 cups while Africa Nazarene’s Peace Club sold 4360 cups of NESCAFÉ coffee between July 2014 and January 2015 to win the competition.

In addition to the cash prizes, the lead students from the top winning club will get internship opportunities with Nestlé Kenya.

“The winning clubs were judged through their innovative marketing strategies and sales volumes,” said Paul Nagelkerken, Nestlé Professional, Country Beverage Business Manager.

MYOWBU Ya Campo is the campus edition of the NESCAFÉ’s My Own Business (MYOWBU in short) which was launched in Kenya in 2012 to help create job opportunities and build youths’ entrepreneurial skills in the country.

“Through the programme, over 650 coffee vendors have been recruited throughout Kenya, who are now earning from Sh300 -2,000 per day, from selling NESCAFÉ coffee. The vendors sell the coffee in busy public areas such as open markets, stadiums and bus stops,” said Ciru Miring’u, Managing Director of Nestlé Kenya.

In 2014, Nestlé Professional kicked off a leadership program to empower club teams in partnership with ADDO Africa -as the implementing partners.

“ADDO Africa deals with university students and clubs on a daily basis and gave us an added advantage with their network,” said Paul.

About seven clubs drawn from Kenyatta University, Nairobi University, African Nazarene University, Technical University, St Paul’s University and Jomo Kenyatta University were trained and engaged in the MYOWBU Ya CAMPO programme.

“The clubs were first trained on writing business plans after which they went and drafted their own, and presented them before a jury, who in turn selected the top clubs. About seven presented but only four were selected to run theMYOWBU Ya Campo business in their respective universities,” explained Paul.

The qualifying clubs were chosen based on the sustainability and continuity of the program.

Like the street vendors, each of the clubs received a kit comprising a coffee dispenser, NESCAFÉ products, hot water flasks, disposable cups among others. This helped the students obtain initial capital from which they are able to purchase their own stock.

“Thereafter, each club was to define the number of sellers and strategic areas or events that would drive up their sales, for example, student centers and graduations. Nestlé gave out 4 kits, one case of NESCAFE 1.6g and one case of NESCAFE 3in1 per club as a start-up capital.  The products were to assist them in understanding their consumer preference and to generate revenue to enable them to reorder,” Paul explained.

Nestlé then conducted regular meetings with the clubs to offer the necessary support where applicable for example providing NESCAFE branded materials during events.

“Students not only had opportunities to make money for their clubs, but also acquire real life business experience while still doing their studies,” said Ciru Miring’u adding on that Nestlé’s vision through this initiative is to support, touch and positively enhance the lives of university students through Nestlé’s knowledge, products and brands.

The ‘My Own Business’ programme is led by Nestlé Professional (the Nestlé Unit that offers beverage and food solutions in the out of home industry), which identifies, recruits, trains, equips and manages the students and street-vendors.

“Based on the success of the initial phase and to keep on building the entrepreneurial skills of more university students, Nestlé Professional has now embarked on recruiting more clubs and universities for the second phase of the MYOWBU Ya Campo,” said Ms. Miring’u.

About 10 more universities and clubs will now be recruited to join the entrepreneurial MYOWBU Ya Campo NESCAFÉ coffee selling business.