Rudo Institute needs sharp business minds

The Rudo Institute, formerly known as the Daveyton Book Club, needs your assistance in training 200 business owners, or prospective entrepreneurs, on how to grow or start a business.

The non-profit company is a higher education institution based in Daveyton. It was founded by Sarah Madingwana and Kwandile Skhosana.

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Madingwana and Skhosana built the institute after they saw how inaccessible tertiary education was, especially for people in the township.

Kwandile said there were no jobs and there was an increasing number of unemployed youth.

“With the training, we will formalise the informal township economy and harness entrepreneurial skills from our students while developing entrepreneurship as a culture of developing solutions around economic challenges which then cause unemployment, crime, and other related social ills,” said Kwandile.

“We will also register our students with the employment accelerators we work with, and also align our graduates who are ready for funding, to gain access to our business funding stakeholders.”

He said, however, they need to raise the capital first before they can consider any students intake.

“Once we have the capital, we will conduct tests as this is a scholarship that’s afforded to those in need of it.

“We need to subsidise deserving students that come from a disadvantaged background, regardless of race or ethnic group,” said Kwandile.

Sarah said the institute is a technical, vocational and higher institution, and offered co-working space including Wi-Fi and training facilities.

“We offer Sector Education and Training Authorities (Seta) accredited courses and non-accredited courses in entrepreneurship, and also a program called ‘Business in a Box’ which is an exit programme for our students where they get stock to sell and raise capital to start their business while helping us run a more sustainable business,” said Sarah.

“We have had four cohorts since our establishment in August 2019.”

The young community developers said the township economy is big, and has immense potential, so they needed a diverse group of people to develop diverse innovative ideas to better the economic trajectory of the country, starting with 200 young people.

“Once we have successfully hosted the 200 people as our pilot programme, we will then move on to impact the country at large by forging relationships with partners that can help us make this a reality for our institute,” they said.

“We need to raise R 153 000 to train the 200 students.

“We will have 13 cohorts which will run for 13 weeks, and each cohort will go on for a week.”

Kwandile said the programme will not only benefit the residents of Daveyton, but once they have the necessary funding they would go around Ekurhuleni seeking young people with an entrepreneurial talent for the course content, and also to establish a business after the programme.

“We will mentor every entrepreneur who joins our programme for six months after the training to see if they are using the skills and our ‘Business in a Box’ solution to further their businesses,” he said.

To help these young entrepreneurs visit www.backabuddy.co.za (/charity/profile/rudo-institute), email info@rudoinstitut.org or find them at 7175 Simelene Street, Daveyton.