Jane Nduku Mueni, a 21 year old Global Xchange participant from Kenya, emerged as the Africa winner during the 2009 BBC competition dubbed ‘Faidika na BBC’ a Swahili phrase meaning ‘Prosper with the BBC’.

The programme aims to bring a positive change to an entire community using Swahili-speaking young entrepreneurs between the ages of 16 to 24 years old, to submit proposals on how they would use US$5,000 to start a successful business that would have a positive impact on their community. The competition involved six African countries Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo and Kenya where Jane, the only female contestant and the first Kenyan winner, defended her proposal in fluent Swahili; she was elated when she came out tops to win US$ 5,000 for her environmental project. Her proposal was shaped around setting up a garbage collection company which will provide much needed employment to youth as well as combat the environmental pollution in her locality.

In addition to winning the top prize, Jane will also have an opportunity to participate in a one week Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) to be held in Trinidad and Tobago in November this year and address a Youth Forum of over 150 youths from all the Commonwealth countries on issues to deal with environment.

Jane is focused on starting her project once she completes the 6 month Global Xchange programme, in March 2010. Global Xchange is a partnership managed by the British Council, Voluntary Service Overseas and a range of overseas partners. Active global citizenship is at the heart of the programme and its vision is to build a world where active global citizens create positive change and build mutual understanding and respect. The programme for 18 Kenya and UK participants is set to commence in September 2009 with a 3 month ‘Kenya phase’ followed by a similar exchange visit to the UK from December 2009. The youth exchanges give young people from different countries a unique opportunity to work together for 6 months, to develop and share valuable skills and to make a practical contribution where it is needed in local communities. She adds “I’m really excited that BBC found my proposal credible enough to entrust me with this honour and responsibility, I’m also looking forward to the GX programme due to the community work experience that I’ll gain and after that I’ll have something (the environmental project) to look forward to”.