SAB Offers R3 Million and Skills Training to Youth Owned Businesses

As South Africa celebrates youth month and with Youth Day being celebrated tomorrow, the South African Breweries Limited (SAB) is calling on young black entrepreneurs to try their luck at winning a share of more than R3 million in grant funding by entering its entrepreneurship development programme, SAB KickStart.

 

Entrants need to be between the ages of 18 and 35 years and have an existing small business or business idea to be considered for funding as well as to receive business skills development and mentorship.

 

Since its inception in 1994, SAB KickStart, SAB’s youth entrepreneurship development programme, has benefited more than 22 800 young entrepreneurs and helped to start or grow over 3 200 businesses through an investment of over R62 million in grant funding. It is estimated that each business started has created an average of 6.7 jobs.

 

SAB Director of Corporate Affairs and Transformation, Dr Vincent Maphai says: “SA is faced with high levels of unemployment and SAB KickStart is an appropriate continued response to the country’s national priority to create jobs, particularly amongst the country’s youth, by providing them with entrepreneurship opportunities through skills development.”

 

SAB has a rich history of contributing towards empowerment through entrepreneurship at grassroots level dating back to the 1970s. Entrepreneurship development is a strategic business objective and linked to the organisation’s sustainability.

 

“Our historically strong financial performance is closely related to our active role in South Africa’s social and economic development. As a leading corporate we have the inherent responsibility to care for the wellbeing of society,” says Dr Maphai.

 

The SAB KickStart model is designed to develop sustainable and successful black youth-owned businesses through a programme of outcomes-based business skills training, mentorship and start-up capital.

 

“Many of our youth lack the experience, skills and education to access employment in the formal sector. Through SAB KickStart’s comprehensive approach, we can successfully address this issue,” says Dr Maphai.

 

SAB KickStart entries are carefully scrutinised and only those existing businesses and business ideas considered to have the potential to become viable and sustainable businesses are selected to participate in the competition. The selection process focuses on the individual behind the ideas as much as the growth potential of the business.

 

SAB KickStart has become one of the country’s leading and largest entrepreneurship programmes within the private sector, with the programme a benchmark for successful small enterprise development. The success of SAB KickStart has resulted in the SABMiller group adopting the model in four other countries to date – Columbia, North America, Hungary and Botswana.

 

Other initiatives launched by SAB in the past to support entrepreneurial development include the following:

• The Owner-Driver programme, which saw former SAB employees starting their own companies to distribute SAB products to the trade. SAB spends in excess of R900 million annually with owner drivers across both our beer division and soft drinks division ABI.
• The Taung Barley Farmers programme in the Northern Cape, which was established in the early 1990s to encourage barley production by local black farmers and reduce reliance on imports. These farmers contribute around 5% of SAB’s annual Barley requirements.

 

www.sabkickstart.co.za

This article was originally posted on South Africa Business Communities

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