By OBAKENG MAJE
The president of DRSM Women and Youth in Business, Masego Twabile said, she has realised that many individuals do not know how to distinguish between effectuation and causation. Twabile said she has examined most entrepreneurs’ approach when faced with entrepreneurial challenges, especially in deep rural areas.
Twabile, organised a symposium at Longstreet Lifestyle in Taung on Thursday, where she invited business owners to share their entrepreneurial journey with individuals, who are either potential business owners or having existing businesses.
She further said there is uncertainty surrounding entrepreneurship, particularly with respect to challenges involving undefined end goals. Twabile added that many businesses collapsed because they are characterized by turbulence and uncertainty.
“This is happening because most business owners do not have necessary skills. Either you are cooperative or Small Micro-Medium Enterprises (SMMEs) owner, you will need a necessary skill to be self-sufficient.
“So, we came up with this initiative to empower our people, especially in deep rural areas. The aim is also to address treble challenges such as poverty, inequality and unemployment,” she said.
According to Twabile, there are job opportunities that are being created by the government, but they are not enough. She said embarking on entrepreneurship is an enormous opportunity because many people could be turned into employers rather than employees.
“Our people continue to live in abject poverty and learning the entrepreneurship languages is the only way to go in this ailing economy. We will bring all these business ideas together and create as many job opportunities as possible.
“We do have the land and let us cultivate it and produce food. Our government poured millions of rands into cooperatives, but there is no monitoring. Now, what we are going to do, we will ensure that all SMMEs are registered in our database to ensure that they are productive,” said Twabile.
The AgroVest Group founder, Lesedi Moseki said entrepreneurship journey is not for the fainted-hearts. Moseki said that success is not easily achieved, but by only those who have strategy.
“Entrepreneurship journey needs a strategic leader with innovative ideas. A leader who believes that they are in control of their own destiny. As AgroVest Group, we specialize in castor oil and we plant and process it.
“Also, we have five pillars in our company which are seedling, farming, agro-processing, bio-technology and marketing. We offer training too and one of the things we do is to empower SMMEs, especially in local communities,” he said.
Moseki said they empower local communities by providing seeds to plant and sell back to them. He said they are busy setting up a manufacturing plant for the project and their aim is to turn Taung into the first area that produces oil.
“For many years, South Africa has been importing oil to manufacture castor oil. So, we want to tap into that space. There are many different kinds of oil that we are creating and some of our products can be found in various pharmaceutical areas,” said Moseki.
Meanwhile, the founder of Northern Cape Chamber of Commerce, Siphiwe Millicent George said: “Since 2017, I have been coordinating local businesses and sharing necessary information regarding compliance, business registration and policies in place.
“So, after realising that many potential business owners are not well equipped, we decided to come up with the Hustle School in order to educate them how things are being done.”
She said the aim of the symposium was to capacitate business owners and ensure that they break-through the barriers. George said they will have a warehouse here in Taung in order to assist all SMMEs to reach their target markets.
TaungDailyNews 