The One Economy Foundation has pledged N$10 000 to the Entrepreneurship Masterclass, an initiative by artist and economic researcher Maria-Lisa Immanuel aimed at empowering the youth through knowledge and experience sharing in the entrepreneurial sector.
Early last year, Immanuel, shared the idea of starting a masterclass when she realised the need to create an entrepreneurial ethos in the country and support those who want to venture into business.
Besides that, she also requested anyone to financially boost the class by giving N$10 000 to the best business idea, to which the One Economy Foundation did as part of their Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development pillar.
“I was overwhelmed by the gesture, it’s amazing because my model is that different corporates contribute to funding innovative ideas on the ground. A lot of young people can’t access funds, they are not even at the level of accessing banks, forget about not qualifying. My idea is to nurture those types of ideas at the ground level,” Immanuel told Youth Corner this week.
She added: “The idea is that I wanted to start small. There were people on Twitter who said their ideas are more than N$10 000 and others saying then they are not the target market. It was also to show the interest of young people, on my Instagram, I got about 96 comments of young people full of ideas with some saying they want fish from Walvis Bay to sell in their villages and so forth.”
She said this was a bonus for her and now at least one person with a brilliant idea will eventually get that N$10 000 for their business to become a reality.
She said having access to information prompted her to start writing, sharing what she knew until readers enquired more of what was published, and that made her interest grow and train people on capacity building.
Immanuel said although other individuals came through with various donations, the masterclass is expected to commence end of this month and more assistance is needed in terms of venue.
“One of the things we would need right now is the venue and any other assistance. I have like 100 ideas, so I would like corporates to come on board and pledge a certain amount that can go towards specific things we need,” shared Immanuel.
– psiririka@nepc.com.na