WINDHOEK - After the tremendous success of the 2018 Start-Up Festival in Windhoek, the Gobabis Municipality in cooperation with the Financial Literacy Initiative hosted a Micro Business Start-up Festival in Gobabis this past weekend (24 November 2018) in the Freedom Square Informal Settlement. This year’s festival was hosted under the theme “Own 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 over 500 members of the informal settlement, served as a platform for participants to learn about upscaling their existing businesses and new ways to create alternative sources of income to improve the local informal economy and put informal settlements on the map as economically productive areas contributing to the local as well as national economy.
Many of the informal settlement dwellers in the area are involved in some form of income generating activity. Supporting them is essential to improve the local economy of the settlement and address unemployment through business creation.
Speaking at the event, the Presidential Advisor on youth matters and enterprise development, Diasry Mathias, highlighted the importance of hosting events of this nature in informal settlements to encourage the youth to take a more proactive approach in creating a better future for themselves.
The festival offered a spectacular programme with parallel workshops and panel discussions on topics such as “Own your Zula”, dealing with failure as an entrepreneur, managing your business and personal finances and creativity in business.
The festival concluded with a pitching competition where nine residents from the settlement pitched their business ideas on the big stage. The first prize winner walked away with N$6000 and a Pebble computer, followed by the second and third prize winners who also received Pebble computers and cash prices. Each of the participating pitchers also walked away with N$1000. Apart from the innovativeness of the pitches, one of the main pitching criteria was the impact the business idea would have on the Gobabis community.