Orange Farm’s young and ambitious budding entrepreneurs – who are hungry for success, say both the Business Centre and Skills Centre in the area are changing their lives.
The City of Joburg’s Chair of Chairpersons Cllr Alex Christians led Operation Lokisa oversight visit in the area on Thursday, 11 April 2019.
The visit to the area was part of the benchmarking exercise in order to learn best practices and identify gaps.
The Chair of Chairpersons has in the past weeks conducted oversight visits to various Opportunity Centres in different regions, in order to get a first-hand experience of challenges.
Orange Farm and Region G has some of the highest unemployment rate in the City.
Cllr Christians was joined by the Chairperson of Section 79 Committee on Development Planning Cllr Graham de Kock, the Ward 3 Cllr Lucky Mbuso; the Office of the Leader of Business, the Regional Director Mickey Padiachee, the Chair of Chairpersons staff, officials from Economic Development and Health and Social Development departments.
The Skills Centre is operated by the City, while the Business Centre which is in the same property is funded by Discovery in partnership with the City. The Business Centre is managed by Township Fleva on behalf of Discovery. The Business Centre enrols about 20 entrepreneurs at a time for incubation programme. After completing the incubation programme many have gone to become self-sustaining businesses over time.
Cllr Christians urged entrepreneurs to work with the City to create jobs for the local community.
“Don’t look to government for jobs, as government only creates an enabling environment for businesses to flourish. You must take advantage of this beautiful centre you have here in Orange Farm,” said Cllr Christians.
Cllr Christians said the centre should serve not only the community of Orange Farm, but the entire Region G and the City communities. Priscilla Morley of Discovery said they had invested in Orange Farm in order to increase the spirit of volunteerism in communities; and when they eventually leave the area the community must be the one that takes over the projects.
“We focus on three main areas, being the youth, health and enterprise. We do job readiness and placements through learnerships and provide trainings so that the youth is accessible to employment,” said Morley.
One of the successful stories of the incubation programme is Nhlanhla Mpanza. Mpanza’s print and design company Matter, has won him a pitching competition, where he became one of the successful small companies to be enrolled for the incubation programme. His company has gone to be a recognized brand locally, offering its services to local businesses including clinching a big contract with Discovery.
“Getting corporate clients and compliance issues remain some of our biggest challenges for us small businesses,” admits Mpanza.
Zulema Hlongwane is another success story. Within few months after having been enrolled into the incubation programme, her company Kamozule won a contract to offer cleaning services for the Business Centre. Katleho Tsilete runs the first ever digital newspaper in Orange Farm and an IT company called Selta Technologies. He hopes one day his area will have a proper IT infrastructure in which businesses can tap into in order to grow.
