{"id":2097,"date":"2017-02-15T11:31:59","date_gmt":"2017-02-15T11:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/?p=2097"},"modified":"2017-02-15T11:31:59","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T11:31:59","slug":"unlocking-entrepreneurship-talent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/unlocking-entrepreneurship-talent\/","title":{"rendered":"Unlocking Entrepreneurship Talent"},"content":{"rendered":"

When she graduated from university with a BSc in Chemical Engineering, 31 year-old Rudo Mazhandu faced the reality of unemployment in Zimbabwe\u2019s challenging job market. She tried to get work in the public sector as a secondary school teacher; but the pay was low and her skills were being underutilized. She left the job in less than a year. In December 2014, Rudo decided to start her own soap making business. Rudo registered her company which trades as Home and Beauty Solutions. \u201cAll of 2014 I didn\u2019t have a record of what I was doing,\u201d Rudo says. \u201cFor me I was doing business but in reality I wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Receiving training in entrepreneurship from Junior Achievement Zimbabwe <\/a>(JAZ) in March 2016 was a turning point in Rudo\u2019s business. She was trained on customer care, marketing, record keeping and adherence to operating regulations, which transformed the way she conducted her business. \u201cI was operating in a very small room, the training opened avenues of operating with growth in mind. I moved from the small room and I am currently renting a much bigger warehouse for my business,\u201d<\/em> Rudo says. She has also mechanized her operation through procurement of an electric mixing bowler, an improvement from a previously manual drum mixing method.<\/p>\n

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\u201cZimbabweans use six million bars of soap each year,\u201d Rudo explains. \u201cOnly one million bars are made locally. So there is a\u00a0five million bar deficit, which is filled by imports.\u201d Within this market, Rudo found her niche. She focuses on making soaps that lather in hard water, targeting primarily the very poor who use hard water. \u201cMost of the soaps in the market don\u2019t lather in hard water,\u201d Rudo explains. \u201cSo they like my soap because it does.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For this reason and others, Rudo\u2019s business is growing. Receiving big orders at a time, coupled with improved marketing resulted in volumes of production increasing significantly. Her net income has grown from $800\/month to between $1500- $2000\/month. She employs up to seven casual workers regularly to fill orders.<\/p>\n

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Rudo\u2019s story is the JA story. It is not terribly different from that of many young people today all over the African continent. It is a story of difficulty and of hope, of challenge and perseverance, of dreams and of achievement. It is a story that shows that is possible when young people set their minds to make their dreams possible, and what happens when they get the support they need.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When she graduated from university with a BSc in Chemical Engineering, 31 year-old Rudo Mazhandu faced the reality of unemployment in Zimbabwe\u2019s challenging job market. She tried to get work in the public sector as a secondary school teacher; but the pay was low and her skills were being underutilized. She left the job in …<\/p>\n

Unlocking Entrepreneurship Talent<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2143,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":{"featured_alumni_video":"","year":""},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms.ja-africa.org\/backend\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}