Ignite hope through entrepreneurial development
Published by The Insight Newspaper, August 2016
“We cannot afford to sit back and expect things to be different without taking action. Now is the time for the private sector, government and all citizens to consider what they can do towards building our Nation.”
“Nation-building is the process whereby a society with diverse origins, histories, languages, cultures and religions come together towards eradicating the divisions and injustices of the past; to foster unity; and promote a countrywide conscious sense of being proudly South African, committed to the country.”
As articulated above by the Department of Arts and Culture, Nation Building is a call to all South Africans to play their part in building a better South Africa. At The Hope Factory we believe that such a future for our Nation is possible, a future filled with hope.
Our current reality however is looking bleak with a drop in GDP of 1.2%, an unemployment rate of 26.7% (2.2% higher than 2015), and entrepreneurial intentions that have dropped by almost 30% since 2013.
The latest Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Report stated that “South Africa's main social problems remain its extremely high income inequality…and weak job-creating capacity that has led to chronically high unemployment…contributing to persistent poverty”.
Nonetheless, in the State of the Nation Address earlier this year, all South Africans were encouraged not to be despondent, but to rather work together to find ways that could steer our economy back onto a growth path. One of the ways to do this is through high impact Enterprise and Supplier Development.
The GEM report states that it is crucial to have systems that will stimulate “a more enabling business environment, particularly for the small and medium-sized enterprises that contribute so much to employment”.
Entrepreneurial development in South Africa, with the aim of creating sustainable small businesses, is a solution. Small Business Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu says “the long-term solution to South Africa's unemployment crisis is to create a nation of entrepreneurs and not a nation of job-seekers”.
At The Hope Factory we deliver dynamic entrepreneurial development programmes for maximum impact. Therefore we are to remain hopeful; we are to continue to believe that change is possible and that our Nation can unite to bring about a positive economic turnaround.
We cannot afford to sit back and expect things to be different without taking action. Now is the time for the private sector, government and all citizens to consider what they can do towards building our Nation. Robert F. Kennedy in an address to South Africa in 1966 said, “each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance”.
Are you a voice that sends forth tiny ripples of hope? Let us build a Nation of entrepreneurs.
