It was held on Wednesday September 4 at Johannesburg Metropolitan Civic Centre. It’s aimed at sensitising the youth to Johannesburg City Parks and the Zoo’s (JCPZ) R104-m capital expenditure programme for the 2013/14 fiscal year.
MMC Vondo said, “The Youth in Business Briefing places entrepreneurship at the forefront of job creation and afford skilled and qualified youth an enabling environment, to interrogate strategies that will assist in growing Joburg’s green economy to redress unemployment, poverty and job creation.”
Young entrepreneurs were made aware of processes and projects in line with the entities procurement policies. Service providers that are youth–led were on hand to exhibit their service offerings, and Clr Vondo included various other opportunities to engage with the city as youth-based service providers, including the city’s R110 billion, multi-year infrastructure upgrading programme.
Enterprise Development and Expanded Public Works Programme (EPWP) General Manager, Mzwanele Dlova shared the same sentiment.
“The country is facing triple challenges; unemployment, poverty and inequality. The city is creating conditions for SMME’s growth and entrepreneurial support, developments of entrepreneurial skills and provision of walk-in centres to support the SMME to get registered. Young people need to know there are business opportunities and they need to make use of them.”
There were also service providers who related their stories on how JCPZ has helped them from zero-to-hero, among them, there was Phillip Mabena from TLG Garden Services.
“We were a small business, however, through City Parks interventions we are now a respectable business. They helped us in capacity building and how to sustain our business; they monitored us, guided us and moulded us to the shape we are today. We are very grateful and we promise to do our work correctly the first time. There are a lot of things young businesses like us can learn from City Parks provided they are willing to learn. Lastly, we need not be selfish, we need to help one another,” explained Phillip Mabena.
