By Wezi Tjaronda SWAKOPMUND The Erongo Region will be hosting its first-ever Youth Enterprise Expo to give young entrepreneurs an opportunity to showcase their products next month. Erongo is one of the six regions in the country where the pilot expos will be hosted after the National Youth Council (NYC) decentralized the activity in 2006. The expo will be held on the premise that young emerging entrepreneurs face many problems to sustain and grow their businesses, yet they are charged with the responsibility of carrying the future of the country. Some of their needs include business links, training, mentorship, finance, business support and access to markets around the world. The expo, where the youth of Walvis Bay, Swakopmund, Karibib, Usakos and Henties Bay will exhibit the products they make, will be held from June 28 to July 1 in Swakopmund and is a joint initiative of the Ministry of Youth, National Service, Sports and Culture (MYNSSC), the NYC and the Erongo Regional Youth Forum. The objectives of the expo, whose theme is “Empowering Youth to Create Sustainable Livelihoods”, include provision of a forum for the young entrepreneurs to learn from others, to encourage and pursue joint ventures and strategic alliances, to explore investment opportunities, and also to promote partnerships among the young entrepreneurs at regional, local and international levels. Many a time the youth, like other people who want to earn an income, put their energies into selling kapana, beer in shebeens and sweets around street corners. However, Pohamba Shifeta, deputy minister of MYNSSC, advised the youth when he launched the expo, to take kapana as a start-up, noting that this commercial activity was crucial in making some of Namibia’s millionaires. Juliet Kavetuna, NYC’s Secretary-General, also advised the youth to move away from kapanas and sheebens and to concentrate on other businesses, especially in the manufacturing field. “We are beyond kapanas, shebeens and selling sweets. We must move away from that,” she said. Shifeta said youth expos serve as opportunities to young people to not only showcase their products, talents and skills, but to also afford them an opportunity to learn how to get started. “With such interaction, young business men and women share knowledge and experiences in business. It is also a platform where they develop their capacities as individual entrepreneurs to enable them to propel their businesses,” added Shifeta. The youth in Namibia form the majority of the unemployed people. Although over 30ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ 000 youths leave school each year, the size of Namibia’s economy creates less than 9ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ 000 jobs per annum. Thus, about 12ÃÆ’Æ‘ÀÃ…ÃÆ”šÃ‚ 000 school-leavers manage to continue with their education at tertiary institutions or find full-time employment. In addition to this, Namibia lacks the technological know-how to turn their natural resources into wealth, which means that the country should resort to opportunities for self-employment and avoid being dependent on other forms of income-generation. More than 50 entrepreneurs have already registered to participate in the expo whose main sponsor is Namport. Other sponsors are RÃÆ’Æ‘Æ‘ÃÆ”šÃ‚¶ssing Uranium and Namdeb. Namport Managing Director Sebby Kankondi is the patron of the Expo, while Patrick Moven Gaomab and Raphael !Oamite //Awaseb, of the Raph and Pele fame, have been chosen as expo ambassadors.