Last month Masicorp held an entrepreneur training event at the Business Hub at the Chasmay Road Campus. The event was delivered by ambassadors from Knowledge 2 Share, a non-profit organization from the Netherlands who we are pleased to partner with to develop the business development work we undertake in the community. Knowledge 2 Share have a mission to: “To empower entrepreneurs and to foster economic growth and development in developing areas across the globe.” For the past few months they have been in South Africa and we were delighted to host them here in Masiphumelele.

The training course ran one day a week for four weeks and was extremely well attended. Our thanks also go out the attendees from both Masiphumelele and Ocean View who took the time to participate. There were many presentations and quite a bit of theory around business development and marketing, but there was also a lot of time to discuss individual business ideas and work on funding and marketing plans.

It was not all theory –  Khulah was also a guest lecturer. Khulah is a local entrepreneur from Khayelitsha. Although facing many of the same difficulties as members of the Masiphumelele community, Khulah managed to start his own company. He is the owner of the company Nurturer, through which he tries to make people aware of the importance of using ecofriendly products. He sells natural cleaning and personal beauty products. With his company he also provides jobs for his community with the use of direct sellers.

Nonesi Degraicia Matshoba, DG to her friends, was just one of our attendees. She used to be a chef, but wanted to start working for herself. She left the restaurant she worked at and started making braai meat. Now she has her own shop where she can serve customers. DG wants to develop her own business, but also inspire people to start up for themselves and make them aware that it is possible for everyone.

The course finished with each student being given the time to pitch their own business idea with feedback provided from the Knowledge 2 Share team. There was even a short graduation before it was time to head back home and start putting those plans into practice. We hope to be able to run more events in the future, given the high level of interest, so please look out for details of these events on our Facebook page.