Bunda launches graduate entrepreneurship initiative
Bunda College, a constituent college of the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (Luanar), has launched a Graduate Entrepreneurship Project (GEP) to foster entrepreneurship spirit and deal with the problem of unemployment among the country’s university graduates.
The launch of the project follows an initiative by Tradeline Consult and the college’s Agribusiness Society (BAS) which aims to encourage the students to go into entrepreneurship instead of waiting to be employed once they complete their studies.
Senior entrepreneurship consultant at Tradeline Consult, Sam Atiemo observed that many graduates across the world are faced with unemployment despite their qualifications and it is time university students look up to employment as the only route to a better life.
He challenged the students to consider taking up entrepreneurship and have the courage to start their own businesses once they are out of school.
Atiemo said it is sad to note that out of five or six graduates, at least one lands into joblessness, a trend, he said, if not checked will soon be startling with almost half of the graduate having no jobs.
“Today the chances that young people will find happiness and joy after school are slim. This is what we want to prevent. This is what we want to stop together,” he said.
Atiemo believes that every graduate has a deep untapped potential to be self-dependent and create jobs for others instead of waiting for other people to create jobs for them
“The project invites participants from universities to awaken the sleeping entrepreneur within them,” he added.
Bunda College is being used as a pilot centre for the project, which is currently being implemented in Ghana, and Atiemo said it would also be established in other public and private tertiary institutions.
He said once students register, they will be equipped with practical and innovative business management and leadership skills, values and principles for one to indulge in entrepreneurship.
The students will also be trained in self awareness, creativity, courage, purpose-driven, personal responsibility and investment.
Throughout the process, the students will be encouraged and supported to come up with their own plans on business and projects and their future lives.
The GEP is part of the Business Factory Initiative for Africa (Bufia), which is a continental initiative aimed at encouraging young African graduate in creating small businesses across the continent.
Atiemo, who is currently in the process of publishing a book on entrepreneurship, ‘Enhancing the Inner Courage’, said as a way of sustaining the project almost half of the proceeds from the sale of each book would go towards supporting the project chapters formed in the colleges.
During the launch, senior organisational consultant for Facilitators of Change Interventions (Foci) Sam Matemba briefed the students on what it takes to embark on entrepreneurship.
He challenged them that in entrepreneurship, money should not be a problem but that the best capital one can have is an idea to start something.
Matemba said it is sad that most of the graduates, despite having the skills are afraid to do things on their own and only blame government for not creating jobs for them.
