Global Changemakers

The Journey of Junior Entrepreneurs of Zimbabwe began in April 2010 when we were at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg South Africa. Our dream/vision as the founding team, was to instill and entrepreneurial mindset in the youth of Zimbabwe. As you may or may not know, the subject of Entrepreneurship is not taught in Schools and so we wanted to introduce the concept to young minds to help them understand exactly what entrepreneurship is realize the potential they possessed as young people to create employment and make a significant contribution to Zimbabwe’s recovering Economy.

On the 21st of June, our journey to make JEZ a reality in Harare began and for two weeks we began approaching (10) schools and sharing our vision; leaving our project proposals to corporate an individuals whom we hoped would partner with us and assist us financially or provide mentors and advisors. In order to reach our non-school going target market (20-25years) we distributed a total of 4,000 flyers in the City centre and several neighborhoods in Harare. We expected many positive responses from the phone calls we were receiving.

As time went on, and as JEZ evolved we faced three major challenges and realized that in order to fulfill our goals, we had to make our intended program flexible enough to mitigate these challenges. Firstly, we realized that the British Council offices in Harare were incapable of hosting us due to space and so we had to find an alternative venue that could host 50 people for 10 days- a cost which we had not included in our initial budget. Secondly, Corporates in Zimbabwe had already mapped out their budgets and the beginning of the year and were not able to assist us financially. Lastly, some of our targeted schools denied their students permission to apply to our program because exams were just around the corner. For a moment, JEZ was between a rock and a hard place and our hope of successfully hosting training workshops was slowly being shaken.

After going back to the Drawing Board, one thing became eminent, we had to cut out as many costs as possible to fit our allocated CAP grant and still achieve our set objectives. We decided to approach schools and churches in Harare’s CBD for a venue that was more affordable. Furthermore, we took a great risk of cutting the days of the training workshops by half which meant we had to rush through some things in our curriculum and still be effective.

By the 11th of July, over a hundred applications had been submitted by applicants ranging from 16-25 years of age. That same week we secured a venue at a local church: Glad Tidings whose premises were in the city centre and easily accessible to our participants. All was in place and out workshops began on the 16th of July 2010and we were impressed by the full attendance/turnout of all 30 of our selected participants. Needless to say, for 5 days we taught our curriculum and watched as our participants developed their business concepts and liberate their minds by thinking outside the box.
On the Final Day we launched the JEZ Business Challenge and our participants had a week to write business proposals and prepare a presentation that will impress our panel of judges.
On the 31st, we gathered at Glad Tidings yet again and began proceedings to identify the top ideas according to our criteria. Present on that day were 3 Judges/Panelists from different professions who shared on thing in common: a passion for entrepreneurship n youth. 22 ideas were presented to the panel and 8 ideas were chosen as top ideas that showed vast expansion potential, sustainability and a measureable community impact.

As JEZ, we are working with these finalists by linking them with mentors and potential investors and we trust that their businesses in the near future will touch lives not only in Harare but in all of Zimbabwe and Southern Africa. It has been a long journey and we are still going strong. Watch this space as we strive to transform our country’s economy for the better.

Ngoni- Zimbabwe