What started as an idea to bring the community together quickly flourished into an organisation that aims to keep Germiston’s local economy flourishing.

ALSO READ: Germiston Business Forum aims to be the voice of business owners

The Germiston Business Forum (GBF), headed up by Heidi Searle and her handpicked team, was launched in September last year.

Although the forum awaits the finalisation of its paperwork to establish it as an NPO, committee members have hit the ground running to try save Germiston’s local economy.

“In June last year I started creating WhatsApp groups for every street in Lambton. This led to friendships between residents,” Searle said.

She added that through the groups residents were encouraged to support businesses in their community.

“In Covid, everyone was struggling and I wanted to keep the money in Germiston. I never anticipated that the idea would grow so quickly,” she added.

Searle added that her humble idea had become an entity and vehicle for business in Germiston.

Committee member Juanita Horn said GBF is a platform that would be a voice for businesses and a vehicle from where they can tackle issues that affected them.

Among the issues under the spotlight for the forum are regular and prolonged power outages and service delivery.

“While creating a stronger local economy we also want to create contacts in council who can help us remedy the issues we face,” Horn said.

ALSO READ: New Germiston business forum formed

Dorin Nelson-Masia added that there are a number of facets to businesses in Germiston.

“We have trade, industries and cooperatives in Germiston. We are establishing a network of people in council which will enable us to assist people.

“We see the forum as a catalyst that can bring together and build the society with the joint efforts of the community, businesses and government.

We want to put the business and government sectors on a common platform where they can engage to create an effective, efficient and stronger local economy.

“The forum is a common platform to engage in a meaningful way,” Nelson-Masia said.

Horn said ultimately GBF wants to create a partnership with government where the forum can hold officials accountable.

Another aspect for the forum will be engaging with businesses and government to share ideas and transfer knowledge.

“When we as a forum can engage with government we can enable officials to make better decisions when it comes to things such as budget allocation in the greater Germiston area,” Nelson-Masia said.

To fulfill targets the forum created an app. One of the features will be an “Employ Me” function.

ALSO READ: ‘There’s power in numbers’ Germiston Business Forum

“While we cannot create employment, we want to bridge the gap between the unemployed and local businesses,” Horn said.

This will be done through a database of unemployed persons as well as their skillset, which businesses can access when they have positions available.

“If a local business employs a local person they will spend their money locally. When this happens, everyone begins to embrace the local economy.”

Nelson-Masia added that connecting businesses with prospective employees would be just a small part of what the forum hopes to do.

“We are loading company profiles on the app,” said Searle.

“When we started we wanted it to be only the Germiston area but we’ve received so many requests from outside businesses we will focus on the greater Germiston area,” she added.

For more information, business owner may contact Heidi Searle on 076 271 3590 or Juanita Horn on 076 020 0812.

Alternatively business owners may email Heidi at chair@germistonbusinessforum.co.za or Juanita on employme@germistonbusinessforum.co.za