Africa-Press – Eswatini. MTN Eswatini continues to empower Emaswati through sponsoring projects that inculcate a culture of entrepreneurship in the kingdom.
Enactus Country Director Wonder Khumalo has announced that the communications giant will be the main sponsor for the 2022 edition of the Enactus National competition.
“This year our main sponsor is MTN and we have 15 teams competing.
The competition will come in two stages namely the opening and the final,” he said. He mentioned that the opening round will have three league rooms where the final round will comprise four teams that advanced from the opening round and then out of the four a national champion will be selected. “Last year our national champion was Ngwane Teachers College who also advanced to the semi-final stage during the Enactus World Cup,” he said.
Khumalo stated that the Enactus teams had demonstrated a high level of resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, which had shown that indeed the challenges they battled with could not deter them from pursuing the impact that their projects sought to achieve in the communities.
“A lot of sacrifice has gone into the projects during implementation. This shows that our teams have the mind for business and a heart for the world,” said Khumalo.
He mentioned that even though some of the teams could not stand the pressure that came with the phase and their projects stagnated, but he was able to see those teams going back again to continue from where they left to push their projects forward.
“The Enactus Programme operates with three pillars namely the Talent and Business Acumen Action, Business Accelerator Action and the Community start-up Action,” he said.
He stated that under the Talent and Business Acumen Development Action, there were 15 teams that the office was working with, where Good Shepherd Health and CIT Colleges started participating in the Enactus Programme this year.
“These teams have done remarkable progress in the sense that they already have projects although at the design stage,” he said.
Khumalo added that all the 15 teams had an approximate membership of 550 and the total number of projects totalled to 30.
“The office was able to conduct monthly meetings with the teams CEOs where progress of individual team was discussed and other capacity building activities took place,” he said.
He mentioned that their office in partnership with Enactus Global had been working on establishing an Enactus Academy.
“As part of the process, the office was able to partner with Africa For Tomorrow (PTY) LTD to conduct leadership training using one of the John Maxwell Foundation curriculum,” he said.
He added that under the Business Accelerator Action, the office had seen a steady growth of progress of activities, as this was the pillar where the office facilitated growth and development of the businesses.
“The office has seen formal registration of three businesses. Furthermore four businesses received seed capital with the support of UNDP under the Waste for Livelihoods and resilience Programme of not more than E50 000 each,” he said.
He stated that under this pillar, six teams were able to receive seed capital of E10 000 from the MTN Foundation.
“Such support is instrumental in the scaling up of the businesses that have been established by the teams. The office shall continue to facilitate coaching and mentorship of these teams so that their businesses attain the intended outcomes.
“Out of these, we are expecting that not less than 10 jobs shall be opened,” added Khumalo.
He said under the community Start-up Action, they were 30 projects implemented by the teams in partnership with community members as beneficiaries. There are 1 042 people that are directly impacted by the projects.
‘The office continued to reach down to the communities through two projects. The American Spaces project being funded by USA embassy has reached more than 2 000 youth, women and other vulnerable groups,” he said.
Khumalo mentioned that they had recently started a radio programme at VOC dubbed ‘Shintja’ which was aimed at raising awareness on matters around waste management and is funded by UNDP.
“All these efforts has significantly enabled progress and contributed in the Government Economic Recovery Road map as well as the SDGs. Appreciation goes to our partners since we could not achieve these alone. Their support has not only sustained the office but also making impact to our intended program beneficiaries,” he said.
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