eBusiness Weekly
Panashe Chikonyora & Chipo Chaumba
HARARE – Financial services provider, CBZ Holdings Limited has extended the scope of its annual Youth Entrepreneurship Programme (YEP) by widening its target age range to 18-35 from 18-30.
The programme, which was co-funded by CBZ in partnership with Empowered Life Trust has managed to equip about 4000 youths with business skills over the past three editions.
In an interview on the sidelines of the 2019/2020 YEP event, CBZ senior manager (group marketing) Joel Gombera said the extension of the targeted age range for participants was a way to increase people’s participation in the programme.
“For the past three seasons we targeted 18-30 years but from feedback we got rom people on our various platforms, seeking for participatory opportunities we increased the age range to 18 – 35 years,” he said.
As part of initiations to improve the programme, CBZ said it will also be launching a YEP Account “which will support the start-up or micro corporates for YEP and non-YEP participants.”
According to CBZ, although the programme has managed to see more than 400 businesses being registered and are functioning, it has encountered some challenges key among them being the country’s deteriorating economic conditions.
“The negative economic situation affects the budgeting and implementation of the program. When an initial budget is submitted, in will be in current prices and as the progress into the year prices change ten times fold or more and hence a supplementary budget is submitted. Additionally, over the past 3 years, the budget would not include bank charges which are directly charged on the disbursed amount, it is therefore recommended that a bank charges budget line be created,” said CBZ in YEP’s 2016 to 2018 report.
However, since YEP was launched in 2016 the bank has derived a lot of benefits from the programme, key among being an increase in the number of clients
The number of accounts opened by YEP participants during the YEP workshops across the country between 2016 to date come up to over 598+, with corporate, savings, smart cash, investment, individual nostro, corporate nostro, cash plus, joint and visa accounts recording 36, 135, 415+, 2, 1, 1, 4, 1, 2 as numbers of account owners, respectively.
“The programme has attracted new clients and generated new business for CBZ Bank as a total of 561 various active accounts have been opened by YEP participants over the past 3 years, which is 20% of the total number of young people trained,” said CBZ in YEP’s 2016 to 2018 report.
CBZ has set itself as market leader in building entrepreneurship and financial literacy capacity for youths in Zimbabwe and now has arguably the most comprehensive national database of young entrepreneurs in different sectors across the country.
The programme is quite intensive. Young people who get picked go through several weeks of training and mentorship. They also have an extensive reach, taking entrepreneurs across the country’s 10 provinces. From last year they opened the programme to entrepreneurs in rural areas too.
It has seen its alumni being recognised elsewhere for their entrepreneurship.
The 2017 winner, Ropafadzo Zimunya was featured in Forbes Africa and the runner up for that same year, Junior Bakasa was awarded by the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce in the Manufacturing category of their annual awards held last year.
