Small Business Training Project - South Africa and Zimbabwe

According to the organisers, many people are looking to become more "business aware", and more able to participate in self-employment, part-time or full-time. The project was designed to increase such business awareness through radio-based learning and exposure, and thereby contribute to an increase in informal private sector activities.

The project had three components, an educational radio series, an Outreach Programme using community theatre, and the production of Multi-Media Resource Kits (based on the radio series).

The radio series, broadcast in Shona and Ndebele in Zimbabwe and Zulu in South Africa, consisted of 12 episodes, each with duration of 15 minutes.

Following the radio series, the theatre groups featured in the soap opera of the radio programmes toured rural areas in the 2 countries involved. This phase of the project was used to initiate a dialogue between the audience and the extension facilitators in the small business support institutions, along with ensuring continued accessibility for a semi-literate audience.

At the same time the dramatic presentation encouraged the internalisation of the messages already presented in the radio series. The final activity of the project was the development and production of the Multi-Media Resource Kits- effectively the radio programmes packaged for use by a trainer.

Economic development, Women

The objectives of the project were to instill in the target audience of rural women the notion that being an entrepreneur is something positive (thereby creating an incentive to move from survivalist to micro enterprise), to identify credible and local role models, and to promote an awareness that skills involved in running a business are transferable.

In effect, the project was meant to increase the overall economic productivity of the target group by facilitating a change in attitudes towards doing/getting into business and emphasizing basic notions of confidence, creativity and viability.

The outreach of business support programmes, whether credit or non-financial, is very limited in Southern Africa, and exacerbated by great distances and the different languages involved.

Through establishing partnerships with small business support institutions, "the project succeeded in increasing their outreach towards existing and potential small business people, through the linking of the radio programmes and the accompanying materials and activities with their members and target groups," says the organisers.

"In this indirect way, the project also contributed to the strengthening of those indigenous business support programmes."