Youths all over the country have been acknowledged as important human resources with the potential to contribute significantly to national development.
Therefore, government and all other stakeholders must accord youths such recognition and involve them in national development initiatives.
For the avoidance of any doubt, youth is defined as a male or female person aged between 15 and 35 years, in line with African Youth Charter. In Zimbabwe, about 60% of our population are youths.
In order to harness their skills, energy, ambitions and aspirations it is critical that a new policy framework is developed and led by the youths themselves. Such a policy framework needs to consider how we can deliberately create an environment in all sectors of our economy which creates broad access to new opportunities and create new possibilities for our youths.
Any sustainable youth policy must focus on the economic empowerment of youths through employment creation and entrepreneurship development and education and skills development. In other words, we have to create socio-economic policies and an environment which allows our youths to have access to resources so that they may live up to their full potential, in this life time.
There is, however, no doubt that, despite a difficult environment, there are many youths out there who are beating the odds and excelling. I had the privilege of meeting one Tatenda Gumbo (29), a young, principled and focused individual who has created an exciting brand (Dality-Mode Incorporated and FungiTech Mushrooms Co) over the last five years. This is his story.
After graduating from Mutevhure High School with an Advanced certificate of Commercial subjects, Gumbo worked for Zion Christian Church (ZCC Mbungo) as an office assistant of Bishop Nehemiah Mutendi and later was working with church auditors and sales team until he left and started mushroom farming in 2020.
As he started his business as a farmer he faced a lot of challenges such as poor business management skills, hardships in securing enough capital to fulfil dreams and visions, lack of funding to expand the business and low resources mobilisation.
As a entrepreneur and farmer he specialises in mushroom farming, training of spawn (seed) making and project monitoring and consultation services. His vision as a young entrepreneur is to empower women for self-reliance, empowering youths to fight drug and substance abuse, to make Zimbabwe the best mushroom provider and introducing the cultivation of indigenous mushrooms so as to create employment.
As things got better the company grew he is now the Chief Mycologist and Mushroom Development Manager of the company. His experience in the corporate sector led him to the conclusion that he could do more. The key issue which I always try to encourage the youths to do, is that he believed in himself and believed that, despite the challenges he may face, there is more out there. Being an entrepreneur is no easy path to take, let alone creating a sustainable brand.
Fungi Tech Mushrooms is now an established brand focusing on producing and manufacturing mashrooms and about 12% of its products are exported within the Southern African Development Community region, the key market for now being South Africa.
Key to its success has been not only Gumbo’s skills, but also his vision of creating an internationally recognised brand and his leadership which has created a team of exceptional youngsters who are all focused and driven by passion and the pursuit of excellence in all they do.
The company is now poised for even greater heights after attracting institutional investors. Why am I telling you all this? It is important that our youths realise first, that there is no overnight success and second that you have to be focused and principled in order to excel. The pursuit of short term wealth and material always ends in disaster.
I know that there are many other young Zimbabweans out there like Gumbo, and my wish is that they can all create a new network of young Zimbabwean entrepreneurs who are focused, are creating jobs and companies with a new culture of doing things, but more importantly, who co-operate and collaborate in transforming this economy.
Nothing is impossible! Our country Zimbabwe has all the resources we require to create a modern developed State and our young entrepreneurs are the fuel to economic growth. Yes we may have problems, but they will not last forever.
Under entrepreneurship development we must:
Promote entrepreneurial education and skills training at all levels of education. Facilitate the transition of informal enterprises into the formal economy. Promote the use of ICT for improved productivity, creativity and innovation in youth enterprises.
Enhance financial literacy programmes targeting the youths. Promote the participation of youths entrepreneurs in national and international business linkage programmes and industrial clusters.
Establish and support business and technological hub/incubators. Advocate for youth preferential procurement both in public and private sectors. Engage the private sector on initiatives and linkages to promote youth enterprise development.
Facilitate youth access to land for enterprise development. Engage local leadership to support youth participation in all our local provincial economies.
In my opinion, these should be the fundamental cornerstones of youth development initiatives which must be applied in all sectors of the economy the key ones being value addition in agriculture, mining, energy, ICT, tourism, industry, trade, infrastructure, arts and entertainment.
