Interview with Malawi’s young woman entrepreneur: Caroline Chidothi

Entrepreneurs Financial Desk is a new company in town owned by a 24 year old girl, who holds a Bachelors of Science in Management Information from the Polytechnic. Nyasa Times journalist Jeromy Kadewere interviewed her in order to find out more about their company.

NT: First of all can you tell us your name and education background

Caroline: My name is Caro Chidothi and l have a Bachelors Degree of Science in Management Information from the Polytechnic. I have also a certificate in Marketing.

NT: Can you tell us more about your company?

Caroline: The Company is called Entrepreneurs Financial Desk, and we are based in Blantyre. This company was established to provide business trainings, business advice and financial support to entrepreneurs with small and medium businesses.

NT: You provide financial support in what way?

Caroline: One of our programmes is to provide loans to people who have been trained with us. We introduced this programme after having an experience on how difficult for people to access financial services in our country. For instance, a lot of people especially the youths have good ideas to start small scale businesses but because they do not have capital to embark on such businesses they end up being frustrated.

NT: Yes, Go on

Caroline: Ha ha ha! Thank you…we have brilliant young men and women who are failing to access loans in banks because of stiff rules that financial institutions are providing. At EFD we want people to come and attend business trainings after that they will be given loans. These loans are accessed easily because they are processed   after three weeks.

NT: Have you already started these trainings?

Caroline: Off course yes. We did our first training last Saturday in Blantyre where we trained more than 20 people. There were a number of powerful Speakers like Mrs Ruth Njiragoma, who is the Managing Director at Wealth and Wellness Center. We also had Miss Carol Marjorie- Chairperson at Center for Women and Girls Empowerment and MD at Edwards Dry Foods. Sir Limbani Kaseko- MD at Mdinde Estate was also present.

NT: What is the way forward now after the Blantyre training?

Caroline: Our next stage is Lilongwe on November 28^th. I would like to encourage everybody who is in business and those who are just staying idle to acquire business training because any business without training will not take them anywhere.

Jeromy: Are these trainings for free or is there any charge?

Caroline: What we urge people is to register for these trainings at a fee of K15,000 per head and a get a quick loan of MK100,000 to MK1 million.

NT: What is your age?

Caroline: I am 24 years old. A lot of youngsters in Malawi are talented but they lack motivation and we are here for them. They have ideas but they do not know how to go about it. We want to encourage them to come to our trainings to be equipped.

NT: What is the message you can give the public out there?

Caroline: We want to equip people to become entrepreneurs. We want people to become employers. As you know there is a high rate of unemployment in Malawi and that is why we came up with his idea of promoting entrepreneurs so that we reduce unemployment rate in this country.

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