Zula festival allows residents of Freedom Square of Gobabis to run their own small business

Some 500 residents of the informal settlement of Freedom Square in Gobabis gathered this weekend for a special business festival – improving skills and competences.

The start-up festival was organized by the Financial Literacy Initiative in cooperation with the municipality of Gobabis to help micro-entrepreneurs transform their small businesses, usually based in their homes, into slightly larger operations. large serving more customers. The theme of the festival was "Own your Zula".

"Many informal inhabitants of colonization are involved in an income-generating activity. Supporting them is essential to improving the local economy of the colony and fighting unemployment through business creation, "said the Financial Literacy Initiative at the festival's first announcement.

The festival served as a platform for participants to become familiar with improving their existing businesses and to find new ways to create alternative sources of income to improve the local informal economy by increasing the footprint of each small business.

Presidential advisor Daisry Mathias told a very attentive audience that they, young people, were a priority target to help them acquire business skills so they could take a more proactive approach to generating their own income.

Technical sessions on how to start and run a small business were organized in parallel workshops. A number of round tables have been devoted to the use of the concept "It's up to you to choose your Zula" for the business owner. Discussions included failure, running a small business, managing personal finances, and incorporating new creative ideas into the management of the business.

The successful festival concluded a pitch competition in which nine people had the opportunity to present their commercial projects on the big stage based on the criteria of the impact, first for Freedom Square, then for Gobabis.

For the winner, N $ 6,000 and a computer were in play, while the second and third best fields also earned their owners a computer each. The nine pitchers received an incentive of N $ 1,000.