Background
Volunteer Enterprise Mentorship Programme is a programme that provides mentorship support to youth businesses. Mentors and young entrepreneurs are assessed, qualified and matched to form an ongoing mentoring relationship aimed at improving the sustainability and growth of a start-up or existing businesses of South African young entrepreneurs.
Programme Objectives
- Transfer business skills and knowledge among South African young entrepreneurs;
- Increase sustainability and growth chances of youth businesses;
- Provide a platform for the first economy to contribute in the empowerment of the second economy.
Why volunteer mentoring?
Around the world most of the businesses are started with the financial support of family and friends, and with this support normally comes business advice, mentorship and access to markets. In South Africa, the NYDA attempts to fill the role of the family for unemployed and self-employed young people.
It is firstly necessary to recognise that the challenge of sourcing business finance is often an arduous and time-consuming task for a start-up enterprise. Once the start-up capital for their businesses have been secured, the young entrepreneurs have to immediately start making an income to pay off what is generally expensive finance. With these time and financial challenges placed on the entrepreneur, he/she is hardly in a position to shop around for a credible business consultant, nor pay exorbitant business consulting fees. The volunteer mentorship programme thus introduces the young entrepreneur to the potential value of good business advice and support services.
Involving corporate volunteers and postgraduates as business mentors will promote socially responsible business practice that will benefit business and society, and it will help achieve social, economic and environmentally sustainable development. It is a credible and productive form of employee engagement and it can facilitate the development of business links between the corporate sector and small enterprises. It is also contributes to Enterprise Development as outlined in the BBBEE policy
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Are you a young person looking to be mentored?
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