The Co-Lab Coffee sessions seek to empower Alex entrepreneurs
Young entrepreneurs in Alex got together to learn from, and engage with, one another for the community’s betterment.
Local youths have begun adopting values of collaboration and co-operation in Alexandra, where Co-Lab Coffee sessions launched as a platform for empowering small, medium, and micro enterprise (SMME) entrepreneurs with tools to help them succeed as business owners.
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Held at Totalsports Alex Safe-Hub on November 15, this event ushered in a new dawn of hope for entrepreneurs looking to establish their companies in Alex for the community’s upliftment.
Safe-hub’s local economic development manager Siphiwe Dibete recalled how the Co-Lab Coffee session’s co-convenors, Mbali Mabaso and Sisanda Mvana, met through a similar engagement hosted at the venue months earlier.
“They saw our space as a viable one for launching these collaborative sessions that they run. They aim to bring entrepreneurs together in one place to receive community-empowering knowledge,” Dibete said. “That’s a part of Safe-hub’s vision as well, hence, we are honoured to host them. For us to be sustainable, we need to work more with the community.”
Mvana reflectively said that the Co-Lab Coffee sessions aimed at revisiting traditional values of collaboration to the benefit of Alex.
“Our values, as Africans, have always been around views of collaboration and co-operation, a process that may have been disturbed in township spaces that lie closer to economic centres. In rural areas, everyone in the community comes out to work together during ploughing season, same as during the harvest,” Mvana said. “So, how do we bring those values of co-operation back, infusing the African way of doing things within the business domain. We aim to build co-operation using available tools.”
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Mvana also mentioned what it was about Mabaso that inspired him to work with her on creating this networking opportunity for local entrepreneurs to benefit from.
“I met Mbali Mabaso at a session similar to this one, which was called Monetise Your Business. She was one of the entrepreneurs who pitched towards a R15 000 prize,” Mvana said. “Her scope was around issues of supporting young people in Alex. I saw space for collaboration in doing something similar, but finding different partners to work specifically with SMMEs.”
Mabaso’s main motivating factor can be described as a mission to empower and motivate entrepreneurs to seize opportunities to gain insights and knowledge that’s not obtainable except through intentional learning.
“Education is not only about getting that MBA, or diploma – but having that discipline and willingness inside to want to learn a new skill,” said Mabaso. “I believe everyone needs to be better than they were yesterday every day. The only way to be better is to educate yourself and enhance your skills. Participating community youths will leave here with new insights and action plans on what they need to do to be compliant as entrepreneurs.”
This networking session’s theme was: Mind Your Business for 2025. Mvana and Mabaso partnered with local caterers and the Gauteng Department of Treasury and Economic Development for the event.
“Minding our business is making sure that we are compliant to do business with the state. If you’re going to look for the right partner, you need to be the right partner yourself,” said Mabaso. “That’s the mission. For participants to leave with actionable steps, connections, and new ideas. New ideas yield innovations, and this leads to new jobs, which means employment and the betterment of our community.”
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