Opportunities open in Mogale
Karabo Business Consortium is bringing answers to the entrepreneurial training equation.
People say charity begins at home and Karabo Business Consortium (KBC) is living true to that saying.
Formed in 2011 as a business support hub with an aim of creating employment and encouraging entrepreneurship, KBC is still thriving.
“What we do at KBC is helping emerging entrepreneurs get off the ground with training and connections to funding institutions. We link them with agencies that are able to help them with anything that we can’t offer. We have a job centre that helps us fulfil the job-creation arm of our company and we also do personality testing to ensure that our recruits don’t end up in the wrong profession,” said skills-development facilitator at KBC, Vusi Jezi.
Through their annual Student Entrepreneurship Education Desk (SEED) programme they have exposed pupils from schools such as Munsieville’s Thuto Lefa to entrepreneurship. Through a camp the KBC has managed to turn some pupils from the school in to successful entrepreneurs while they are busy with other entrepreneurship programmes at the school.
“The objective behind SEED is to introduce and develop entrepreneurs at an early age and the best way to do that is with pupils at schools. Young people need to be exposed to opportunities that will allow them to reach their goals of being players in the country’s economy and that can be done trough entrepreneurial education,” Vusi told the News. The company is working with 350 young people through their SEED, job centre and skills readiness programmes.
“We understand that it is often difficult to pay for training when you don’t have a job nor skills, but to take our pupils to camps we need money for accommodation, transport and food. We give them water bottles to sell as a way to pay for their camp and learn some entrepreneurial skills while at it,” said Vusi.
The company has three people at the helm who all bring various skills such as finance, human resources and business management to the job creation and entrepreneurship table.
“We are working on getting an office in Mogale City that will be our central point because right now we work from school to school and use community halls as our job centres,” Solly Puleng said.
Karabo means answers and in partnership with the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA), KBC aims to bring the answers and solutions to unemployment and entrepreneurship to the West Rand through their business consortium.
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