13 Nov 2019

Standard Chartered Bank Botswana chief executive officer has commended riders for supporting the bank’s initiative to raise funds for youth.

Speaking at a send-off ceremony on November 11 for riders who are to cycle from Gaborone to Sandton, Johannesburg, Mpho Masupe noted that the gesture was handy towards empowering the unemployed young people.

“I want to thank riders for this initiative designed to empower our youth,” he said.

He said it was inspiring for riders to have found time for the activity at the expense of their daily commitments by embarking on such a taxing initiative.

Riders from different Southern African countries have embarked on an over 400km cycling fund raising event dubbed the Futuremakers, a youth empowerment initiative that tackles unemployment among other things. The youth empowerment initiative, that is the bank’s corporate social responsibility called ‘Futuremakers’ in collaboration with Young

Africa Botswana (YAB), also seeks to tackle inequality and promote greater economic inclusion for young people in communities across the globe.

The Futuremakers programme was launched in Botswana in August and has so far assisted 37 young people out of which 16 were trained on entrepreneurship skills to become employable while 21 were engaged in some on-job training.

Jonathan Scott, on behalf of other riders, said they embarked on a journey to cycle in an effort to show the courses that came along with entrepreneurship around the world.

He said although the venture sounded tough, it meant a lot to every single rider as most of them went through difficult passages in entrepreneurship.

“Every single one of our riders comes from a market that has some challenges in their countries and we thought we should do something tougher other than just ride around city circles, hence the 402km race from here to Sandton,” he said

YAB project manager, Timothy Mweemba said the initiative had attracted youth aspiring to be entrepreneurs.

He said so far the programme has drilled them with business acumen and provided a platform for them to mingle and network with internationally acclaimed business people to learn and restore confidence in them.

Mweemba said the YAB initiative aspired to close market gaps in the employment market whereby they aimed to provide what the market needed through inspiring young peoples’ interest in doing business whilst simultaneously imparting soft and entrepreneurial skills that would help them to assist others to employ themselves. ENDS