A TOTAL of 100 young people from Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMBM) were recently empowered with knowledge of how to start up cooperatives, NPOs and get funding and support for their small businesses.
The initiative, a pilot in the area, was initiated following a community profile of Ward 32 that was done by the NMBM social development, education and administration directorate.
NMBM community development facilitator, Mzwakhe Sibantu, said that they discovered a need for professionals and organisations to assist the youth in the area to tap into available economic opportunities.
“We realised that the youth are the most vulnerable; without proper guidance they end up falling prey to drugs and gangsterism.
“The future is in their hands and therefore we saw it fit to develop a programme that will assist the youth,” Sibantu said.
Guest speakers included Cinga Nyathela, from NYDA, who spoke about grants available for the youth to start up businesses, and the training available to assist aspiring entrepreneurs.
“We basically assist young people who are focused on profit-driven businesses; this means that we don’t assist NPOs and NGOs; we focus on small enterprises or aspiring entrepreneurs.
“Due to COVID-19, we are currently focusing on the grant programme. The programme offers a maximum of R100 000 and it comes in three different thresholds,” Nyathela said.
Also addressing the youth was Luyanda Jack, NMBM SMME development assistant director, who spoke about the opportunities offered by the metro’s economic development tourism and agriculture directorate.
“On the tourism side we are doing a number of trainings such as training for tourism ambassadors. We are also assisting people with B&Bs and people who want to start business within the tourism sector,” Jack said.
He highlighted that in addition to the non–financial support offered by the city, in some instances materials and machinery was provided.
Part of the workshop also focused on drug and substance abuse, which are major challenges in the area.
Resident, Trevor Damons, who attended the workshop, said, “I’m very happy l attended the workshop. From the content l have heard, l will follow up on the tour guard programme; it is something that l have always been passionate about since high school.”
