The young entrepreneur bringing financial services to his community

In a remote village surrounded by the vast, mountainous landscape of Guruve has used his entrepreneurial and leadership skills to start his own micro-business; bringing much-needed financial services to his community.

His innovative business idea to bring electronic payments to his village came to life and. The programme was designed to bring new opportunities to young people in the North part of Zimbabwe, especially young women.

Through his micro-business, residents of the village can, for the first time, pay for goods and services electronically, without the use of cash. Brighton uses the national E-payment platform to provide the service, charging a small fee. The service has transformed the lives of her neighbors who previously had to drive long distances to the nearest bank.

Any woman or man can be successful and improve her standing in the community through building her/his skills, being ambitious and finding a job that gives her independence.

The programme, Learning to Earning initiative, gives young people training in leadership skills, including problem solving and effective teamwork, as well as project design, work plan development, financial management, monitoring and quality assurance. After training, young people are encouraged to practice their skills through community initiatives and, finally, a feasibility study and a comprehensive work plan is developed for their micro-business. Young people are then granted seed funding to implement their entrepreneurial ideas.

Brighton wants to see especially more young women, start their own businesses.

Young people around here have ideas, like everywhere, but there tends not to be many opportunities for them. We need more initiatives like this to generate our own income and the youth of Guruve need to focus more attention on gaining the right skills to match the needs of our economy.

Brighton

Not only has the programme brought Brighton financial independence and the ability to support his family but his confidence has grown exponentially. One change he has noticed: “People in my village look at me differently now."

He hopes that he can be a role model for positive change. “Women should not be stopped from being leaders, born in a family of four (4) children her sister were forced to enter early married due to leak of financial freedom. Their education was cut short due to this and he was the only child to go to school. After completing high school his quest for girl child to be on the same level did not die it rekindle to bring freedom to girl child within starting with his family. Hence he starts the cause for empowerment within the community living no one ”Concluded Brighton. “It is everyone’s responsibility to eliminate the barriers that hinder girls from reaching their full potential. Achieving this is in the interest of everyone.”