GSB&L Champions Programme
THE University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) Graduate School of Business and Leadership’s (GSB&L) Champions Programme continues to successfully produce social entrepreneurs whose ventures are benefiting communities across the province.
The Champions Programme is a community development initiative that is part of a partnership between the KZN Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (EDTEA) and UKZN.
The programme sees selected “changemakers” spend two days per month at the GSB&L being exposed to a range of topics that have been custom designed to nurture the development and scale the impact of their enterprises.
GSB&L academic and facilitator of the Champions Programme, Professor Shahida Cassim said the initiative has achieved its aim, as the entrepreneurs are stimulating local economic development in the province through their projects.
“We have taken a group of changemakers who are already running social projects in their communities and helped them scale their initiatives so that they have more impact,” explained Cassim. “Through this programme, these changemakers have learnt from each other and from experts helping facilitate the development of their enterprises. The model has evolved over the four years of offering it and we think that the model is ready to scale. We can scale this impact only through partnerships.” She issued a call for partnerships with private and public sector partners.
EDTEA representative, Patrick Mbokazi says that the skills the social entrepreneurs have gained from this programme are crucial for the transformation of South Africa’s economy. “This is one of our strategic projects to ensure that the country has leaders who are abreast with local economic development (LED) and the needs of the people in their communities – that is what sparked this partnership with UKZN. The programme has evolved over the years and we have seen a lot of positive results since its conception. We are proud of all the LED practitioners who have graduated and have gone back to plough back into their communities,” said Mbokazi.
For more information on the Champions Programme, visit: http://rledi.ukzn.ac.za/projects/champions