You don’t need huge sums of money to be entrepreneur – YEfL

Mr Salifu Mahama, Programmes Manager of Youth Empowerment for Life (YEfL), a youth development organization, has advised the youth to erase the perception that one needed huge sums of money to become a successful entrepreneur.

He said with the little available resources, staying focused and employing the right tactics to harness the available opportunities, was one sure way to start a business rather than waiting to be employed.

Mr Mahama gave the advice during the opening of a two-day training for the first batch of 2014 prospective entrepreneurs, numbering about 70 youth, selected from the Savelugu/Nanton Municipal, Kumbungu District and Tamale Metropolis.

The training, organized by YEfL, seeks to promote and increase youth empowerment and employment, as well as complement government efforts towards reducing poverty in the region.

Mr Mahama explained that a World Bank report in the last five years indicated that poverty levels in the country had been reducing, but ironically while one million people were progressing to the middle class, the same number of people were joining the poverty line in the Northern parts of the country.

He said the training comprised of eight models and would last for nine months after which, the participants would develop a business proposal for it to be evaluated and the best 10 plans would be given grants to start-up their business.

He said “under this first model we try to educate them on some common traits of successful entrepreneur, which include discipline, good communication skills, self-confidence, humility and self-motivation.

Mr Mahama said other models include capacity on packaging and branding, book-keeping, idea generation, how to access finance and identifying opportunities.

Sharing some of the successes of the last year’s group, he said through the project about 60 participants had started their own businesses.

He said “we had one unemployed graduate last year, who bought a pig for GH₵ 50.00 and started rearing. Now he has about 40 pigs.

Mrs Florence Boateng, Field Officer of YEfL said as part of the training, the group would be linked to successful entrepreneurs in Tamale to observe and interact with them as practical lessons.