By EPN Reporter
MBABANE – There are around 282 businesses that have already been funded under the Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund (YERF).
The 282 businesses have been funded under YERF from 2018 until now, resulting in 640 jobs being created over the same period. The types of businesses that have been supported under the Youth Fund include meat production, piggery, electronics, grass cutting, hairdressing, clothing, among other businesses.
YERF Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mandla Nkambule stated that they funded businesses across many industries in the country. However, Nkambule stated that the businesses they had to funded needed to be legal for them to consider such businesses as being fit to be loaned under their programme. Empowering the youth to engage in economic and commercial enterprise through the initiation and ownership of small and large businesses in different spheres.
Nkambule also highlighted that as an organisation, they wanted to empower the youth so that it could be able to be self-sufficient and be able to take care of its own needs. Another objective of YERF, according to Nkambule, was to ensure that loans were provided to the youth with no collateral needed from them, making it easy for the loans to be accessed.
According to Nkambule, it was important for the youth to be trained so that they could develop skills for running their businesses. Anohter objective was to establish the national youth award schemes and give opportunities to the youth to be exposed to business environment through internship programmes.
The Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund (YERF) is a Parastatal under the Ministry of Sports Culture & Youth Affairs established by the Government of the Kingdom of Eswatini in 2009 in response to the vision of His Majesty King Mswati III.
The company was established through legal notice No.179 of 2009. The main purpose of the Fund is to promote youth empowerment and alleviate poverty among young people between the ages of 18 to 35 years old.
