YOUTH EMPOWERMENT: A COUNTRY IMPERATIVE
AS South Africa was celebrating Youth Month, Msunduzi Municipality was out in full force celebrating the successes of businesses run by young people. The businesses are funded by the municipal programme through youth office’s Entrepreneurship Development Programme.
National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) in partnership with the Msunduzi Youth Centre through its Grant Programme provide young entrepreneurs with an opportunity to access both financial and non-financial business development support in order to enable them to establish or grow their businesses. The programme will focus
on youth entrepreneurs who are at promising and new stages of enterprise development.
The programme is available for uMsunduzi residents and surrounding areas especially those that do not have Youth offices such as uMsinga. Thinamazwane Zwane NYDA Business coordinator said, “The Grant programme only caters for sustainable businesses that operate weekly and it does not fund ‘sin’ businesses such as alcohol, cigarettes business and it does not fund tenders, vehicles, properties.”
The grant comes in the form of equipment, the value of the grant starting from R1 000 to R100 000; a new business can be granted between R1 000 and R10 000, already existing business can be granted between R10 000 and R50 000. Lastly, improving an existing profitable business start from R50 000 to R100 000.
Msunduzi Youth Centre and NYDA alongside Msunduzi News visited the youth businesses that were supported by the grant programme to see how they are doing since they received the grant. Some of the businesses that are funded by the grant are Izoso Connect (Central town), DaBrian Photograhy (in Edendale Mall) and Queen B Laundromat which is still busy with application process for the grant.
Nomvelo Gwala-Zwane owner of Izoso Connect a fast food business which received a grant of R48 000 worth of equipment. She started her business in September 2015, she firstly went to Msunduzi Youth office where she met Thinamazwane Zwane, who told her about application process for the grant, she went for a 3-day training, then went for a grant assessment, she then applied for the grant of which she was granted.
“The grant truly assisted me a lot; the funding made a huge difference in growing my business because the fridge, food warmer, 150 litre pots, basin with sink was funded by NYDA. As a result, my business has grown I now have 4 employees,” said Nomvelo.
Nobuhle Konjane from Grange recently applied for the grant, runs a laundry business called Queen B Laundramat in Victoria street. She opened her business in 2018, but due to high volume of clients with limited resources to services them makes it difficult for her to reach her potential.
Therefore, she applied for funding, in that way she can add more washing and drying machines to enable her and the team to service all the clients.
“We have a lot of clients and they are happy with our service, but due to machine shortages it becomes difficult to work. If we can get the grant we can grow the business and service all our clients and our working environment will be better,” said Nobuhle.