 |
| Small scale businesses are improving people's lives |
Atamandike Shop, situated at Misesa in Blantyre, started just like any other simple grocery trading in basic items such as bread, salt, sugar, matches and candle, among others.
Its owner, a 25-year old Emmanuel Zamadika Jamu, had just finished his secondary education in 2002, but had no steady source of living. Prospects of securing his most cherished job, accountant, were next to nothing considering the rise in the unemployment figures among the youth.
Executive Director for National Youth Council of Malawi Aubrey Chibwana explains that more than half of the population in Malawi are youth under the age of 25years whose literacy rate is estimated at 78 percent with slightly more males (81%) than females (74%).
Malawi Growth and Development Strategy (MGDS) also states that unemployment among the youth has worsened over the last 20 years.
Increasingly, the youth are completing their education with very little prospect of securing a job, or engaging in entrepreneurial activities.
One of the growing concerns among employers is that most graduates lack experience for them to get a formal employment. This means that if no one employs young people after they finish their education due to lack of hands-on experience, it follows then that they will forever be unemployed as they will have nowhere to develop the expertise necessary for a job.
For long, the role of entrepreneurship has been underrated in the society, but today it is fast becoming an alternative employment not for young people alone, but middle-aged loafing citizens as well.
Jamu graduated with Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) in 2002, but realizing the stiff competition on the labour market due to the countless graduates graduating yearly from universities, he opted for small scale business as a means for survival. His paper was too ‘inferior’ to move the employer, so he thought.
“I started my business on small scale just to sustain myself. I had no hope of securing a job and, therefore, I had to devise other means of making ends meet,” he said in an interview.
“That was the basis for opening a grass-thatched grocery at Misesa. I opened with simple grocery items such as sugar, soap, bread and other perishable goods. But since then, I have never looked,” Jamu added.
True to his words, he has never looked back to the extent that he is now an employer of four people who would otherwise be jobless.
“I was single when I ventured into the grocery business. But as time went and my business registering a significant growth, I married so that the woman could be helping me in serving customers.
“But that was not enough! Hence I employed three shopkeepers and one guard whom I am paying handsomely right here,” Jamu stressed.
“I now have two cars of my own, two shops and houses which I am renting out. I’m happy that I have managed to reach this far,” he prided.
But Jamu stated that this is just the beginning because his plans now are that he should open a big wholesale shop in Limbe in the next two years where more people will get employment opportunities.
When closing a four-week “project management and business plan writing” course in Blantyre recently, Minister of Youth Development and Sports Lucius Kanyumba said formation of new business leads to job creation and has a multiplying effect on the economy.
Kanyumba observed that entrepreneurship empowers citizens, generates innovation and changes mindsets of the people.
“Entrepreneurship is important for economic growth, productivity, innovation and employment creation. It also reduces the burden that people looking after the unemployed youths,” he said.
Jamu, however says instability of prices for commodities in wholesale shops is greatly affecting small entrepreneurs in the country. He appealed to government to consider checking and regulating market prices saying some foreign investors fleece the locals because they don’t keep their prices steady.
END
No comments:
Post a Comment