Job-less Sudanese root for The Apprentice

“I followed the show from the beginning,” said Khalid Muhammad Khalid, 22, a university student. “It was an inspiration.”
Sudan’s economy has been suffering since South Sudan split off and became an independent nation in 2011, taking with it nearly 75 per cent of Sudan’s oil revenues. The country’s economy has shrunk, the value of the Sudanese pound has deteriorated, unemployment is on the rise and thousands of professionals have left for opportunities elsewhere.

The unemployment rate among Sudan’s youth is one of the reasons behind the anti-government protests in September.

But some see an option that might help improve the economic fortunes of Sudanese youths by changing long-held presumptions about work and promoting the idea of entrepreneurship. “It is not culturally given a high status,” said Ahmed Amin Abdelatif, 40, head of a family-owned company and chairman of the Sudanese Young Businessmen Association. “Many would say, ‘Why not get a proper job?’.”

Challenging that mindset is what Abdelatif and several local businessmen sought out to do. Hence, the birth last year of Mashrouy. Arabic for “my project”, it was promoted through a campaign that focused on Sudanese youths. The campaign brought in an initial 2,500 applicants for the show. A panel of experts whittled them down to 12.

Samah al-Gadi, 32, said she was not too enthusiastic about appearing on the show at first but submitted her Mashrouy application on the last possible day, at her mother’s insistence. She was also dissatisfied with her routine and limiting office work, so with her academic background in social development and agriculture, she proposed a project to help communities living along riverbanks solve a nasty problem and profit from it.

Water hyacinth is a weedlike aquatic plant that grows in the White Nile River south of Khartoum. The plant can multiply quickly and cover large water surfaces. It obstructs river transport and attracts mosquitoes and parasites that cause bilharzia.

Al-Gadi offered a new approach: “Local communities can remove it manually, let it dry, braid it, and make ropes, bags and furniture.” Mazin Merghani, 24, a university graduate, put forward another agricultural idea.

Back at the hotel, guests, including diplomats, businessmen, sat eagerly around dinner tables for the finale a few weeks ago. Al-Gadi was finally chosen the winner by a television audience that submitted votes online.

The contest’s top three winners each won money — first place was about $25,000 — and were flown to London, where they will get to meet British entrepreneurs.