Own Your Zula festival attracts Gobabis entrepreneurs

WINDHOEK – Following the resounding success of the 2018 start-up festival in Windhoek, the Gobabis Municipality, in cooperation with the Financial Literacy Initiative, organized a micro-enterprise festival in Gobabis last weekend (24 November 2018) in the informal neighborhood of Freedom Square. . This year's festival was organized under the theme "It's up to you to choose your Zula". The festival was sponsored by the Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The event, which was attended by more than 500 members of the informal colony, allowed participants to become familiar with the upscaling of their existing businesses and with new methods to create alternative sources of income in order to improve the quality of life. to improve the local informal economy and to stage informal settlements. as economically productive areas contributing to both the local and national economy.

Many of the region's inhabitants living in informal settlements are involved in income-generating activities. Supporting them is essential to improve the local economy of the colony and fight unemployment through business creation.

Diasry Mathias, advisor to the president for issues related to youth and enterprise development, stressed the importance of organizing events of this nature in informal neighborhoods in order to encourage young people to take a more proactive approach to creating a better future.

The festival offered a spectacular program with parallel workshops and round tables on topics such as "It's up to you to choose your Zula", to manage chess as an entrepreneur, to manage your business, your personal finances and your creativity.

The festival ended with a pitching competition in which nine residents of the colony presented their commercial ideas on the big stage. The winner of the first prize went with 6000 Namibian dollars and a Pebble computer, followed by second and third prize winners who also received Pebble computers and cash prizes. Each of the participating pitchers also won N $ 1,000. In addition to the innovative nature of the land, one of the main criteria was the impact of the commercial idea on the Gobabis community.

Journalist
2018-11-28 11:18:45 23 minutes ago