3seed grants of $500 each, awarded by an external jury
How it works
Most schools teach you to follow instructions. We do the opposite.
We have no teachers. Young people run the model, with the help of mentors: the logistics, the budgets, the community meetings. We call it freesponsibility, the freedom to decide paired with the responsibility for what happens. It sounds chaotic. It is how we learn.
01
We organize ourselves.
No managers, no hierarchy. Young people hold real roles, from logistics to budgets, and hold each other to them. Most of our enterprise teams are two to six people who chose each other.
02
We build real enterprises.
23 social enterprise ideas have started here so far, in food and farming, trades and services, and clean water. Each one starts with a change we want to see at home, and is tested with real customers.
03
We pass it on.
Young people who came through Fount Hub now mentor the next group. The model spreads the way SINA's does, carried by the people it served.
Fount Hub is on the SINA replication journey, following SINA's model of self-organization and social entrepreneurship. Read the full SINA approach
The journey
How the journey works
Self-organization and social enterprise, run by young people. Four stages, from a first month together to a registered enterprise.
01
Our training
1 month
One intense month. Leave with a tested idea, a team, and a place in Genesis.
02
Genesis
1 month, then all year
Personal development. Discover strengths, question limiting beliefs, build confidence. It continues lightly all year.
03
Immersion
6 months
The idea meets real customers. Test it, then start selling.
04
Catalyser
4 months
Register the enterprise and grow independent.
Graduation
Graduate with your own enterprise and meaningful work, then link back as a mentor for the next group.
At every stage, young people organize themselves and fill real community roles. Enterprise teams of two to six form by choice, around a change they want to see at home.
Founders
Meet a few of our founders.
Dancille Nzoyikorera
Backyard egg network
When the fishing season closes, Magara runs short of food and eggs are scarce. Dancille's team helps households raise small flocks, then buys back the eggs and sells them together.
David Nshemezimana
Animal feed supply
Families depend on their animals, but feed is hard to find nearby. David sources it through his network and brings it to his village faster and at fairer prices.
Frédéric Ntakirutimana
Community vet
As the only vet in his community, Frédéric is on call day and night when sickness strikes livestock. He has trained other young people to give vaccines and basic care.
Two ways in
Join Fount Hub
Bring the change you want to see at home. Start with our training, 20 days of building with other young people. Then live and learn in our community for up to one year. You leave with something to build, not just something to say.
Tell us your name and where you live. We'll share dates, eligibility, and what support is available.
Support Fount Hub
Back a young founder, fund our next intake, or partner with us to spread the model. Your gift backs mentoring, practical learning, and the next group's way in.
Fount Hub is for young people in Burundi who want to build something that matters. The way in is our training. Tell us who you are and the change you want to create in your community, and the team will reply about the next entry opportunity.
Finding her own abilities, and what she can build with them
“I learnt a lot. I didn't know my own abilities, and I didn't know I could start an enterprise with just what I have. Going to the field to interview customers was an eye-opener, and I learned to listen to them rather than build only what I wanted.”
Bukuru Aline was one of the young people in a 2026 cohort in Magara, Burundi. Alongside their personal development, participants chose a change they wanted to create, drawn from their own lives, tested ideas with real people, and presented their work to an external jury. For her, going into the field to interview customers changed how she builds.
Our vision
Seventeen hubs by 2035
Fount Hub is the first. Our goal is one hub in each of Burundi's 17 former provinces, each locally named, owned and run by young people.
At full scale, each hub helps start about 20 social enterprises a year. That's around 340 a year across the country.
New hubs grow with support from the ones before them, and graduates come back as mentors, partners and employers.
It's a goal, not a promise, and we'll be honest about how it goes.
The best way to understand Fount Hub is to build in it.
