Youth unemployment levels in South Africa remain persistently high. Statistics South Africa reported that youth between the ages of 15-24 years recorded the highest unemployment rate of 61%, in Q4 2022, followed by 39,9% unemployment for youth aged 25 to 34 years.
Recognising the role that entrepreneurship can play in empowering the youth, FNB in partnership with Fetola launched the pilot – Youth Start-up Accelerator Programme in early 2022.
The programme aimed to address the challenges facing first-time entrepreneurs by providing an innovative mix of practical mentorship, online training and workshops, networks, and grant funding.
100 youth entrepreneurs were selected to go through a process of refining their ideas, learning how to analyse potential opportunities and risks, and how to create viable business models.
As Avani Manilal, SME Development Support manager at FNB Commercial, explains: “How do we equip youth to view entrepreneurship as a viable opportunity, and reach the point where they adopt it as a lifelong skillset?
“FNB decided, to play a role in creating a positive impact in the youth demographic, and specifically to encourage entrepreneurship and help small businesses get off the ground and become sustainable.”
The Youth Start-up Accelerator Programme is managed by enterprise-development specialists Fetola, with whom FNB has worked closely for several years because of the expertise they bring to enterprise development amongst diverse communities, and their significant insight into the challenges experienced by young people.
Busisiwe Bebeza, YSA Programme Manager at Fetola, says: “What’s important is to help build an entrepreneurial mindset. Overnight success is exceptionally rare. We want to develop a young, aspiring entrepreneur’s ability to assess the viability of an idea, test it, refine it, and move on if it’s not working. This is the entrepreneurial workflow, and it requires entrepreneurs to embrace and learn from failure.”
Two concepts that the programme imparted were the importance of pursuing something that you were curious or passionate about, and that starting small was a useful approach to learning about an idea’s strengths and weaknesses.
“We hoped to impart a solutionist mindset,” Manilal explained. “The challenges facing the youth can feel overwhelming, and it’s difficult to see the opportunities if you’re looking for an answer to everything all at once. By encouraging them to take small steps forward, to learn about each stage of the journey, and to use the tools at their disposal, they began to build confidence in their abilities and became increasingly hopeful for their futures.”
“Even when it’s tough, I can contact my mentor and he will advise me as to what my options are and how I can overcome them or help my business make sales.” mentioned one of the participants during the programme.
“That they believed in me and that I could win… the growth I saw in a few months since joining shows that if I can fix my personal and business weaknesses, I can achieve the impossible.” mentioned another participant during the programme.
The ideas pitched in the first phase ran a spectrum of sectors, from agri-businesses and farming to manufacturing, services and tech with others aiming to solve the issue of climate change through the use of recyclable materials. Some were sophisticated, others were simple but had real potential for revenue generation.
This was a valuable lesson in itself: your ideas don’t have to be ground-breaking – they just need to effectively meet a market need. Participants whose businesses qualified for phase 2 were given an opportunity to apply for additional funding, building personal confidence and valuable pitching skills in the process.
As the pilot programme comes to a successful end, it has left these entrepreneurs feeling inspired, motivated and better equipped to tackle business challenges – proving the case for continued investment in practical business development support coupled with early-stage and seed funding for youth entrepreneurial ventures.
To register your interest for the 2nd cohort of the programme, go to https://fetola.co.za/programmes/ysa/ and click on pre-register