Lydia Zingoni, Founder and Director of Teen Entrepreneur was recently interviewed by Cape Talk radio host, Kolosa Madikizela during the Overnight Live segment. The topic was on “youth making positive strides through entrepreneurship“.
According to Lydia, South Africa (SA) has a problem when it comes to entrepreneurship at large, especially teen entrepreneurship which, given the chance for change, can play a huge role in solving South Africa’s issues.
She further asserts that SA is at the bottom of the BRICS nations in terms of the entrepreneurial uptake. BRICS is an acronym for an association of five influential emerging economies, namely: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Understanding the local mindset
“Teen Entrepreneur is actually an NPO which I founded in 2011 to instil a culture of entrepreneurship in young people,” continues Lydia before tackling how it was imperative to capture the youth in schools before they even reached tertiary level.
Lydia states that what propelled her to start Teen Entrepreneurship was amongst others, the realisation that SA was lacking a framework, particularly in promoting youth businesses.
From her years of experience, including engaging with universities, she was saddened by how little our youth know about entrepreneurial opportunities, especially when compared to their BRICS counterparts.
African solutions to capture and engage young entrepreneurs
According to Lydia’s engagements with youth, she has found that they have an advantage over adults in that they are very enthusiastic, creative and can fail many times without drastic consequences. Teen Entrepreneur tries to engage the South African youth through various means.
Lydia says they have programmes such as school entrepreneur societies which take place after school hours and networking platforms like “Awaken the Giant in You” breakfast series where an established entrepreneur comes to inspire them. Be sure to sign up for the next breakfast series on Saturday, September 1st, 2018 There’s also #TeenBoss which is a youth camp that takes place during school vacations.
All these strategic interventions are set to capture the youth and inspire them to become so much more than they could ever dream. Don’t just sit and watch while others move from good to great. Contact us now to get involved as a sponsor and/or join in one of Teen Entrepreneur’s life-changing programmes.
