By 2040 50% of the world’s youth will live on the African continent. As this new majority of youth in Africa seek employment outside of their local communities, they are finding a growing market of informal labor and unemployment. In addition to creation of urban sprawl, it leaves the rural communities with an aging population that is void of youthful laborers, new technologies and innovation. 80% of the income in developing countries is in agriculture, yet due to the lack of access to financing, resources, and new technologies we are seeing a drastic erosion of the necessary sustainable workforce.

The Business Technical Institute (BTI) promotes a sustainable practice of entrepreneurship and training that is igniting a socio-economic shift restoring human flourishing and sustainability to our youth and their communities. COTN believes that poverty can be diminished by training and empowering the next generation of producers, famers, businesses people and leaders in the countries we serve. By impacting the sustainable welfare of young adults, we impact the future of Malawi.

At COTN Malawi, the key elements of a healthy, economically sustainable, and cooperative community are reinforced in primary and secondary school, university and vocational training. As our children progress through each stage of their education, their influence accelerates until they are ultimately advocating for national change, providing effective leadership, and contributing to the decline of poverty and increase of human flourishing in their communities and their country.

Each year, COTN Malawi transfers dozens of students as leaders in local and global business, agriculture, technology and government.  In addition to their own economic independence, these transformed youth have the ability and passion to advocate for social policy and create a new global voice on behalf of others.  These young people lead on the foundations of sustainability and the principles of holistic care as the next generation of global leaders. Unfortunately, the lack of opportunities for their economic sustainability has been an obstacle to their success.

In 2019, Children of the Nations (COTNI) investigated the business rationale for operating a Business and Technical Institute for students graduating from the COTN program in Malawi. A market evaluation and preliminary business proposal was submitted and the decision was made to pursue a business center and technology institute in Malawi where students would be able to gain advance training, mentoring and professional development to launch them into successful flourishing and sustainable vocations and businesses.

In 2021, the new BTI program was launched in Malawi to provide COTN graduates the ability to create the transformative change needed in their families, their communities, and their nation. This program is focused on students that have either through experience or education demonstrated an aptitude to start a medium sized business in a target industry (agriculture, hospitality,  or work in an advanced technical industry (technology, media, renewable energy etc.). This new center has graduated two cohorts and 30 students that are now either running a mature business or transitioning through the incubation phase of developing a start-up business.