Young people in cocoa growing communities learn how to start businesses

Supporting young people to develop business ideas is a key step in creating employment for young people.  The MASO Programme has been working with young people in cocoa growing communities to learning how to start and run their own business. Through the MASO Business Academy, young are empowered to create and launch their own businesses serving various needs in their communities. Through these enterprises, the youth aged 17 – 25 years, are encouraged to take greater responsibility for their lives and communities.

 Recently at Kasapin in the Asunafo North District of the Brong Ahafo Region, participating youth in the MASO Business Academy had the opportunity to pitch their business ideas. The youth are part of the 5^th cohort of the MASO Business Academy. The pitching session afforded the participants the opportunity to present their entrepreneurial ideas to a panel of evaluator’s for feedback.

After three months of entrepreneurship training, the youth were guided to identify issues within their environment that have solutions with market potentials. The participants are supported to probe further into the “problems” selected to identify   the inherent opportunities to develop into their businesses.

 The business ventures pitched by the  youth entrepreneurs
The ventures pitched by the youth during the two day session included farm management and labour services, sale of agro inputs, child care services among others. Over 60 per cent of participants who pitched their business, have already started testing their concepts with their own resources, while the rest are gathering the needed resources to test their offerings.

Isaac Baidoo and Abass Kwabena, for example, have invested GH¢120.00 to test the viability of providing spraying services to farmers at Nyankomago and surrounding communities. Having secured protective equipment with the little money they mobilized, they rented a spraying machine from a farmers’ cooperative and starting rendering services to farmers. They raised a total revenue of GH¢300.00 within one month of operation.

Andrews Fosu also invested GH¢1500.00 in farm input dealership at Kasapin. He makes average weekly revenue of GH¢700.00 and has been operating for about 2 months.

Andrews Fosu at his input shop

Fati Iddrisa and Mary Gyamfua started their baking business after realizing there was market for bread at Manhyia and surrounding communities but no bakery. They invested GH¢1500.00 in building a clay oven and buying ingredients to bake bread for sale.  They are making over GH¢300.00 each week in revenue from the sale of bread.

Fati Iddrisa and Mary Gyamfua at their bakery

Conclusion 

As experienced entrepreneurs and investors usually say “ideas are easy – execution is hard”. The mid training pitching therefore aimed at giving participants feedback to enable them balance their ideas with the harsh realities of viability and sustainability. Overall, 116 participants comprising 35 venture teams and 38 individual ventures pitched their concepts.