Business Skills for South Africa

BSSA recently trained a total of 14 field managers of the Siyazisiza Trust in basic business skills on request of the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS).

Based in KwaZulu-Natal, the Siyazisiza Trust is an NGO focusing on improving food security and enterprise development in rural areas through skills training, monitoring, mentoring and the provision of start-up equipment and materials. Target beneficiaries are primarily rural women and small-scale subsistence and emerging farmers.

The trust utilises field managers to work with communities on agriculture, gardening and other food security projects. They also offer various types of training, including financial literacy and some enterprise and marketing training.

A recent third-party impact evaluation of the project identified a weakness to be limited success in enterprise development. GIBS was contracted for assistance who, in turn, approached BSSA to train the field managers in the principles and practices of enterprise development and income generation.

BSSA presented business skills training with special emphasis on practical marketing, and pricing and costing.