15 Feb 2024

The Department of Youth in Palapye recently trained 40 Youth Development Fund (YDF) beneficiaries on how to operate and manage their businesses.

The training was facilitated by the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST). Officially closing the workshop, Youth Officer for Palapye, Mr Mpilo Mbo, urged the beneficiaries to use all the lessons they have attained during their training.

He said the short training has been ongoing since 2019 and the results were fruitful. Mr Mbo said the training helped them to prepare a business plan and how to sustain their business, manage business operations and finances and maintain business records. He said the beneficiaries were trained in two areas, how to start a business and how to sustain it adding the aim was to equip them with skills to effectively run and manage their businesses.

 They were also trained on marketing, advertising, financial literacy, record keeping and risk management, he said.

He also mentioned that the YDF beneficiaries were also taken through business ethics and emotional intelligence.

 The Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture signed an agreement with BIUST in 2018 and the main objectives of the partnership were the provision of short term training courses to youth interested in applying for the YDF funding.

Mr Mbo said the other objective was to build competence on how the youths granted YDF can conduct market research to evaluate the feasibility of their business ideas; to start business in Botswana and to prepare a business plan.

 The other objective, he said, was provision of short term training courses to youth approved for the YDF on how to sustain their businesses, to manage their business operations and finances, to market their products and to maintain business records.

The other objective of the partnership was to provide assistance in building professional competence of the YDF programme officers at MYSC through training them on how to assess submitted business plans, to analyse financial statements and to interpret business records, the identification and implementation of possible joint projects.

One of the lecturers of the training, Dr Mapeto Bomani, said their partnership with MYSC in training the youth was to empower them on their journey into business for them to achieve their goals. 

Dr Bomani however thanked the participants saying the group did well during their training and they were willing to learn. He encouraged them to go and grow their businesses with the skills they got during the training. ends