Port Elizabeth BEST Game (Charity funded training)

Partner(s):

Communities from various parts of South Africa benefit from SAIE’s business development training administered by Laura Baylis autonomously. Laura Baylis is a free lance instructor involved in the administration of SAIE’s training programmes worldwide. Laura trains members of the community at grass-roots level to learn how to start and run their own businesses. In this project, Laura trains entrepreneurs from Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape. Port Elizabeth (known as Madiba Bay) is a city in South Africa, situated in the Eastern Cape Province. Home of South Africa's motor vehicle industry, Port Elizabeth is not a much diversified economy. Most other industries are geared towards the motor vehicle industry, providing parts such as wiring harnesses, catalytic converters, batteries and tyres to the vehicle manufacturers. Port Elizabeth is also a major seaport, with the most significant ore loading facilities in the southern hemisphere. As part of the ongoing development, a new Industrial Development Zone with expanded port facilities is being built at Coega. BEST game training can go a long way to assist entrepreneurs to either break new ground in business beyond motoring or become intrapreneurs in the motoring and port opportunities available.

Our Involvement:

Beyond the regular, formalized long term programs like BEST Game and BusinessVENTURES, SAIE business development expertise is also leveraged through independent agents as “exclusive projects”. Because of the irregular character of the exclusive projects, they do not have an established, ongoing program implementation mechanism, thus “exclusive projects.” In most cases, independent agents conduct the training after receiving master trainer training from SAIE. In other cases, SAIE service providers and staff may conduct the training on behalf of the firm. The training is usually customized to meet the unique characteristics of the recipient groups.

Project Progress:

Between 21 January and 8 February 2008, Laura Baylis administered BEST Game training to 15 entrepreneurs and one facilitator at a college in Eastern Cape.

During the first training, the students had to come back early from their Christmas holiday to take part in the training. This did not happen and the numbers were at a minimum. An idea is being floated to make the training part of the 4th year curriculum and therefore a mandatory portion of their studies. As a result only 3 people were trained.

The second training went much better. The training was organized by a pensioner who still works in that township and has many contacts within there. For the first module a community leader also sat in on the training also – and this helped to give it momentum. It was a very interactive group and they were keen to learn all that they could from the training. Many of them appeared to live in situations which require them to run a business out of necessity as witnessed by their profuse thank you’s.

The majority of these trainees took their practical time quite seriously and as a result they did well in it. The different people would sell the same product at quite different prices from each other – and yet they all still made a profit in their practical business. Maybe it was the venue which differed. Many of them indicated that they plan to continue on in their business.

There is a great need for this kind of training to be run continually in that township as the poverty and unemployment are quite high. Hopefully in the future we will be able to get a facilitator (Leonard) to run it regularly and perhaps also train up other people to help him.

Funder:

Product:

Special Projects

Location:

Eastern Cape