Encouraging young entrepreneurship Mozambique

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Encouraging young entrepreneurship Mozambique

8:29 CAT | 06 Mar 2018

SNV, a Dutch NGO supported by the European Union, is backing young entrepreneurship in the fight against unemployment and poverty in central Mozambique.

The NGO will equip ten centres with computer equipment, so young people can develop their initiatives and provide services to the population. The profits generated will be used to maintain the centres, whose management will be the responsibility of the beneficiaries themselves. The aim is to provide employment for young people in the region and fight poverty.

Mosambik | Simon Gumbo — *Simon Gumbo: “The life of the young will change”*

According to Simon Gumbo, manager of the Youth Employment Opportunities project and SNV representative in Manica, the initiative should initially benefit 4,500 young unemployed people who have completed the first two secondary education levels.

Employment opportunities

The NGO wants to strengthen entrepreneurial initiatives and ensure that young people are involved in economic and socially useful activities such as printing documents, typing, internet use, scanning and sending documents.

Gumbo reports that SNV has EUR 50,000 European Union funding to equip its ten IT centres.

“The lives of young people will change,” he says. “There are no jobs in the city, so young people do not have to leave where they live to look for a job. Job opportunities should be where young people live. We want to help these young people out of poverty, and this is how we’re going about it.”

In the initial phase, centres will be set up in three Zambézia and Manica districts: Sussundenga, Macossa and Namacura. Then will follow the districts of Báruè and Guro in the province of Manica, Caia and Marigué in Sofala, and Nicoadala in Zambézia.

Mosambik | Solano Alexandre — *Solano Alexandre: “Help with self-support”*

Solano Alexandre, from Namacura, in Zambézia, will be one of the beneficiaries of a new computer centre.

“As a young and unemployed person, who has already completed his studies, this project will help me support myself,” he told DW Africa. “This funding comes to expand and develop our ideas, because we did not know how to set up a computer room, but with this funding, we can continue to develop our skills.”

Mosambik | Elias Rendição — *Elias Rendição: “The initiative is one to grab with both hands”*

A future smiley

Young people seem capable of managing the IT centres, and are already looking forward to a better future.

“The initiative is a good one, to be seized with both hands,” is how Elias Rendição, who will benefit from the Macossa centre in Manica, puts it.

For Alice Pedro, from Sussundenga, Manica province, the centre represents new opportunities – perhaps an entry into the business world as the centres make it possible for young people to create their own businesses.

Mosambik | Alice Pedro — *Alice Pedro: “The initiative will help many young people”*

“It is to create employment opportunities for young people today. Employment is hard to find, and SNV is helping young people in the areas of entrepreneurship and formal employment,” she says. “It’s a very good initiative because it will help a lot of young people.”

Gumbo says the initiative will give young people something to do instead of wandering about begging, if not indulging in more illicit activities.

Source: Deutsche Welle