12 Sep 2022

SOS Children’s Village in Tlokweng has trained 120 young people on entrepreneurship development.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony recently, SOS National director Mr Motshwari Kitso said the training was part of SOS Children’s Village efforts towards empowering young people to gain opportunities for entrepreneurship and employability.

Mr Kitso said the training, which was facilitated by Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) was the second, following one that was held in  Francistown, where 150 youth participated.

He said they were planning to train at least 1 000 young people on entrepreneurship development as they had received funding from Standard Chartered bank in United Kingdom.

The role of SOS is to protect a child and support young people on their path to independence until they are responsible, independent and self-supporting, said Mr Kitso.

He said SOS aimed to make sure that children were loved and able to adapt to society.

Mr Kitso thanked LEA for facilitating the two weeks training that would help the participants to fight unemployment. 

He said the move complemented government’s efforts in empowering youth and reducing unemployment.

Youth Development Fund (YDF) senior programme officer in the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sports and Culture Development, Ms Oakantse Kebuamotse said the youth development fund resumed on August 10 to 13.

She said the fund catered for unemployed or underemployed youth aged 18 to 35 interested in starting their own business. They could be loaned up to P450 000 and only 50 per cent of the money should be paid back.

Ms Kebuamotse said this year, YDF focused more on sponsoring youth with business ideas that included manufacturing and agriculture.

She advised the trainees to take advantage of the fund and apply since they had been trained on entrepreneurship.

One of the trainees, Ms Joyce Makoti appreciated the training, saying it gave them a great opportunity of possessing entrepreneurship skills.

She said she was confident that with the skills they had learnt they would create businesses that would help reduce unemployment rate. ends