Youth Council of Malawi target to raise K1 billion for young entrepreneurs
National Youth Council of Malawi (Nycom) chief executive officer Dingiswayo Jere has challenged youth in the country to embrace entrepreneurship over white color jobs in the wake of high unemployment.
He made the call in Mzuzu during a youth financial literacy training aimed at imparting business skills at Mzuzu’s Entrepreneurship Hub.
Jere said it’s high time youth forget about unemployment situation changing for the better because even if government employed all the unemployed youths, there would be no work for them to do in the offices.
“Let me be honest, there are no enough office jobs to satisfy the current unemployment gap because the demand is just too high,” he said.
Jere said Nycom’s youth basket fund, which seeks K1 billion to support young entrepreneurs, has so far raised K30 million and trained 670 young entrepreneurs.
“As youth, you cannot wait on government to employ you because there’s no work. Government can employ you all today but you will just be sitting in offices doing nothing.
“You see those interns government is employing, most of them are practically doing nothing; they just sit in offices because there is no work for them to do in these offices,” Jere said.
Jere said his organisation wants youths to become empowered with entrepreneurship skills and create jobs.
He implored the youth to take a step of investing in their abilities now because later it may be difficult for them.
, Jere said access to finance is a major challenge for young entrepreneurs; hence, his organisation is discussing with commercial banks to offer tailor-made loans with lower interest rates for the youth.
“We have also been working with Malawi Enterprise Development Fund to have tailor-made youth products which have now been initiated,” he said.
A Youth from Appause Organization in the City, Vanessa Nyirenda appreciated the Youth Council for organizing the training which she said has brought a lot of insights on financial management.
She asked the Council to consider increasing number of participants for similar trainings for more youth in the region to benefit.
The training took on board 20 youth from different youth organizations within the City participate.
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